Cetacean

Its been a busy few days with a relatively consistent fun wave, depending on where you were looking. As long as you had the right board, chances are you would be scoring a rather premature, perfect summer session. However, after too much excess over Easter, events have finally caught up with me. The last two days, I have been flat on my back, with a brutal virus (man flu). Hoping I am through the worst of it, I couldn't wait to share the completion of my latest project. I would rather call it an homage to the mini simmons, than an attempt at one, but I wanted to take some of the elements from my 8'0 hull and incorporate it into this board. The main aim with this board is just to be fun, I had a Fisher Price 'Adventure People' vibe going through my head, when I designed it, and the graphics were meant to have a raw feel to reflect a lack of maturity. Its still been designed on the computer to ensure some integrity in the hull dynamic, and Badger kindly did the glassing, leaving me with the sanding and graphics. I really enjoyed doing this, but won't consider it complete until someone unbiased rides it : )

Snapped with my latest find, an app for the Iphone called Pano. Cooked up to 24 (76 fahrenheit) degrees today, and nice to have a little cloud around.

A wave still seems to be lingering and the swell building again for the weekend. Looking back through my old blog posts, it seems to be a recurring theme for warm springs, good swell with consistantly sunny weather. No real rain for 5 weeks now, I guess our weather patterns have definitely changed.

Caught the early train with my nephew, and we scored some perfect rides in the first light. Super fun glass and a clean peeling left, somewhere between waist to the occasional shoulder. Have been so excited to get home, and so glad to score it before the swell that everyone has been talking up, disappears.

Away from the surf, but no less inspired. Its been an amazing few days hunting through galleries and museums,
but was most impressed by the story of Ai Weiwei, a chinese artist producing over 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds (with the help of 1600 villagers) for the Tate modern's latest exhibition.

It didn't look or feel anything like this, when we surfed this morning. Skies seemed more blue, waves higher, and only a handful of guys; just friends.

A beautiful thing..

Justin with his latest label 'Seedhouse' dropped off his inaugural board; a raspberry red resin tint 6'2 quad/keel fish. The board looks amazing and right now I can't imagine even waxing it. It is quite possibly the most exciting thing that has happened to me in months. Thank you, thank you, thank you...it really looks unreal. This is something I plan to never let go of !

Man's best friend ?

I still claim to 'not be a dog person', but he is growing on me. Bear models the cliff scene with precision !

Mini Simmons

Had the great pleasure of testing out a clever little hybrid today. Mike Peat of Atlantic has been testing a mould, designed and built by the talented hands of Randall . Ulitmately the board is a popout complete with moulded fins, which is a little bit of a turnoff. That is, until you get in the water. The float, and speed of the board is just fantastic, and I had so much fun sliding the little board around. It seemed to have so much pop, and felt like the 'surfing on a bar of soap' feeling a lot of people expect from a mini simmons. In short I loved it, but it might have been the fact it was around head high and offshore.

Local produce

Swell is finally on the increase again, and none other than Mike P and Rob MG caught the interest of my lens. Mike always takes such a nice line on the wave and I could watch him for hours, whilst Rob will literally huck off anything. Note both guys were on boards only made and seen really within a five mile vicinity (Cake Boy & JB(If 6 was 9)).