A very long time ago one of the earliest Northern Europeans had an idea. His idea was simple: I’ve had enough of this cave dwelling. I want to go and sleep somewhere else…
It’s understandable. The same cave day in, day out, would get a bit boring. Having to walk everywhere, or perhaps riding a pet wooly mammoth, would limit your excursions to how far you could explore before turning for home and the safety of the cave. What with sabre tooth tigers and what not running around sleeping in the open was akin to being a human shaped all you can eat buffet. Not to mention potentially being an icicle come morning seeing as Ice Ages tended to pop up with alarming and rapid frequency.
The frustration of wondering what was over the far hills, what herds of easily stoned to death bison lay out of sight must have been hard to bear. Thankfully the human mind was evolving and problem solving was, and is, what sets us apart from other species. So it’s not hard to imagine the scenario: Our neolithic chum would invite everyone out from lounging around the cave discussing whether dinosaurs were really real or not to show them his creation. They troop out into the autumnal sunshine squinting.Before them lays a dome shape. It looks like a weird boob made of leather skins.
“What is?” they say perplexed.
(Forgive the invention of early neolithic language, no one has any idea what language they spoke, lets assume it’s a stunted comedy caveman version of English).
‘It tent!’
“Tent?”
‘Yes!’
“Not weird leather boob?”
‘No. Tent. It portable shelter. For thing I call camping.’
“Camping? Sound shit.”
And so they turn, unimpressed, not realising the momentous moment they’ve just witnessed and tramp back into the easy comfort and warmth of the cave to nibble on a few more barbecued dodo wings.
They didn’t even notice that our friend and his weird leather boob were gone come night fall. They did notice two days later when he was nowhere to be seen and got worried. After a week they assumed his remains were somewhere either in the digestive system of a sabre tooth tiger or marinating as sabre tooth tiger dung on a hillside somewhere. Then they picked out a star that was him in the heavens forever more and got on with being cave people.
Then one afternoon our man with the big idea came strolling over the hill with his roll of skins and sticks called ‘tent’ on one shoulder and a brace of fresh game birds called ‘pheasant’ on the other. Which made him extremely popular as pulled pheasant was soon to be a bearded hipster caveman favourite.
Since then the tent has been a staple for mankind. The portable, lightweight dwelling in all its forms has sheltered cultures as they spread across continents. So much easier to take down and move than a log cabin. It’s been through wars, crusades, refugee camps, polar expeditions and more and thousands of years since that first stab at tent we still love them today.
Sure they’re more fancy. More tech. More carbon. They smell less of animals and are far more vegetarian friendly but the concept is the same. Portable short term dwelling. Erectable anywhere the ground is vaguely flat.
The perfect thing for surf trips in autumn.
‘Woah!’ I hear you say. ‘Camping is a summer thing yo!’
And much as your street lingo is impressive you’re wrong. Camping in summer sucks ass. Being woken at 4:30 a.m. by the sun lighting up the tent and then being slowly broiled to an impossibly uncomfortable heat by 7:00 a.m. is total balls. No, friends, summer camping is for mugs. Autumn, when the weather is more exciting, is when camping is character building. Camping that makes you feel alive. Camping that tests the fabric and build quality of your tent and your mettle. You’ve not lived until you’ve spent a night in a tent in a Scottish gale. It’s truly invigorating. Sure. It’s a bit terrifying as well. But it’s living.
Of course there are downsides to camping, even now that getting eaten by wildlife or squashed by rapidly advancing ice sheets is not an issue.
The modern tent maybe the easiest thing to erect in the known universe. Literally undo one strap. Let it go. And ‘BOOM’ you have an erection. It might not be the right way up initially but that’s an easy fix. The flip side. Putting them away is a whole different story. You need a PhD in Physics to put a 2-Second tent away. No messing. You have to able to bend space and time and manipulate carbon poles in to the shape of a Möbius strip to go back in the bag it came in. It’s next to impossible and anyone that can do first go without looking at the instructions is a bona fide genius.
Putting most other tents up, again, without looking at the instructions, is also pretty bloody hard. But once your tent is up and pegged and guyed you are ready to roll. The plus side of this is watching people put up tents they’ve never erected before is all kinds of hilarious. Like watching dudes build a 3D jigsaw on the Krypton Factor with no real idea what it’s meant to look like until they’ve done it half right with the poles in wrong. Of course the tent is half the equation. Humans require shelter. This is one of our main priorities. The others are water, food and somewhere to poop.
