Sunday 30 September 2012

Going (south) west

I'm off to Cornwall first thing tomorrow morning. I have put my boards (the 9'2" NSP and my bodyboard, as well, for a bit of 'sponging' should the occasion arise) and ancillary items in the car, and will be catching the ferry to Southampton at the unearthly hour of 0545. The ferry arrives in Southampton at 0645 and, as I am avoiding the worst of the Monday 'rush hour' when even more idiots than usual are on the roads, I should take just over four hours to get there, with a stop for petrol if necessary, although I can't say I'm looking forward to the drive, no idea why I'm dreading it, as it is a drive I did many, many times during the 90s - but I guess that comes from seven years of living back on the Isle of Wight, where it is easy to develop a small-area mentality ('oh my god, I have to go to Freshwater? That's 18 miles away!'). I can't help thinking that if it was motorway all the way, rather than A-roads, it'd take no more than two or three hours but, all being well, I should arrive by 1100 or thereabouts, provided nothing happens. At least there are no roadworks. I sometimes wish for Star Trek-style 'beaming'!

I have two one-to-one sessions booked for Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, with ESF, although the weather forecast looks a bit crap, with blustery showers and 21 mph winds. I don't mind the rain, because I am going to get wet anyway, but could do without the surf being blown to bits by howling onshore and cross-shore winds. I contacted ESF on Friday asking what happens if Fistral beach is too windy and blown out and they told me that we'd move to the more sheltered bay; by this I assume they mean Towan, by the harbour and opposite the Reef Aquarium. If Fistral is blown out, Towan is usually surfable.

While I'm down there I am going to go and see Errant Surf about a trip abroad, as I am planning to go on a trip to Morocco or the Canary Islands, maybe in late January to avoid school holidays and half terms. They arrange trips to surf camps and offer tuition to all surfers, no matter what the level of ability. I fancy a couple of weeks away from a shitty UK winter and have never been away at this time (surprisingly for someone who hates gloomy skies and cold weather!), and good surf, warm water and good weather can improve one's surfing ability considerably. Being away during the most depressing time of year is also a bonus. Errant can also arrange flights, which is handy for lazy people like me.
Errant also do 'longboard coaching weekends' down in Newquay, run by ex-Isle of Wight resident Chris Thomson (who, like me, escaped the place but, unlike me, managed to stay away), who also owns Errant Surf; once I get good enough again to ride that tanker of mine properly, I might go on one of those.

Friday 14 September 2012

New board but not a good sesh

I am no longer board-less! Aaran from our local surf shop, Earth, Wind and Water, phoned me yesterday to say that he'd received a couple of second-hand longboards, a 9ft 2inch and a 10 ft as he knew I was looking for a second-hand board, so I went along to the shop after work this morning (I work part time, very part time) to see them. I ideally wanted something that would fit inside my Renault estate, both for security and fuel consumption (laws of physics: stuff on the roof=drag=increased fuel consumption+the laws of common sense: stuff on the roof=potentially nicked) but thought anything more than 9ft would be too long. As it happened, the 9' 2" fit perfectly with an inch or two to spare, so I didn't even bother looking at the 10 footer.
The new board is an NSP epoxy longboard, exactly what I was looking for. Some people turn their noses up at epoxy, a.k.a. 'pop out', boards but, frankly, as I am just getting back into this lark after 14 years out of it, a fibreglass board is going to get smashed up in no time and, for now, I'd rather have a durable pop-out than ding the fuck out of a custom job and there's nothing wrong with them anyway, save being a tad on the heavy side.
Anyway, it cost the princely sum of £250, which I've raided from my savings.

Here's the new-to-me board in its new home




It was a nice day today and Magic Seaweed indicated some decent surf at Compton, it'd have been rude not to, really, so off I went, via a detour home to get my wetsuit and other bits.
Things didn't get off to a great start, firstly the wind meant that the thing was hard to carry, even the smallest breezes can turn a longboard into a sail. I've decided I want to get good enough to ride something short so I can trot down the steps like the guys with shortboards...! Ain't gonna happen though...
Secondly, my right knee which has a touch of osteoarthritis in it, decided it wasn't going to play nice when I descended down the first flight of steps, locking up and with the pain indicating something was catching on something else, meaning I had to sit at the top and rub it for a while and wait for it to unlock. I felt I was being watched from the car park, they probably thought I was hesitating because of the steps so, with an Oscar-worthy performance, I made a few overly pained faces and exaggerated rubbing my knee. I hate getting old! >:o(
Got there in the end though, attached leash to leg and into the water.

Aaran said the board would catch everything, even little waves and he wasn't wrong. It does. Anything over 9ft does catch all the waves, even slow 1ft slop, which this wasn't. The surf was 2-4ft, messy, at intervals of  6 seconds and the stiff breeze was cross-shore.
The board was surprisingly easy to paddle and I caught everything I went for. Unfortunately I found it harder to get up on this board than on the foam ones I rode on the previous couple of occasions I got out, back last month. I have no idea why. It was more stable than those and I had put plenty of wax on but, for some reason (possibly not wanting to aggravate the pain in my right knee), I was too slow and just couldn't get up, and on the couple of occasions I did, I stalled and fell off. I must have looked a right prat from the beach and car park! Decidedly unstoked and feeling more than slightly kooky, I packed it in after an hour. However, practice makes perfect and I'll be out again as soon as possible; I also put it down to not having done pop-up practice for about a week. Wish those effing steps weren't so steep, though, my poor knees and not easy carrying a longboard down - I am sure those steps have got steeper over the years and they probably have, I think these are replacements of replacements of ones which periodically get destroyed when coastal erosion takes down yet another section of cliff.

