Stoke - Lost and Found

Can't deny I had a shite surf summer - part of the reason is that someone stepped on the season throttle and accelerated spring straight into Autumn. No sooner had summer started it seemed like all the leaves were turning brown and blowing off the trees. No idea where the time has gone this year. Anyway that coupled with a van deficiency, an insanely busy workload and . . and . . . . and bollox I'm just running out of excuses now. I just plain didn't make the effort and when I finally got some transport it just didn't seem worth going in unless it was 4 foot and clean with perfect offshore breezes. And we have had a lot of that this year. Haven't we?

So - load up the courtesy van and change up for first trip for weeks, and I put my shortie on inside out -

's'funny, I don't remember this being blue'

cock!

It was pathetic - lock the van, mess up my key routine , unlock the van - start again - it was like my first time ever.

'Come on Steve get your shit together and sort it out'.

Can't say it was an epic session but it sort of half fired me up, enough at least to make me want to go again. The next time I took the Sub Vector in - it was ok but still not feeling it. Couple of lame sessions followed on the Mana 9' in mush and I thought seriously about giving Gavin a call at The Traditional Surfing Co. for one of his belly boards. These puppies are going to make the ultimate Xmas presents and it's a great website.

Then I cracked it - literally, there's nothing like a bit of self harm to spice things up a bit and make you focus on the important stuff - so with a decent forecast (finally) in between gales I trotted of to Gwithian the Saturday before last and promptly decided it would be good move to get caught between the beach and my board and head butt the rail of my Mana - I thought it best to get out after that and trogged back up the cliff to the van trying to look all non-plussed like.

'OOOhh I think you might need a stitch in that'

commented a walker coming down the path.

'Really ?'

My nice white Naish deck pad was now looking like a slaughter-house floor, which was a bit of a give away. Anyway a quick trip down to casualty to collect 10 stitches in my brow (2 inside) made me think -

'This really isn't going at all well at the moment'



10 days later I gave the Mana another bash - the headaches, double vision and nausea had settled down a bit (joking). It was an evening high tide with a bit of swell pushing through about chest high. The forecast was promising to give a few decent days between the squalls. Again the session was lack lustre - I needed a bit of a system reset so I pulled out the 9'3 Hokua and the following night in super clean, albeit small conditions I nailed it. (My nailing uses very small tacks).

God I love that board. Whatever posessed me to ride anything else is beyond me. Again it was hardly epic the swell had dropped off to between thigh and waist high but it was so much fun eking out the most that the waves had to offer. Steve from work took his new toy down - a waterproof housing for his Canon Eos to get some practice in and Phil and Sam pitched up with their Starboard Drive and Naish Hokua 9'6 after half an hour followed shortly by Nath who had just bought a Starboard Stinger. Between us we made the best of a sweet little sunset session just the way it should be, tired, chuffed and desparate to get some more in. Hokua rules!

I had the Go- Pro mounted so enjoy the Music (Art of Noise) if not the video and pics. Forgive the clumsy editing.

STOKED!!