Camping brings out the survivalist in all of us. Especially wild camping on a cliff top overlooking the majesty of the Atlantic. No shower blocks and nice shitters here. Just a cliff and a view that money can’t buy. Water becomes precious. Metered out for tea, the odd sip of water and the tiniest splash for teeth cleaning. If people remember that we are civilised humans not stone age dwellers that do actually clean our teeth when living on a cliff edge. Food can’t be chilled. The concept of ‘fridge’ goes right out the window. Of course one of the benefits of autumn camping is milk for the essential morning tea/coffee doesn’t turn to cheese in three minutes like it does when left in a tent in the summer. Crisps and biscuits become the staple diet. How our ancestors would chuckle over their spit roasted fresh catch of the day at our modern inability to hunt and fend for ourselves. As for the bathroom. Well. Wet wipes are the friend of all campers. Surfers are blessed by being able to dunk in the sea all day and not be too grimy … apart from wetsuit wee stench. As for number twos. Well. Digging a little hole and then making sure you burn the bog roll to leave no evidence of your doings does make you yearn for the modern fabulousness of a porcelain throne. But. Again it’s character building to have a poo in a ditch overlooking the majesty of the Atlantic.
The whole point of tents is having somewhere to shelter under the stars. It’s also, if you’re on the north coast of Scotland like we were on this trip, the best way to see the stars. Getting away from the cave. From the streetlights and haze of 21st century man and out to where the air is so clear you can see the wonder of the Milky Way spiralling away into the infinite inky black isn’t something a night in a hotel will give you. Sure hotels have free biscuits and a toilet experience that doesn’t leave you worrying about brown shrapnel hitting your trousers. But it’s not a night you’ll remember. Being under the stars with the northern lights dancing on the far horizon as you drink a hot brew or a cold beer and talk story with friends by your humble tent is one of those things that sticks with you. Hell. It might even make you write an essay on how fricking magical camping in the autumn can be.
Sure tents blow down. People trip over guy ropes when they’ve had a few too many ciders. And inevitably someone called Ben will somehow puncture your airbed just by sitting on it but this is what makes tent life so brill. It’s living raw. It’s exciting. Yes. It’s tiring. It can be cold. It can be damp. But when the waves are firing it also means you are right there at dawn ready to hit it. And with no cosy duvet or partner to spoon and lie in with you’re on it. Steaming brew on the go as you suit up then hit the brine. The cold sting of autumnal Atlantic hitting your face is the best alarm clock in the world.
It’s not too late. Modern sleeping bags are good to crazy temps. If the surf’s good and the weather’s not too apocalyptic go camp. Get tent. Or. If you have a really good tent go camp no matter what. For shits and giggles if nothing else.
You won’t regret it. It’s in our genes see. Being outside under the stars next to a fire chewing on a burnt bit of meat is so deeply coded in our DNA that you’re seeing the stars through the same eyes our ancestors did. We’re the same. Just the modern version. Except they only got to marvel at the sea. Not revel in riding it…
Josh Ward enjoying the fruits of camping
A moment of clarity
It’s not the Hilton, but it’ll do
Insert innuendo here
‘I’m feeling a little horse’
Waking up to this is more than fine
In honour of the London Surf Film Festival Shorties comp opening for 2015 here’s one of our favourite winners from past years and an interview with the star of the show…
Hello there Chief. Pleasure to make your acquaintance. First up, how is an underground guy like yourself dealing with the sudden fame?
Well, one minute I’m living the quiet life, just making my boards and the next I’m getting ladies underwear posted through my door. I’m recycling them as face masks for the shaping bay. Safety first. You know … I’ve not touched a woman in 20 years. What was the question again?
How did the Crayfish Films guys convince you to appear in the film? Bribery, blackmail?
They actually originally told me I was going to be on Come Dine With Me. I bloody love that show. I cooked for them and everything, did they tell you that? My red cap risotto went down a storm.
Have board orders, in particular for the Wave Fucker, shot up?
Well it’s always been one of my most popular boards. At its peak I was two or three a year! Once you slide into a salt water fanny on a Wave Fucker its hard to go back. She’s got an ample rear end see and I think that’s what’s missing in a lot of these modern sticks.