Monday 10 September 2012

Half a kilometre

Our local council-run pool in Sandown closed in January for refurbishment and was supposed to reopen this summer. However, as these things often seem to do, the refurbishment overran badly and now it is scheduled to reopen on October 15th. In the interim I've been lazy and not been swimming since February/March time when I went to a small independently-run pool in Ryde which, as it turned out, wasn't that good. More often than not, the advertised time for public swimming turned out not to be, with private hire instead and the place was infested with small children and I got tired of turning up only to find a kids' party in full swing, despite having checked beforehand and told 'no there is no private function today'!

Another council-run pool is in Newport and it's a pain to get to from here because of the traffic, but I decided that, if I am serious about getting back into surfing and needing to get fitter before my trip to Cornwall in three weeks, I'll need to start swimming again. I am already a lot fitter than before, my job involves a lot of fetching, carrying and wheeling sack trucks of heavy boxes up steep slopes onto ferries and I do press-ups, sit-ups and pop-up practice and have been doing so for the past month, with encouraging results.
My spare tyre, a result of beer, overeating and little exercise, has diminished quite a lot and I have shed more than half a stone (11lbs to be exact or 5kg for those who prefer metric) in the past three weeks. I have never been grossly fat and, being tall I can carry a bit of extra weight and get away with not looking too hideous, but being overweight is not desirable and can lead to problems. My father died of a heart attack, and this is at the back of my mind plus I fear getting diabetes. At the start of last year I had a brush with the Big C, with a tumour discovered in my liver. This turned out to be a benign, possibly fatty, lump fortunately, but it did make me think of mortality, being fitter and not wasting time when I wanted to do something. I had initially wanted to get back into surfing last year but various bits of bad luck interfered, not least a torn knee cartilage, followed a couple of months later by a broken ankle!

I went to the other council pool this afternoon and managed 20 lengths of the 25 metre pool which equates to half a kilometre - sounds better for some reason than saying 500 metres! I am not even tired so I could have done even more but didn't want to overdo it.

Totally unrelated but something I want to mention although I don't normally get involved in politics. The UK's Prime Minister, David Cameron, has said that he is trying to 'woo' women voters, with 'women-friendly' policies. Sounds good eh?  Actually, no, it's doesn't because these 'policies' are all aimed at mothers. As a child-free woman, I would love the media and politicians to get it into their thick heads that woman does NOT equal mother. Yes, all mothers are women (barring a scientific 'miracle') but not all women are mothers. Single people and couples without kids seem to be marginalised anyway, as society is geared towards parents and children, and this kind of pandering bullshit from one of the worst PMs this country has ever had makes you feel more disenfranchised and alienated than ever.
Not that I'd vote for the Conservatives anyway. I loathe Labour and have no respect for the Liberal Democrats either but the Conservatives really are the Nasty Party.

Saturday 8 September 2012

Fat guy rips it up

For those of us who are slightly unfit or who could do with losing a few more pounds, this guy should give us some encouragement. Surfing is viewed as a healthy lifestyle - which, of course, it is - and surfers of both sexes shown in videos and photos are generally of the fit, slim and young variety. It's rare that you see a surfer of, shall we say, a fuller figure, especially one who rips it up. I found this vid on the net, which features Jimbo Pellegrine, a very big guy and an excellent surfer (he does drop in at 0:40 in the vid, tho') and it shows you don't need to be skinny, or even that fit, to surf.



Three weeks to my trip to Cornwall. I am unlikely to be able to go surfing before then, hence the lack of anything really meaningful to say or show.

Thursday 6 September 2012

Pop-ups

If, like me, your pop-up isn't the best (since getting back into surfing and having been surfing the grand total of two times in the past month, I clumsily and slowly lunge to my feet, often wiping out) there are some videos on YouTube which show how to do pop-ups. Watching these and doing land practice if you can't get into the water as much as you'd like will help a lot. I am watching loads of surfing videos, not kids ripping it up on shortboards - yes it looks good but my shortboard days are long past now and, even then, I didn't exactly rip it up - just Joe and Jane Average Surfer, and my land-based practice (pop-ups) is getting better and better.

Here are some of the pop-up vids. This Holly Beck one is, I think the best.
 

This one, from the Online Surf School, has three methods. When you go to a surf school, they don't advise using your knees (or a lot of them do) and using your knees can be a bad habit to break. The 'Aussie sprint' pop up is interesting, I've not seen that one before and, I think if I tried it, I'd wipe out more than actually get to my feet (even more than I already do). But, whatever works.
 

Ben's Surf Clinic shows, again, a method of using your knees. That's always something I tried to avoid but, again, if it works for you it works.

Sunday 2 September 2012

New blog

I decided 'Stand Up Fall Off' was a pretty lame title and I wanted a stand-alone profile for this blog (SUFO is connected with other blogs), so here it is.