Merry Xmas to all from Scotland!!!
(click to enlarge)
Over & out
Saturday, 20 December 2008
Saturday, 13 December 2008
Back home
Brrrrrr.... Cold, windy, rainy, grey!
The surf was going off this morning at home, but way too crowded and cold for me to be interested in after 3 weeks of surfing in Southern Portugal. This trip has been good: not epic as last year, but good. Crowds are becoming a problem during weekends and whenever surf camps decide to go for a drive and arrive at former "secret spots". Seriously, the attitude of some surf camps in the area are calling for an active boycott.
On one of the last days I had some words with an Italian surfer at Arrifana. After every wave he'd paddle back and sit on my left, getting preference for the next wave that would come our way. After the umpteenth time I politely (no euphemism) asked him not to do it anymore. He smiled, apologized and proceeded to paddle somewhere further up the beach.
Fifteen minutes later and while I was getting changed he walked to his car, which turns out was parked next to my van. He then realized that I am not Portuguese (car plates) and without looking at me he shouted something (in Italian) at no one in particular.
Whatever, dude, whatever.
Saturday, 6 December 2008
Sorry
Sorry,
If you are that British longboarder
-mid twenties, tall, well built, blond flattop, rainbow sunnies, the looks…-
that i’ve met twice in two days
in SW Portugal with 5 or 6 friends.
Sorry,
I didn’t talk back to you
When you talked to me.
Sorry,
I didn’t laugh at your bad jokes.
Maybe i should have made my discomfort
With your presence
More obvious.
But you looked like a bouncer.
Sorry,
But when a group of six or seven mal riders
who can hardly surf
but get a lot of waves
invade the break I am surfing at
-twice in two days at two different beaches-
And proceed to take every single wave
With no exception.
When one of them –You-
Tries to be chatty in the 30 seconds
it takes him to take another wave
And only because he’s on a mal.
When this happens
I feel like not saying much but…
Sorry
One day (you and your friends) will be.
If you are that British longboarder
-mid twenties, tall, well built, blond flattop, rainbow sunnies, the looks…-
that i’ve met twice in two days
in SW Portugal with 5 or 6 friends.
Sorry,
I didn’t talk back to you
When you talked to me.
Sorry,
I didn’t laugh at your bad jokes.
Maybe i should have made my discomfort
With your presence
More obvious.
But you looked like a bouncer.
Sorry,
But when a group of six or seven mal riders
who can hardly surf
but get a lot of waves
invade the break I am surfing at
-twice in two days at two different beaches-
And proceed to take every single wave
With no exception.
When one of them –You-
Tries to be chatty in the 30 seconds
it takes him to take another wave
And only because he’s on a mal.
When this happens
I feel like not saying much but…
Sorry
One day (you and your friends) will be.
Friday, 21 November 2008
WAVE POOLS – AGAINST
Marco points out to our right, sighs and - with a sad voice - says: “my favourite wave used to break right there”.
Marco (his real name is Made) is a Balinese surfer from Tuban, near Kuta, who makes a living by taking surfers on a boat out to the outside reefs by the airport. But the wave he is talking about is not one of those legendary coral reef breaks where hordes of surfers have had their first surf in Bali for years. It is (or rather “was”) a small fast peeling sand bottom shore break wave that would only happen for a couple of hours at certain tides. Only the local kids and the boat drivers used to surf that wave on their old beaten boards, normally in between trips to the outside reefs, displaying a performance level and style that many of us will spend our whole lives trying to match. Now, where that wave used to break there is a brand new T-shaped rocky pier, one of many along this stretch of coast. Their purpose is to keep the sand of the brand new man made beach - that runs the length of several kilometres in front of fancy hotels and resorts- in place.
Many of you will wonder what this has got to do with wave pools and with Tenerife’s Siam Park. For plenty of surfers (me included) one of the most appealing things in surfing is to found ourselves immersed in nature: the light, the colours, the textures that the breeze draws on the wave’s surface, playing with our own shadows on the sand bottom… or the opportunity to spot some wildlife. For many of us surfing is more than just a quest for adrenalin; depending on our mood we might even prefer a surf in crap waves, but in a breathtaking scenery, than one in perfect waves in a grey and dirty industrial area.
The human being has not quite gathered –yet …and let’s hope it never does- enough scientific knowledge to duplicate nature’s features at its own will. To this day several wave pools have tried to bring a solution to the ever growing problem of overcrowding and/or the lack of surfing conditions… only to fail. Some have shut down and disappeared altogether, and some reconverted themselves into mere wave pools for bathers. In some cases the lack of business has been the cause, like Myazaki’s Ocean Dome, which produced the best man-made waves by far. To try to duplicate the perfection and randomness of a natural wave in a chlorine pit – albeit with an intense turquoise-painted bottom- is something we haven’t quite managed to learn. To do it somewhere like Tenerife, an island blessed with high quality breaks but where several of those waves disappeared not too long ago and some more are endangered because of human development, is an insult to our collective memory. If we accept wave pools as a valid alternative –especially in those places where real surf spots are in danger of disappearing – they might be offered to us in exchange for taking away a natural surf spot. We shouldn’t be taking this risk, especially when the whole world is trying to clean its energy production and, no matter what, no wave pool engine will ever be as clean as the winds that create the swells we hope to ride in the ocean. Let’s just hope that we shall never be Marco and point at a pier to say “this is where the best right hander I have ever surfed used to break” while walking to the nearest wave pool.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A new 3sesenta has come out (issue #131, check the cover on the right hand side column) and it features this short text (above) in which I express my views regarding wave pools. In this same issue there is a large feature on the brand new Siam Park wave pool located in Southern Tenerife; hence my rant.