As a professional beard wearer what do you think of the current trend amongst young bucks to sport a rich facial thatch?
I’m going to be honest with you, I cut most of my chin off in a planing accident in ’83 and I found covering it up with facial hair got me more success with the females. If I have inadvertently inspired youngsters to grow a beard I can only apologise.
Was there anything left out of the film that you thought should have been in the final cut?
Obviously it would have been nice to show a bit more of me surfing in it. I had a nice session at a little secret spot of mine. Let’s just say it’s somewhere between Sennen and Thurso; keeping that one under me hat. The Crayfish boys didn’t have a lens long enough to film me on the outer, outer, outer bank. Shame really, it’s the only spot that works on a north-southeasterly-westerly when the swells comin’ in off the shore.
What’s next, are you going to leverage your new found global celebrity status or are you gonna just concentrate on shaving the foam?
I’m just gonna keep my head down. A man’s got to stay true to his craft and I’m not being sucked into that world again. As you know I’m a recovering dairy addict so I’m just gonna take it one day at a time. I have been asked to turn the Christmas lights on at Camborne. I’m honoured and humbled.
We hear rumours The Shaper might not be your only film outing, is there a sequel in the Pipeline?
Well apparently they want to make another film about me and some of the local lads but at the moment I think they’re busy making an undercover exposé about localism in the Penzance lido.
What’s your message to the youth of Britain, and in particular to any aspiring shapers?
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. If you take a wrong turn just pull another blank from the shelf and get planing. It’s all about having no regrets. I mean, bankruptcy, divorce, rehab, yeah they hurt, but do I regret them? Well, yes, but I tell you what, I sat naked on a Weever fish once. That’s pain. Puts it all in perspective. So, I guess I’d say don’t do nude tidal pool yoga without exercising extreme caution.
It’s one of those nondescript community buildings, a once proud edifice now run at minimal cost by the council, decorated in cheerless shades of grey and beige, a feint whiff of floor cleaner mixed with cheap coffee gives it that spooky, public building smell, overly jolly day-glo posters for the W.I add the only dash of colour.
Upstairs in a random room a group is meeting. The hastily handwritten sign on the door has the simple inscription: G.A. 7.00 p.m. Free Coffee.
The collective, sat in a loose circle on cheap schoolroom style chairs, spans the generations, teens to OAPs. They are nibbling and dipping biscuits in the regulation plastic coffee cups, the coffee is freshly brewed, not the instant machine muck suffered by the other groups. The beard, the leader of the group stands and starts business.
‘Welcome, one and all, members old and new. We are here to help each other, we are here to share, you have taken the hardest step already; just by being here you have acknowledged the fact that you have a problem. Together we can beat it.’
There’s a muffled chorus of agreement. The beard continues, ‘So, as every week, any new members need to introduce themselves to the group. You do not have to use your real name. You choose a name you are comfortable with. Remember, you are amongst friends, we are here to support not judge,’ he gestures to a fit-looking youth, sporting a good tan, sun-flecked hair and suspiciously red eyes. ‘Please, new guy, if you would get us going.’
The youth scrapes a lock of hair away from his face, stands and nervously begins, ‘Errrm, hi, yeah, right. Best get on eh? Well, my name is Moondoggie and I … I am a gambler.’ A warm ripple of applause spreads through the group, the beard moves over and gives the youth a reaffirming hug. ‘Please, Moondoggie, share your unfortunate addiction with the group, we are listening.’
The youth takes a big hit of coffee, coughs and elaborates, ‘Well, dudes, it all started a few years ago. You dabble to start with. I guess you all know how it goes, a little bit here, a little bit there. Nothing serious. But once you’ve had your first score then it works into your soul. You didn’t set out to get addicted, but without you knowing, you’re hooked. From then on it consumes your life and ruins your bank balance. The odds always look good, well, you convince yourself they do.’
Various group members nod sagely, the beard, listening with his eyes closed, picks a stray lentil from his facial bush, pops it into his mouth, swallows and speaks, ‘So, Moondoggie, what’s your fix? What floats your boat? Is it the horses? The fruit machines?’
