Cross border surf raid

I headed out for a little cross border surf raid today. I made the drive to my favourite little Cornish surf break. There is something I always find exciting about heading to Cornwall for some surf. Is it that the waves are always better, the sea always blue, and at my favourite spot always empty? I don't know, but once again my effort was rewarded. I had the waves all to myself, the water was indeed blue, and the waves were clean, steep and fast.

The mighty Rush 7'2" at my favourite Cornish surf spot

The waves were generally around 3-4ft but there were regular rouge sets of about 6ft to keep me on my toes. I had an interesting time punching through a couple of sets, that do or die moment when you don't quite know if your going to make it over the wave, or if the lip is going to land on your head!

A mid sized set peeling its way across the beach

After about 2 1/2hrs of shredding it all on my own, the tide was getting to the point where the surf gets a bit 'weird'. So I said my thank yous to the gods of surfing, and headed home, happy but exhausted.

Possibly the smallest surf ever?

On Sunday I agreed to go for a surf at Sidmouth with Mitch, the boss at AS Watersports. The forecast looked favourable, but on arrival at the beach the waves that we found were tiny. But the weather was fantastic, blue skies, sunshine and warm. So after a stroll into town to get a quick bite to eat, I got geared up and got in the water. The waves may have only been a foot high, or less, but it was too nice a day not to get in and have a splash about. We also got to watch the local RLNI crew practising their boat to helicopter hand overs.

Mitch on a clean but tiny wave

The helicopter comes in low for another practise run

Me enjoying the sunshine

A Mafia afternoon

Ewart, Sam and myself had a quick session at the mighty Mafia trails the other week, and extended the start of the Dual track, but also found that a couple of trees had fallen and blocked a number of the other trails. Ewart and friends were up there yesterday and cleared all of the trails, and tidied up our new dual track extension.
So a few of us headed to the trails today to have some fun on the dual track. The new extension to the dual track adds a new start ramp, pump bump and berm and means that you can rack up some real speed into the middle of the course.
The weather was great and so was the riding. Here's a few pictures I managed to grab along the way.

Big Dave tests out the new berm

Tom K, and Dave flying into the second berm

Dave over the Tabletop

Sam gets some air

Some 'Lost' pictures

When I plugged the memory card from my cameras into the computer today I found some pictures that had been there for quite a while. But I thought I'd blog a couple of them anyway because they were nice looking pictures.

A snowy view over Exeter during our week of snow

Jemma and I getting on the Dart, when Mitch let us out of work for a quick paddle.

7'2" in the surf

I finally managed to get my hands on the Valley Rush 7'2" surf kayak and some surf today. When I got in the water the conditions were great, a couple of foot and clean, not a breath of wind and as if that wasn't enough there were only two other guys out back. Result!





My first impressions of the boat were good. It paddled well and was comfy, but when I got it on a wave it was awesome! Being shorter than other kayaks and ski's than I've paddled I noticed that it was a bit harder to get onto waves sometimes, I had to wait till they were steeper and a bit more critical, but once going it was something else. Being shorter and wider in the tail than it's Rush stable mates, it felt looser and slashier, far more like my waveski.







When making cutbacks it drove really well, but was loose enough that you could just feel it drifting through the turns. But when it got back into the pocket the acceleration was great, firing you back down the line ready to cutback again!






But good things never last, all of a sudden the wind picked up, starting off cross shore, but soon becoming on shore. What had been great peeling waves suddenly became a big frothy foaming mess. After spend too much time and far to much energy battling through the whitewater and not enough time on the waves I decided to call it quits. The surf may have turned a bit messy but my impression of the Rush 7'2" remains perfectly clear, a great comfortable boat, easy to paddle and on a wave awesome, it drove hard when I wanted it, but slid, slashed and carved with ease when asked.

It really is the first surf kayak that performs more like my ski, and the first surf kayak that makes me really want to own one! I love my ski, but at this time of year being out in the cold on the ski is horrid. I think I may well be ordering one very soon.