I’m off to Southern Portugal for a couple of weeks …or three, but I shall be updating the blog regularly. Cheers.
Marco (his real name is Made) is a Balinese surfer from Tuban, near Kuta, who makes a living by taking surfers on a boat out to the outside reefs by the airport. But the wave he is talking about is not one of those legendary coral reef breaks where hordes of surfers have had their first surf in Bali for years. It is (or rather “was”) a small fast peeling sand bottom shore break wave that would only happen for a couple of hours at certain tides. Only the local kids and the boat drivers used to surf that wave on their old beaten boards, normally in between trips to the outside reefs, displaying a performance level and style that many of us will spend our whole lives trying to match. Now, where that wave used to break there is a brand new T-shaped rocky pier, one of many along this stretch of coast. Their purpose is to keep the sand of the brand new man made beach - that runs the length of several kilometres in front of fancy hotels and resorts- in place.
Many of you will wonder what this has got to do with wave pools and with Tenerife’s Siam Park. For plenty of surfers (me included) one of the most appealing things in surfing is to found ourselves immersed in nature: the light, the colours, the textures that the breeze draws on the wave’s surface, playing with our own shadows on the sand bottom… or the opportunity to spot some wildlife. For many of us surfing is more than just a quest for adrenalin; depending on our mood we might even prefer a surf in crap waves, but in a breathtaking scenery, than one in perfect waves in a grey and dirty industrial area.
The human being has not quite gathered –yet …and let’s hope it never does- enough scientific knowledge to duplicate nature’s features at its own will. To this day several wave pools have tried to bring a solution to the ever growing problem of overcrowding and/or the lack of surfing conditions… only to fail. Some have shut down and disappeared altogether, and some reconverted themselves into mere wave pools for bathers. In some cases the lack of business has been the cause, like Myazaki’s Ocean Dome, which produced the best man-made waves by far. To try to duplicate the perfection and randomness of a natural wave in a chlorine pit – albeit with an intense turquoise-painted bottom- is something we haven’t quite managed to learn. To do it somewhere like Tenerife, an island blessed with high quality breaks but where several of those waves disappeared not too long ago and some more are endangered because of human development, is an insult to our collective memory. If we accept wave pools as a valid alternative –especially in those places where real surf spots are in danger of disappearing – they might be offered to us in exchange for taking away a natural surf spot. We shouldn’t be taking this risk, especially when the whole world is trying to clean its energy production and, no matter what, no wave pool engine will ever be as clean as the winds that create the swells we hope to ride in the ocean. Let’s just hope that we shall never be Marco and point at a pier to say “this is where the best right hander I have ever surfed used to break” while walking to the nearest wave pool.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A new 3sesenta has come out (issue #131, check the cover on the right hand side column) and it features this short text (above) in which I express my views regarding wave pools. In this same issue there is a large feature on the brand new Siam Park wave pool located in Southern Tenerife; hence my rant.
I’m off to Southern Portugal for a couple of weeks …or three, but I shall be updating the blog regularly. Cheers.
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
Why Europe will never win the XXL Big Wave Awards
With winter just around the corner and the big wave season about to start, the time has come for a wake up call: this year, once again, no European will win a XXL Big Wave award! You think I’m being too harsh? Well as I see it, it’s just the plain truth.
No matter how hard we keep trying year after year, cold winter after cold winter… it’s all to no avail: the big wave award always ends up going somewhere else. As a European surfer, the realization that we are never going to win was not enough; I wanted to know why not only we haven’t won, but we never will. And here are the only four reasons why they will never give us the awards, no matter how big and gnarlier than everybody else’s our waves are:
1) Sorry, but what’s your name again??
Picture it, the typical host at the award-giving ceremony, up there in Anaheim, just about to announce the winner of the Biggest Ride of the Year. He smiles at the audience, opens the envelope, reads the name on the paper and then slowly glazes his eyes over as he tries to figure out just how the Hell he’s going to pronounce… Ibon Amatriain.
Try it, it’s a little challenging, isn’t it? And yet, with a little bit of practice it shouldn’t be that hard. Read my lips: Eebon Amatree-ine. Ok, maybe it is that hard. And it could be even worse: Hugues Oyarzabal, Indar Unanue, Axier Muniain or… Ok, I think I made my point.
So maybe, and only maybe, in order to avoid hiring a multilingual host for the night… or the extra cost of simultaneous interpretation for the guests and other nominees, it is much better to give the awards to more familiar names. Such as the ones we read –month in, month out- in the surf tabloids. Names we know so well that they feel like family: Long, Parsons, Baker, Dorian, Gerlach, Knox... Good ol’ names that any North American can pronounce safely without feeling lost in translation at his own party.
2) And where in Hell are you saying you caught that wave?!?