‘Errm, none of the above. I am a committed gambler though. If you think about it, what is gambling? It’s just financial maths, probability, nothing more; you wager money on a certain outcome, whether that’s the first horse past the post, your footy team winning, scooping the lottery or scoring on the stock exchange. Probability, the one in whatever chance, one in fourteen million of winning the lottery, one in two chance on the footy, and so on, you arm yourself with information and make informed bets.’
The beard interrupts, ‘Sorry to butt in, but what is your particular vice?’
The youth wanders over to the coffee percolator, grabs the jug, refills the extra-large travel mug he brought with him, tops up with milk and sugar, takes a massive chug and continues, ‘It’s hard to explain, but believe me its costing me dearly. You see with most of you guys you work the odds, there’s a certain risk and you accept that, you know the odds, you know the form. On the fruity its 60/40, you will win sometimes but in the long term the house always wins. You get the occasional big pay out and that makes you forget the losing spells. There is a big difference between your gambling and mine, you guys are always winning some money and losing some. I lose money non-stop, I haemorrhage the stuff out of my pockets I never get money back from my gambling.’
The beard, visibly perplexed now, ‘Gambling on what?’
The youth smiles, takes another big gulp of java, ‘The weather.’
Quizzical glances are exchanged around the ring.
‘Sorry Moondoggie, the group and I are lost here, how can you gamble on the weather?’
Looking a little bit jazzed from all the caffeine the youth smirks, ‘I’m a surfer. I gamble on the weather all the time. Like you guys, I try and learn as much as I can, about the form of the horses and so on, to make informed bets. Except rather than sticking down a ton on a horse in the 3:50 at Chepstow I lay out a ton on a flight to the Canaries. You want the horse you bet on to come in first, I want the weather charts I am betting on to produce a good swell.’
‘Swell?’ the beard is confused.
‘Yeah, swell, you know, waves, ocean-going-rollers, I ride them. That’s my fix, that’s my payout. I wager money on flights, rental cars, boards and accommodation and my pay out is getting good waves. Same as you guys you can win, lose or you can win big. Three cherries on the fruity is getting a good clean head-high day with only a few guys out, a lose is no waves and five sevens is the perfect, eight-foot, offshore day of the year with you and your mates,’ the youth is grinning, he drains the dregs from the massive mug. ‘A lot of the time you don’t score, and curse chucking money down the drain, but when you do, well, it’s the best high ever.’
The group, smiling now, nod in agreement, they understand. One pipes up, ‘I think you are a gambler, but we can’t really help you here dude.’
The surfer grabs his coat, makes for the door, ‘Yeah, I kinda knew that, I’m here for an adult ed course at eight, I thought I’d drop in cos you guys have the good coffee.’
Surfing and Hollywood have never been easy bedfellows. To represent our zealously guarded subculture to the masses has rarely worked out all that well. Surfing, like the extreme sports subcultures it inspired, don’t favour being paraded for the mainstream. Sure the recent documentaries have kind of worked but the great Hollywood surf film remains to be made. Join us on a romp through the celluloid highs and lows of Tinsel Town’s dalliances with the glide. This list is by no means exhaustive, just the films that have had an impact.
GIDGET (1959)
Few of you reading will be old enough to remember the first foray of Hollywood into the fledgling Californian surf culture.
Inspired by a real girl, Kathy Kohler, Gidget was based on the half million selling book written by her father Frederick. He wrote the book after listening to her tales of the Malibu scene. Cheesy as it was the tale of a cute girl discovering boys and surfing was a nationwide hit. It’s widely regarded as the film that alerted America to the fact there was more to the beach than just sun-baking and swimming; ushering in the classic ‘surfing sixties’ era when the Beach Boys and Californian lifestyle were the envy of the world. Legends like Mickey Dora, Mike Doyle and Micky Munoz featured as stunt doubles. Ironically the ‘Malibu’ tale was filmed up the coast as Malibu was already too busy. Perversely Surfer magazine debuted the following year.
Factoid:Gidget is a contraction of girl-midget as she stood a towering five foot tall.
