Friday 28 January 2011

Whitstable and tweet club

Met up with Max Rowe to sample the delights of Whitstable today. Despite being super light, it was actually good fun. Could have done with my 100l TT instead of the 88 but other than that all was good.
Couple of snaps below (video stills):
 Really really light winds (kiters in the background on 13m...whatever that means...)
 Flat...no wind
Precious gust at the right time

Keep an eye out for a short webisode from the afternoons antics...don't get your hopes up too high though...It really was light! Good practice though, many of the events are held in this much wind!

Also... finally turned to Twitter and signed up, so if your signed up and care at all about what I'm up to... feel free to see what I'm doing..think the username is something like adamsimsk669...tweet club...oh yeh!

Alsoooo it's awesome to see freestyle on a bit of a come-back lately (posts all over the shop) and some recognition for it being radical from a self-confessed wave head, Graham from Surfmatic Blog. Legend!

Wednesday 26 January 2011

Cape Town done and dusted

So got back from Cape Town yesterday! Awesome flight, really empty so had a whole row of 8 seats to myself = 8 hours of solid sleep!!

To save a massive write up you'll have to check my column in the Feb issue of boards. Anyway last few days were awesome, here are a few pics from the whole trip...couldn't upload pics whilst out there?!?!
 Generally had a lake session in the morning (above) then to sunset around lunch (below) then big bay in the evening.
 Learning to push loop above, got that move sorted on Ben Proffitts birthday :) rigged up and first run off the beach landed it bolt up right (shame we were in too much of a hurry to get the video camera out)...ahh well Ben, George and a couple other people saw it and the bigger one after!
Had a 'slight' bush fire about 50m from our house... only burnt for about 4-5 hours....only
 Did a few cliff jumps on a trip to the waterfalls, awesome fun!
 Saw some of the local wildlife Baboons (above), penguins (below)
 Still from a video....so a bit blurred....
Had a couple of pretty big days at Sunset (mast high sets), below!
All in all a good trip and learnt a lot. Will be working on a video over next couple of weeks! Wind tomorrow and it's looking warm at 3 degrees...

More soon!

Friday 14 January 2011

SOUTH AFRICAAA - Cape Town

So have been in Cape Town for a week and a half now, with a week and a half to go! Time is flying by!

In a quick summary, the flight was good, the first few days were all about surfing as there was nothing in terms of wind, but the surf was good. Was nice to be eased into the shark fear then...wallowing around on a seal shaped board! Anyway all is good. We then had some light afternoons on the lake and finally the wind kicked in 4 days ago...full power everyday. We had a day off in between and visited the local waterfalls, which had some huuuuge jumps, good fun, profitt nearly killed himself though on the first jump!

Anyway the windsurfing has been really good the last few days we have had two sessions a day everyday, averaging probably like 5 hours on the water! Yesterday we went to Kraal bay, a freestyle spot for a bit of practice! Was an amazing spot, white sand beaches, wind was good, on 4.9's and 88l boards! Then today we sailed sunset and big bay, full full power on 4.1! hopefully get some pics up soon but had some good bbq's since I've been out here and living with a few of the UK wave tour guys is pretty motivating when it comes to moves!

More soon!

Sunday 2 January 2011

New year, new van and off to Cape Town

First off happy new year everyone.

So with the new year I have a new van!!! Exciting I know...well actually I've had it for a couple of months but just haven't had the time to kit it out until the last few days. So what is it... well a 2005 Ford Transit SWB Low roof, so much like the old black one but newer and with 50,000 less miles on the clock. The best bit is... it's bright orange, so the ultimate ginger-mobile. It's a bit too dark now for pics, but I'll get some in the morning and then at the end of the day tomorrow. To show the work that I manage to get done.

Being an ex RAC van it took me two days to strip all the fittings, wiring, random other bits and pieces out. Then the last two days I've been kitting it out with a ply-lining set I got from ebay, much less hassle and I think it is actually cheaper than buying the wood from the local timber yard (except it doesn't fit that well, so I have to keep making alterations, still less hassle then measuring and cutting each piece to fit).

I was lucky enough to pick up a few really old masts from my sponsors at seasprite a month or so ago and am now the proud owner of probably the worlds lightest double bed! Oh yeh... Also the van is equipped with an internet cable...I've yet to try it out but hopefully I can hack into the RAC network... mmmmeeeeeeee! Or more likely not and I'll just attach a dongle jobby to the end of the internet cable jobby and have the same setup...or just use my iphone!

Finally I'm off to Cape Town in two days...good news for everyone at home as the wind looks like it is filling in here and disappearing out there!! Anyway its 30 degrees out there so I'll just take my red surf board out with me... der...der......der...der.....der..der..der.der..derderderderderderderrrr!!!

Anyway more tomorrow on the van and what I'm packing for Cape Town!