I honestly believe there’s more chance of a European surfer winning an XXL award for surfing an American wave than for surfing a European one. In the US, European waves are the stuff jokes are made of. They are the center of endless discussions regarding whether they are good enough for a WCT or not, never mind for an XXL award. They rank just above Brazilian waves (minus the babes but with mellower crowds), and the Japanese ones (sushi is good, but endure a cold flat winter spell in Japan and you’ll know what I mean). Some Hawaiian badass even went so far as to say that one of Europe’s biggest waves –no matter how big- was safe enough for his little kid to go and play with (I have to agree with him: better his kid than me to face a 50 foot Belharra monster). And those tides: since when can a wave only be surfable for –like- three hours per day? It shouldn’t even be called a surf spot at all, it should be called a… hoax.
And by the way… where exactly are those waves? Most of the time they are found at the bottom of endless, spooky cliffs, or rather far out at sea… Even the average European surfer hardly sees them going off due to their remote location. On the other hand everyone knows that Mavericks sits off Half Moon Bay, not far from Santa Cruz, and has a great vantage point from up the hill by the aerial. And that Ghost Trees is plainly visible from one of California’s most famous golf courses. And that you can check Waimea from the road on your way to the most expensive supermarket in the world. But… Belharra? Aileens? Playa Gris? Isla Pancha? Jardim do Mar? Obscure names for obscure places that hardly anyone has seen but for a couple of times in the media every ten years. No chance of winning anything there, pal.
3) Is that water or mud?
Now, now… there is something our photographers need to work on: color and light. A photo of a wave from dark Mordor will never win an award in the sunny Shire. And if the XXL Judges have to spend the whole allocated 10 minutes just trying to figure out where the black suited surfer is on the wave’s face because everything looks brown, bleak and gloomy… well, that makes our chances of winning even slimmer. Now, bringing a few spotlights on the cliffs’ face and throwing some liters… -excuse me- gallons of turquoise paint in the line-up, that’s not cheating; that’s cosmetic surgery, dude. And have you checked just how close Anaheim is to Hollywood?
4) Have I seen you somewhere before?
And that might just be our biggest problem: European big wave riders are mainly an unknown bunch outside their own neighborhoods. No current or even former pro WCT surfers; no free surfers with paychecks in the mail at the end of the month; no Amex stars. They all have jobs; the lucky ones have jobs within the industry, which allows them to leave their desks when conditions are right. The rest are just a bunch of survivors with no jobs, no paid trips to the Mentawais and –thus- no exposure in the media apart from the local European mags after the winter season. It is very hard to win the judges’ favor competing with guys who have been in the media almost since before the media was born. It’s like Rick Kane wanting to get a set wave on his first day ever at Pipe: it’s not about the skills, but rather about being well known enough so the locals let you have one.
So what can be done?
There’s always the possibility of an Irish surfer nailing the award on behalf of all of us. You see (1) most Irish names are normal-sounding by American standards (since lots of north Americans have Irish origins); (2) thanks to John F. Kennedy and John Wayne all of America loves Ireland; and (3) although the Irish are full members of the EU -and even gave up the punt to embrace the €-, most Americans ignore this fact and think of them as half-euros (just like the British), so they won’t feel like they are giving us an award.
But that is a long shot. On a more realistic way, the only chance Europe has to win an XXL award is to go the Australian route and set up our own XXL awards.
No matter how hard we keep trying year after year, cold winter after cold winter… it’s all to no avail: the big wave award always ends up going somewhere else. As a European surfer, the realization that we are never going to win was not enough; I wanted to know why not only we haven’t won, but we never will. And here are the only four reasons why they will never give us the awards, no matter how big and gnarlier than everybody else’s our waves are:
1) Sorry, but what’s your name again??
Picture it, the typical host at the award-giving ceremony, up there in Anaheim, just about to announce the winner of the Biggest Ride of the Year. He smiles at the audience, opens the envelope, reads the name on the paper and then slowly glazes his eyes over as he tries to figure out just how the Hell he’s going to pronounce… Ibon Amatriain.
Try it, it’s a little challenging, isn’t it? And yet, with a little bit of practice it shouldn’t be that hard. Read my lips: Eebon Amatree-ine. Ok, maybe it is that hard. And it could be even worse: Hugues Oyarzabal, Indar Unanue, Axier Muniain or… Ok, I think I made my point.
So maybe, and only maybe, in order to avoid hiring a multilingual host for the night… or the extra cost of simultaneous interpretation for the guests and other nominees, it is much better to give the awards to more familiar names. Such as the ones we read –month in, month out- in the surf tabloids. Names we know so well that they feel like family: Long, Parsons, Baker, Dorian, Gerlach, Knox... Good ol’ names that any North American can pronounce safely without feeling lost in translation at his own party.
2) And where in Hell are you saying you caught that wave?!?