ENDLESS SUMMER (1964, theatrical release 1966)
Bruce Brown’s iconic all-time classic is that rare beast: a pure surf movie that became a mainstream success. Even though stripped back it’s a simple travelogue following Robert August and Mike Hynson searching the world for the perfect wave it captured the essence of surfing like no film before or since. After being toured around the beach towns, as was the way in those days, it was test screened in Kansas in winter. It went down so well it was blown up to 35mm for the proper cinema crowd and put on general release. The one man crew film cost $50,000 to make and went on to make $30 million. Not a bad for a filmmaker in his late twenties. Even today the imagery, narration, music and poster design are timeless. It’s one of the few essential movies every surfer should watch.
BIG WEDNESDAY (1978)
Big Wednesday is beloved by many. Directed and co-written by John Milius it’s coming of age theme hits home with all surfers. Weirdly it was a flop at the cinema and became a cult success once home video took off. It’s one of those films that’s gifted us with many much repeated quotes. In the limited pantheon of Hollywood surf films that aren’t stinkers this is probably the most rounded feature film. Surfing is the one thing that can glue friendship together no matter what life throws our way.
Factoid: Milieus and friends George Lucas and Steven Spielberg exchanged a percentage point of the income from their upcoming movies 1977 Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. They were both convinced it was going to be a huge hit. So while the surf movie tanked that deal must’ve been quite a zinger as those other directors did ‘okay’.
APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)
Surfing is an element, not the focus, of Francis Ford Coppola’s legendary film. But it is possibly the strangest bit of surfing committed to celluloid. The classic ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning’ scene is delivered by Colonel ‘Charlie don’t surf’ Kilgore in the midst of a battle to secure a Vietnamese beach village so they can surf the river mouth peaks. People surf as shells explode around them. All kinds of bonkers. Written by Big Wednesday man John Milius it was nearly directed by George Lucas but he got Star Wars green-lit and went on to do that instead. The film is also credited with introducing surfing to the Philippines where the ‘Nam scenes were filmed.
NORTH SHORE (1987)
Possibly the best cheesy surf movie ever. Rick Kane’s odyssey from Arizona wave pool hero to the learning the ropes on the fabled North Shore is essential viewing for all surfers. Mainly so you can know when other surfers are dropping one of the many quotable bits of dialogue. That and it’s a handy guide to learning Hawaiian pidgin. It features cameos from many legends like Occy, Pagey, Laird and Lopez. A perfect time capsule of eighties surfing and something you gots to see.
SURF NAZIS MUST DIE (1987)
The best slash worst surf B-movie ever made. Surf Nazis was made seemingly on a budget of about a tenner. The surf ‘gangs’ tend to have a maximum of four people in them and it’s utterly hilarious in it’s own mad post apocalyptic way. The eighties was the era of home video becoming a big thing so polished turds like this could get released straight to video without having to be good enough to be in cinemas. A definite winner of the so bad it’s good category.
POINT BREAK (1991)
Kathryn Bigelow is more famous for the epic Iraq movie The Hurt Locker but she cut her action teeth on this crime surf caper that has a place in our hearts no matter how wrong it might be considered by some. The late Patrick Swayze is perfect as the groovy villain Bodhi and Keanu is as wooden as ever but it works. It’s a pop corn film about bank robbers that surf a bit. You have to have seen it, just so you can have an opinion. It does feature the immortal line from Utah, ‘Wars of religion always make me laugh because basically you’re fighting over who has the best imaginary friend.’ Keanu actually learned to surf for the movie and still does. Swayze also did his own skydiving stunts.
ENDLESS SUMMER 2 (1994)
The reboot of Endless Summer followed Robert ‘Wingnut’ Weaver and Pat O’Connell on a modern version of the original. Whilst appreciated by surfers it didn’t hit the box office like the original. Bruce Brown’s son Dana went on to make Step Into Liquid which is kinda Endless Summer 3.
BLUE JUICE (1995)
The lone Cornish entry in the mainstream movie field has, in retrospect, a pretty heavyweight cast. Catherine Zeta Jones and Ewan McGregor went on to be global megastars. It’s actually a good film, funny dialogue and a story that all surfing couples can relate to. The pressures of growing up and being a productive member of society versus the head in the clouds surf obsession. Many local Cornish faces are in there as extras.