I honestly believe there’s more chance of a European surfer winning an XXL award for surfing an American wave than for surfing a European one. In the US, European waves are the stuff jokes are made of. They are the center of endless discussions regarding whether they are good enough for a WCT or not, never mind for an XXL award. They rank just above Brazilian waves (minus the babes but with mellower crowds), and the Japanese ones (sushi is good, but endure a cold flat winter spell in Japan and you’ll know what I mean). Some Hawaiian badass even went so far as to say that one of Europe’s biggest waves –no matter how big- was safe enough for his little kid to go and play with (I have to agree with him: better his kid than me to face a 50 foot Belharra monster). And those tides: since when can a wave only be surfable for –like- three hours per day? It shouldn’t even be called a surf spot at all, it should be called a… hoax.
And by the way… where exactly are those waves? Most of the time they are found at the bottom of endless, spooky cliffs, or rather far out at sea… Even the average European surfer hardly sees them going off due to their remote location. On the other hand everyone knows that Mavericks sits off Half Moon Bay, not far from Santa Cruz, and has a great vantage point from up the hill by the aerial. And that Ghost Trees is plainly visible from one of California’s most famous golf courses. And that you can check Waimea from the road on your way to the most expensive supermarket in the world. But… Belharra? Aileens? Playa Gris? Isla Pancha? Jardim do Mar? Obscure names for obscure places that hardly anyone has seen but for a couple of times in the media every ten years. No chance of winning anything there, pal.
3) Is that water or mud?
Now, now… there is something our photographers need to work on: color and light. A photo of a wave from dark Mordor will never win an award in the sunny Shire. And if the XXL Judges have to spend the whole allocated 10 minutes just trying to figure out where the black suited surfer is on the wave’s face because everything looks brown, bleak and gloomy… well, that makes our chances of winning even slimmer. Now, bringing a few spotlights on the cliffs’ face and throwing some liters… -excuse me- gallons of turquoise paint in the line-up, that’s not cheating; that’s cosmetic surgery, dude. And have you checked just how close Anaheim is to Hollywood?
4) Have I seen you somewhere before?
And that might just be our biggest problem: European big wave riders are mainly an unknown bunch outside their own neighborhoods. No current or even former pro WCT surfers; no free surfers with paychecks in the mail at the end of the month; no Amex stars. They all have jobs; the lucky ones have jobs within the industry, which allows them to leave their desks when conditions are right. The rest are just a bunch of survivors with no jobs, no paid trips to the Mentawais and –thus- no exposure in the media apart from the local European mags after the winter season. It is very hard to win the judges’ favor competing with guys who have been in the media almost since before the media was born. It’s like Rick Kane wanting to get a set wave on his first day ever at Pipe: it’s not about the skills, but rather about being well known enough so the locals let you have one.
So what can be done?
There’s always the possibility of an Irish surfer nailing the award on behalf of all of us. You see (1) most Irish names are normal-sounding by American standards (since lots of north Americans have Irish origins); (2) thanks to John F. Kennedy and John Wayne all of America loves Ireland; and (3) although the Irish are full members of the EU -and even gave up the punt to embrace the €-, most Americans ignore this fact and think of them as half-euros (just like the British), so they won’t feel like they are giving us an award.
But that is a long shot. On a more realistic way, the only chance Europe has to win an XXL award is to go the Australian route and set up our own XXL awards.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This text -in this very Lewis Samuelesque tone- was submitted to Surfline as they were interested in some European content. Apparently they didn't like it. Their loss and this blog's readers win.
Tuesday, 4 November 2008
A new age
Well, where do I start? Ok, as you might have guessed we came back from Bali a couple of weeks ago but because of work, commitments and some changes in our lives (more on that later) I’ve been extra busy, hence my absence (my other blog hasn’t been so inactive). Bali was great: my wife, who had never been there, enjoyed herself lots surfing small Kuta Reef and learning first hand why surfing a reef is so much better than a beachbreak (looooooooooooong peeling rides). On my side I had more time than during my previous visits to see and experience Bali (the two previous times Bali had just been a launching platform to other nearby destinations) and, thanks to some friends I managed to score some semi-secret waves in places I had never thought they could get swell. On top of that we had a great time, we ate plenty of healthy food, we didn’t get too sunburnt and, apart from a bruised rib that kept me off the water the last few days, we managed to come back home in one piece.
And once back at home the big –bad- news: the company I’m working for is not doing that great and they decided to cut the mkt budget so much that they only need me half time. I’m not going to go here into whether this is the right decision to solve the company’s problems or not (it will help in the short term but will make things really worse in the mid/long term), but the fact is that for the last two and half weeks –and for the first time since I left Uni- I’m not a 9 to 5er.
The immediate consequence of this is that my salary has been cut in half and that we need to get another source of income. But also that –weather and waves permitting- I will be able to surf pretty much every day… even during the short winter days. Hooray!!
The extra time -and the need for some extra income- is giving me the opportunity to try out a few projects I had in my head but, due to laziness and/or lack of time, I had never managed to get myself into. And one of them is writing. So with this in mind I’m giving it a go at the chance to write and have some stuff published one day. In the short term I will increase my collaborations with the usual surf mags (mainly 3sesenta, the oldest Spanish surfing mag). Although my first post-Bali collaboration has come out today in the free surf journal Surf Time, where I’ve written a short piece on the current state of the WQS circuit.
On the other hand I will slightly change the focus of this blog. Until now It's mainly been about the waves of the Bay of Biscay as seen by other bloggers, most of them great amateur photographers. I think I’ve made my point and all you have seen that there’s much more than Hossegor and Mundaka; from now I’ll give this blog a more personal touch. Let’s see how it goes.
And once back at home the big –bad- news: the company I’m working for is not doing that great and they decided to cut the mkt budget so much that they only need me half time. I’m not going to go here into whether this is the right decision to solve the company’s problems or not (it will help in the short term but will make things really worse in the mid/long term), but the fact is that for the last two and half weeks –and for the first time since I left Uni- I’m not a 9 to 5er.
The immediate consequence of this is that my salary has been cut in half and that we need to get another source of income. But also that –weather and waves permitting- I will be able to surf pretty much every day… even during the short winter days. Hooray!!
The extra time -and the need for some extra income- is giving me the opportunity to try out a few projects I had in my head but, due to laziness and/or lack of time, I had never managed to get myself into. And one of them is writing. So with this in mind I’m giving it a go at the chance to write and have some stuff published one day. In the short term I will increase my collaborations with the usual surf mags (mainly 3sesenta, the oldest Spanish surfing mag). Although my first post-Bali collaboration has come out today in the free surf journal Surf Time, where I’ve written a short piece on the current state of the WQS circuit.
On the other hand I will slightly change the focus of this blog. Until now It's mainly been about the waves of the Bay of Biscay as seen by other bloggers, most of them great amateur photographers. I think I’ve made my point and all you have seen that there’s much more than Hossegor and Mundaka; from now I’ll give this blog a more personal touch. Let’s see how it goes.
I hope that the -very- few of you who have followed me until here will keep on bearing with me.
Sunday, 21 September 2008
Sunday – new mag & off to Bali
Very briefly:
The run of good waves is not stopping. Here are some photos, but there are plenty more in the usual blogs and webs where I normally source them from. September is truly prime time here in Europe. If I didn’t live here and I wanted to come on a surftrip, September is the month I would choose to travel.
The run of good waves is not stopping. Here are some photos, but there are plenty more in the usual blogs and webs where I normally source them from. September is truly prime time here in Europe. If I didn’t live here and I wanted to come on a surftrip, September is the month I would choose to travel.
Pantín by Dani:
Meñakoz by Surf 30:
Oléron by Tristan Mausse:
Asturias by Cezonillo:
Those of you who are interested is contest surfing probably know by now that the top surfers (WCT) are in France because of the Hossegor contest. But there has been plenty of other events up and down the coast these last few days/weeks. Maybe not as relevant from the surfindustry point of view, but with heaps more soul in them: Check this video here from the Royal Single Trophée (held last weekend in Anglet)…
Royal Single Trophée 2008 from moussrider on Vimeo.
and click here to watch some photos from the surf art expo up in Seignosse.
Also, and because of the Hossegor contest the English speaking surf media (basically American) can’t help writing about the most obvious topics re. French culture when reporting about the competition. Unfortunately, only those aspects of the French culture that seem to be more unacceptable in their narrow worlds are mentioned, such as the speedo wearing & nudity on the beach, or the snails & frog eating. It is quite shameful that surfers (and one still believes that the surf media is operated and owned by surfers), who have always prided on being quite open minded end up talking/reading about the same silly topics as anyone else would. Seriously, I still have to see a single European (UK non included… but again they never want to be Europeans) surf media using the same kind of antiques when reporting about the Lower Trestles (California) WCT event for example. Maybe it is about time that we Europeans start writing about the masses of overweight people and silicone breasted females that we see on Californian beaches & streets, where it seems to be cool to own a 4wd oil guzzling machine to drive to the mall some 100 yards away. Or again maybe not; maybe we should not loose hope and expect that one day those narrow minded writers/editors -and their publishers- will experience the unique feeling of being open minded and respectful.
But all is not lost. Last week I got to meet Mr. Erik Olson –the Californian surfer & shaper behind this blog- and his lovely wife, Ms. Oaks, with whom I got to spend a lovely afternoon in Donosti. They seemed to be genuinely interested in what happens in the old continent, besides the obvious topics about the French, the Spanish, the Basque, etc…. Erik, if you read these lines I hope you are safely back at home and I look forward to see you soon. It was a real pleasure to meet you guys.
The last 3sesenta (issue #130) has come out, and with it my last piece about the future of Spanish high performance surfing. I’ve added the cover on the right hand side.
And this is my last post before I’m off to Bali with my wife next weekend for 3 weeks of surfing and… surfing. My wife has never been to Bali before and although from a surfing point it’s not my favorite place, I’m looking forward to the idea of exploring what lays beyond the obvious Kuta-Nusa Dua (Bukhit included) area. I don’t know if I’ll will post from Bali, so I will probably write here again in late October. Until then…
Royal Single Trophée 2008 from moussrider on Vimeo.
and click here to watch some photos from the surf art expo up in Seignosse.