IN GODS HANDS (1998)
You know… There’s a wave…
Shane Dorian might be an all time surfing MVP and hero to many but in some surfer’s closets is an embarrassing Hollywood outing. This was Dozzas. The surfing at least doesn’t involve stunt doubles and is well shot. It’s only the dialogue that’s ugly. Directed by an erotica specialist, Zalman King, more famous for 9 & A Half Weeks, it was written by surf journo Matt George who also starred. It tanked hard at the box office. Reviews featured words like: turgid, pretentious, abysmal, tepid, bogus and vapid. Suffice to say it never made the 10 mill back it cost to make. It did at least feature the likes of Shaun Tomson, Brian Keaulana, Darrick Doerner, Brock Little and Mike Stewart.
Factoid: The production company was owned by Charlie Sheen and that Bret bloke off of Poison. So they could afford to take the hit.
BLUE CRUSH (2002)
Seeing as the first surf movie was about a girl surfer it’s pretty poor it took over forty years for there to be another one. Whilst the story is forgettable the surfing is well shot and it inspired a generation of women to get in the water. We were there on the North Shore they were shooting it and somehow the shot Sonny Miller took of Sharpy pretending to shoot photos never made the final cut… The swines.
RIDING GIANTS (2004)
A rarity as a documentary that made it to big screen. If there’s one thing that really works on the big screen it’s big wave surfing and Stacy Peralta didn’t disappoint. The film charts the evolution of surfing from its humble origins to the state of the art of big wave surfing in the mid-noughties. It was the first documentary film to open the Sundance Film Festival, introduced by Robert Redford himself, which after Peralta’s Dogtown and Z-Boys is no great surprise.
SURF’S UP (2007)
Yes. It’s an animation. But some of the best work in Hollywood is being done by the animation studios and this penguin based surf odyssey had the pull to get Kelly Slater and Rob Machado involved as cameo commentators. It’s similar tale to North Shore as the young outsider learns from a wise old surfer to beat the establishment while learning lessons on love and life along the way. It’s charming and the perfect first kids surf flick with enough surf smarts to keep adults happy.
CHASING MAVERICKS (2012)
The tragic story of Maverick’s legend Jay Moriarty should’ve been left well alone.
Factoid: According to imdb.com six Red Epic cameras were lost during filming. Not cheap that.
POINT BREAK 2 (2015)
Coming this Christmas. It faces the final instalment of the Hunger Games trilogy (in four parts) and the new totally awesome looking Star Wars. Gulp. It’s not a sequel, more an ‘inspired by’ as the criminals in the new one aren’t just surfers. They seem adept at every extreme sport known to man. Apart from kayaking and skateboarding. But who knows those could be in the final edit. Whilst the trailer has been met with universal derision and vitriolic hate by fans of the original we’ll have to wait and see if it can harness any of the charm of the inspirational material. All we know is somehow they’ve taken the incredible spectacle of huge Teahupoo and CGI’d the surfers even smaller?! Which seems a bit daft seeing as it will blow the mainstream viewer away as is.
So there you go. Over fifty years of surfing in the cinema and we’re still waiting on one that we can really be truly proud of.
So. The media fanfare has died down. The many column images erroneously proclaiming the ‘best wave in the world is now in North Wales’ are tonight’s chip wrappers, or they would’ve been when that was still a thing.
The froth from the mainstream press was fitting for a lake filled with brown bubbles. And froth there should be. This is a big, expensive, landmark project. The first step in public consumption of WaveGardens. A huge investment, a much needed bit of regeneration providing vital employment and a big tourist draw for a part of the UK that’s one of our most beautiful.
Sure it’s not six foot and barrelling as promised.
But, and here’s the big but (I like them, I cannot lie), this, by now world famous pond with man size ripples, is still an experiment. The Basque chaps that invented the whole deal haven’t built one this big before. Which is why the crew from the very protected secret R&D site in the Basque bit of Spain are in North Wales tweaking and testing and finessing even now it’s open. They’re not going to come out of the gates at full sprint.
https://youtu.be/hhhtsn42YIc
Think of an ocean wave. The variables in height, period, angle and the all important bottom contour. Then apply that to a system which isn’t a wind generated wave but thrown up by a snow plough with attitude. If you’ve got even the slightest grasp of science you’ll figure this is impossibly complex. The slightest change in water depth will make a big difference. Local winds same. Wave frequency. The speed of the plough. The angling and design of it. Currents in the lake are different to the original. The whole feel is different and I say that as someone that’s bobbed around in the Basque site twice.There’s so much going on that it’s probably going to take two or three WaveGardens before they build one that appeases the lounge bound internet warriors.