Also, and because of the Hossegor contest the English speaking surf media (basically American) can’t help writing about the most obvious topics re. French culture when reporting about the competition. Unfortunately, only those aspects of the French culture that seem to be more unacceptable in their narrow worlds are mentioned, such as the speedo wearing & nudity on the beach, or the snails & frog eating. It is quite shameful that surfers (and one still believes that the surf media is operated and owned by surfers), who have always prided on being quite open minded end up talking/reading about the same silly topics as anyone else would. Seriously, I still have to see a single European (UK non included… but again they never want to be Europeans) surf media using the same kind of antiques when reporting about the Lower Trestles (California) WCT event for example. Maybe it is about time that we Europeans start writing about the masses of overweight people and silicone breasted females that we see on Californian beaches & streets, where it seems to be cool to own a 4wd oil guzzling machine to drive to the mall some 100 yards away. Or again maybe not; maybe we should not loose hope and expect that one day those narrow minded writers/editors -and their publishers- will experience the unique feeling of being open minded and respectful.
But all is not lost. Last week I got to meet Mr. Erik Olson –the Californian surfer & shaper behind this blog- and his lovely wife, Ms. Oaks, with whom I got to spend a lovely afternoon in Donosti. They seemed to be genuinely interested in what happens in the old continent, besides the obvious topics about the French, the Spanish, the Basque, etc…. Erik, if you read these lines I hope you are safely back at home and I look forward to see you soon. It was a real pleasure to meet you guys.
The last 3sesenta (issue #130) has come out, and with it my last piece about the future of Spanish high performance surfing. I’ve added the cover on the right hand side.
And this is my last post before I’m off to Bali with my wife next weekend for 3 weeks of surfing and… surfing. My wife has never been to Bali before and although from a surfing point it’s not my favorite place, I’m looking forward to the idea of exploring what lays beyond the obvious Kuta-Nusa Dua (Bukhit included) area. I don’t know if I’ll will post from Bali, so I will probably write here again in late October. Until then…
Over & out.
Monday, 8 September 2008
Monday – updating
Well, we can’t really complain, can we? As I stated before, this is being one of the most consistent summers in years. People are surfing winter spots in the middle of August… in trunks!
And these last two weeks haven’t been that different. Sure, we haven’t had another big swell but look at these 3 shots:
Nice overhead waves in Sopelana two Wednesdays ago by Surf 30.
And these last two weeks haven’t been that different. Sure, we haven’t had another big swell but look at these 3 shots:
Nice overhead waves in Sopelana two Wednesdays ago by Surf 30.
Nice, calm and settled in Galiza the next day (by Dani).
And another nice swell last Thursday, smack in the middle of the 5*WQS that was taking place in Pantin. It’s not often that WQS surfers get to surf these conditions, especially during the European summer leg (by KingMatt).
On a more personal level I can’t complain as I’ve managed to score a few nice waves since arriving from Portugal. We have just entered September, which is supposed to be one of the best months of the year, and after spending the whole weekend in bed (cold) it looks like it’s going to be very small but clean and off-shore today and tomorrow, building up on Wednesday and then big and on-shore for the rest of the week. All I need is to get rid of this cold and to resume my surfing training in order to be in shape by the end of the month, when we shall be bailing to Bali.
P.S.: Btw, this coming weekend the 7th Royal Single Trophée is taking place in Anglet (Friday to Sunday)… but I’m afraid that the waves and the weather will not be very cooperative. Shame.
P.S.: Btw, this coming weekend the 7th Royal Single Trophée is taking place in Anglet (Friday to Sunday)… but I’m afraid that the waves and the weather will not be very cooperative. Shame.
Over & out.
Sunday, 7 September 2008
Sunday - Comic Strip # 6
Any given day
Excuse my absence, but since we came back from Portugal that we are receiving people non stop at home... and the workload doesn't diminishes either. Later on I will upload the last photos and news, but meanwhile here is a little comic strip I finished yesterday after a couple of similar surfs I had this week.
In Zarautz for the early one (both on Thursday and Friday) with nice conditions I started both surfs with a great righhander that enabled me to carve a couple of times and make me look a better surfer than I actually am... only to spend the rest of the session looking for a similar wave hopelessly. As time passed by (and the unavoidable run to the office grew nearer) I made more and more mistakes and wrong choices. At the end of both surfs I had a bitter taste in my mouth: sure I had had a very good wave... but I had had one and one only.
Thank's Huey for Selective Memory: right now, while I'm stuck at home with a mild case of throat infection, the only thing I remember from my last two surfs are the couple of great rights I got..
Over & out
Sunday, 24 August 2008
Sunday – back home…
We got back home last night at 4am, after driving for ten hours across Portugal & Spain. I had some work to do down in Central Portugal on Thursday & Friday and I decided to take some days off and do some surfing on my way there. But we got the biggest swell of summer right then and we had to surf some winter waves instead of summer perfection.
All in all it has been a nice little trip in the van, stopping at places never visited before and following our instincts. Sometimes we scored and sometimes not, but we had fun and that is the most important thing.
I will be posting a couple of photos from this trip on my Spanish blog shortly, while I’m posting here a couple of photos to illustrate the kind of freak swell we scored early last week. A true winter swell in mid August… even bigger than the one we had the previous week.
Rodiles – Mundaka’s little sister – by Cezonillo
Orzán (Coruña’s city beach) by Dani
Ibon Amatriain SUPing at Playa Gris (big wave spot near Zarautz) by Pablo Azkue
Over & out.
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
Tuesday – waves, waves, waves…
Who said summer means flatness and poor conditions? This is being one of the most consistent summers in a long time. Shame that the armpit of the Atlantic Ocean is not receiving the goods compared to other nearby coastlines within the Bay… and that when it does the crowds are unbearable. But such is the curse that has been laid upon us and the thought of my three weeks in Indo in September / October keeps me alive in these hard times. Yesterday I went for the early one with my good friend Joao, from Porto, who is visiting the area on holiday. We got to the town beach at 6h45 and there were already more than ten people in the water… on a Monday. He couldn’t believe it. Me, I just try to avoid any thoughts of mass murder and focus all my frustration into catching as many waves as possible before the crowd reaches the 25 people mark (which it normally does before 7h30).
Anyway, here is the crop from the last days:
Anyway, here is the crop from the last days:
Last Tuesday saw the arrival of a new swell up in Lacanau (Surf-report)
The swell picked up on Wednesday both up in Quiberon (Kreff)…
…Pantín (Esnifa Salitre) and everywhere else in between.
We still had some waves left on Thursday in Rodiles, Mundaka’s twin sister (Cezonillo)…
…and on Friday in Galiza (Fiz_Bertels), before the usual weekend lull.
And on Monday (yesterday) a new swell made his presence felt in Galiza (Dani)…
…in Tapia (Surf en Chalano)…
…and at French big wave spot Guéthary (Jordi Nomada).
That same swell hit us today as seen in el Mongol, a reef / pointbreak in downtown Gijón (Cezonillo) while we got the onshores here at home…
In case you are wondering, yes, you are very few. This blog sees less than 15 visitors per day on average …and that is fine with me. My other blog is where I concentrate my efforts, and with this one I only pretend to have a place where I can store & show the photos of the best waves of our coastline as seen by some other bloggers. I could save these photos in a folder, but I like the idea of having a blog in English as opposed as to my other blogs. Having said that, I admit that I can’t help but include here a few words regarding stuff I read about in the surf media… and it was one of these remarks that got me an e-mail from a North American photographer last night. This up and coming photographer told me I had made a mistake by saying that he had written –in an American magazine- that the crew he travelled with had been the first ones to surf a certain spot in North Africa. It turns out that I knew this claim to be false and I had pointed out this fact here. My mistake comes from saying that it was the photographer who had said it when it turns out he was not the writer of the feature in the American mag, he was just the lensman. I have already made the necessary amendments and… wouldn’t it be nice if the photographer –who knows very well his crew was not the first one to surf that spot- also asked the same corrections to the magazine that printed the story? After all I’m sure that if some European crew claimed to be the first to surf –for example -Vancouver Island or somewhere in Baja the entire European surfer community would probably have to endure another boring attack from Lewis Samuels… or some other writer from the same lame-journalism school. One wonders…
Over & out.
Thursday, 7 August 2008
Thursday - Comic Strip # 5
Musica Surfica Snobica
(click to enlarge)
By far the best film I've watched recently. Rob (70percent) told me that the alaia is the new fish, and I couldn't help myself trying to guess what might lay ahead of us...
Over & out
By far the best film I've watched recently. Rob (70percent) told me that the alaia is the new fish, and I couldn't help myself trying to guess what might lay ahead of us...
Over & out
Monday, 4 August 2008
Monday – hurricane swells & longboards
You might think that only east coasters (meaning from the East Coast of the USA) enjoy summer hurricane swells, but that is not the case. After Bertha we've had some swell coming from Cristobal. Once again it was coming from the WSW so most of the North Coast of Spain was sheltered while France got the best conditions. Here are some surfing photos from the last days:
A couple of photos of Soesto (Galiza) the weekend before last by Dani…
A couple of photos of Soesto (Galiza) the weekend before last by Dani…
Tuesday was small at home…
This past Saturday took place the Salinas Longboarding Festival, probably the biggest meeting of longboarders worldwide. More than 300 mal riders -of which almost 200 entered the contest- met in Salinas, a very consistent beachbreak near Gijón, on the North Coast of Spain. But the Salinas Festival is much more than a contest: barbeques, live concerts, movies… everything. The local club outperforms years after year (this was the 7th year) and the atmosphere, with hundreds of people camping by the beach all weekend long, is great. Plenty of shortboarders also attend just to see friends (from all over Europe and enjoy in the activities. This year Alex Knost flew over for a quick visit (photos from his surfing during the Festival here) and you will see plenty of photos and stories in the usual blogs very soon.
One of the organizers of the Festival is Clau, the local photographer from Salinas, who has self-published a photo book. You can sneak a preview here. Meanwhile here is the traditional FOTONA from the Salinas Longboard Festival, courtesy of Clau.
Over & out.
Sunday, 27 July 2008
Sunday - and another one!
Erection Day
(Click to enlarge)
Over & out.
Those first summer surfs can be painful, even with no barracuda in sight. Thank's God the increasing numbers of girls out there all year long has diminished the surprise factor.
(Click to enlarge)
Over & out.