So they’re learning. They’re working on it. If you’ve seen some of the video footage you’ll know there’s a wide variation in what’s going on wave wise.
The main thing I came away from visiting was this: when it’s actually working it looks fun as hell. It’s not at the stage for pros to show off their finest moves, some more experimenting is needed, but for the average Joe, you and I, the people it is actually aimed at, it looks amazing.
Five or six turns every wave? Yes please. Thirty second rides? Don’t mind if I do. Sleep in the cute little pods that overlook the lake after I’ve nailed a few beers at the on site cafe and filled my tummy with a cracking kebab from the nice chap across the road? Sure thing.
Am I disappointed it’s not six foot and barrelling. Of course. We all are. But it’s a first attempt at going bigger. And it’s an obvious improvement from the original. Everyone involved can only be applauded for having the balls to commit.
If you want to fill comment boards with bile, knock yourself out, I’m going to book me a session. Because surfing is fun. And surfing in a lake in the spectacular bit of North Wales is something you couldn’t do until a few days ago. Sure it’s not the sea. It never will be. It’s not meant to be. It’s just another avenue to get your sliding fix. And if you live in North Wales and the NW of England, hell even the east coast of Ireland, slidable bits of salt are in pretty short supply.
ps: Sure the water is brown. The freshwater is from a reservoir. It’s UV treated. I got a head full and a few mouthfuls from shooting. I’m not dead. I hope. To make it like a swimming pool would be unnecessary expense and polluting when they drain the water into the local river to refill with fresh.
pps: Thanks to Jobe Harriss, Ben (and 7-year old Lucas) Skinner and Reubyn Ash for being guinea pigs.
As you galavant across the beach to the ocean this summer spare a though for the ground up stuff under your feet. The very thing that makes the sandbars your waves break over is more interesting than you might think.
‘Just bust up shells ain’t it?’ you cry.
Well. Sure there’s a good portion of pulverised shellfish houses in there. Depends on where you are in the country, or world, of course as to the mix and the specific history but we’re interested in the stuff that’s ground up rock. That’s got a much more interesting tale to tell. We’ll take Cornwall as an example.
Back in the day when we was all nowt but cosmic gas floating around a confused yet to be solar system there wasn’t any beaches or surf or planets. Somewhere in the region of 4.6 billion years ago we did some accreting and from the solar nebula a fiery lump of space real estate we now call Earth settled into position. It wasn’t the most hospitable place. What with it being molten, toxic and prone to frequent asteroid bombardment. That and no one had invented the internet or lattes yet.
Over time (really really lots of time like mind snapping amounts to be honest) things cooled down and a solid crust formed. Thanks to volcanism we got an atmosphere and rain. From where that liquid water gave us oceans. Which is handy for surfing in so many ways.
Skip forward a few billion years and early life is flopping around in a microscopic manner. But the Earth has been busy. We’ve got continents. Mountain ranges. Erosion. Plate tectonics doing the first ever recycling and those early volcanic rocks have now gone on to be other stuff.
At some point in what them geology folk like to call the Devonian period, roughly 400 million years ago, a big wodge (technical term honest) of mud got laid down at the bottom of an ocean. Those muds got progressively buried and became rocks. A blink of an eye (well, 100 mill or so) later those same rocks got intruded. And yes it’s as painful as it sounds. Thanks to early continents having a bit of a prang things got a bit bent out of shape giving Pembrokeshire, the Gower, Devon and Cornwall those bendy folded rock layers. It got a bit hot and tasty as molten magma melted or cooked those rocks over a vast area. The remains of those magma chambers, yep, the bits you get under volcanoes, are the granite moors of Cornwall like Bodmin and Dartmoor. The cooked metamorphic slates are the stuff that makes the famous cliffs of Cornwall. It was this cooking of the sedimentary rocks that gave us the tin and the mines and such.
So when you trot across the beach the grains of sand are either shell bits, ancient volcano plumbing, especially the further west you get in Kernow, or an ancient sea bed that’s been cooked and mutilated. Both are millions of years old. So that grain of sand ain’t just a grain of sand. It’s a little speck of history.
Words & Photo By Sharpy Originally published in Carve 162, on sale now.