Saturday, 26 July 2008
Saturday - Bertha
Tropical storm / hurricane Bertha managed to send us a few pulses of West swell all the way from the American shores. Most of the Spanish North Coast didn't get much (as the coast faces N/NW and the swell was W/SW), but down in Portugal and on the French Atlantic central coast they managed to score a few nice summer sessions:
This is what home was like on Wednesday am before i drove to the French coast where i had a lovely surf on a brand new board at a nice little reef/point set up:
This is what home was like on Wednesday am before i drove to the French coast where i had a lovely surf on a brand new board at a nice little reef/point set up:
Further up in Hossegor it was all-time at certain banks... while flat at others. In the afternoon the off-shore was so stiff that it almost killed the swell (by Gecko):
On Thursday there were some nice little lines still to be found on the Île d'Oléron, North of Bordeaux, a beautiful area that doesn't really get much surf in summer. Photo courtesy of Tristan Mausse.
And the circus is in town. The ASP is back in town after five years, for the Vans Pro Junior. There waves are very tiny, the ASP broadcast focuses almost exclusively on the French surfers -in spite of plenty of local and Portuguese surfers doing very good so far (this is what happens when the ASP regional offices happen to be in France)- and the weather is beautiful. At least it is helping me out heaps for my upcoming article for 3sesenta.
Over & Out
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Wednesday – and another comic strip
Ultima ola (last wave) – only a surfer knows the feeling
Two interpretations: (1) how sometimes we keep waiting for that last wave when it is clear that it is not going to come, and (2) the pleasure all of us take just by being in the water (only a surfer knows the feeling).
(Click to enlarge)
Over & out.
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Ten days – late
Yes I know, it’s been ten days since I last updated this blog and for this I must apologize to the hordes of visitors/readers/fans that have been requesting to find out in what mood the bay was since my last entry. And so it has been because last week was one of the busiest weeks of the year: sales meeting week, and in Capbreton… which meant the opportunity to score some little waves in nearby Seignosse before, during and after work. Not bad. Shame though that the ocean was not very cooperative and we had to content ourselves with small waves, but at least we got to surf and that is always good, especially in summer.
I haven’t had much time for anything else. I know there are a couple of things going on and the Jazz Festival has started on the beach in Donosti. I remember this time last year I went down for a surf really late one evening (we’ve got light until well past ten) and the concerts on the beach were starting while I was still surfing: it was an odd combination to have hundreds of spectators a few meters from the water, dancing to the music, while so close some other surfers and myself where working hard to get the last waves of the day. The side I don’t like about the Jazz Festival on the beach is that the sand is packed with trash, bottles and other rubbish the morning after when I go for the dawny.
And in terms of waves, there hasn’t been much lately. A couple of little swells here and there. Truth is it hasn’t been totally flat, but the swells are quite weak. Here’s the crop of these last ten days:
First a couple of photos from last Tuesday in Galicia by Esnifa Salitre (nice elbow)…
…and Salinas by Clau.
Thursday was the biggest day but I’ve found no evidence on the blogs, while Salerno took the time to play in the Landes shore breaks on Saturday with what was left of the swell.
Pantín is one of the most consitent places in the whole of Europe, and that’s what it offered yesterday (by Dani).
While today I went for an early surf. The tide was very high and the swell too weak, so it wasn’t the best of the sessions, but I still managed to get some.
While according to this photo by Esnifa Salitre, Pantín was quite pleasant-looking today too.
And... over & out.
Sunday, 13 July 2008
Monday to Sunday – forgettable
We are having waves; not great waves, not perfect conditions… but we are having waves pretty much every day and when you think that July is traditionally the flattest month of the year around here (along with May and June) we cannot complain. I didn’t manage to surf every day and I missed the best session of the week (Wednesday at dawn, with off-shores and before the swell died) but on the other hand I managed to take my bicycle (with board) down to the beach a couple of afternoons (it is totally impossible to park near the beach in summer after work) and enjoy a nice after work ride – surf – ride work out combo. And when you know how steep the hill on which top I happen to live is, rest assured that the second ride (back home) of the combo is an exhausting one.
But strangely, with all the waves there’s been on the coast I haven’t really found much photographic evidence in the usual blogs. Still, on Tuesday I spent the day in Capbreton again, and while I didn’t surf, I managed to take a photo of what was happening in front of the hotel where we are having our sales meeting:
Further west, in
As I said earlier on, the session of the week was Wednesday’s early one. I missed it and had to see it unfold from the pc screen…
Everybody (me included) knew it and hoped that they would still be some waves left for the after work surf. But it was not to be: it was very small and extremely crowded, as seen here in Sopelana by Surf30:
And there was another pulse in the swell by Thursday, especially in Galiza (by Fiz_Bertels)…
…and
On a different note, the guys from Alaplaya, the best Spanish surf portal, have launched a new edition of their on-line magazine: Gure North Shore Mag. In this issue they are focusing on Mirata, one of the spots along Zarautz’s beach front, and which happens to be enjoying some very finely shaped sandbanks this late spring – early summer. Enjoy the photos here.
The Thursday pulse died on Friday, and we were being left with small weak on-shore wind swells for the weekend. And the forecast doesn’t look too good for this coming week. Maybe a little pulse on Friday and that’s about it. I’ll spend most of the week in Capbreton for the sales meeting, so provided there is something left I hope I’ll have a few surfs in between meetings or early in the day. I will update this blog next weekend, while struggling to finish my new article for 3sesenta and in between surfs (hope). Until then…
Over & out.
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