For those who aren’t getting a hard copy of the actual DVD, I just uploaded the trailer from the WST06 DVD I have put together, check it out below, it’s also on YouTube:

It’s 21 days today that Elise (my girlfriend) will be coming over from the USA to see me. To say that I am stoked about seeing her, would be the understatement of the century.

She has never been to the UK before, so it will be really cool to show her around and hopefully give her a good idea of what it is like to live in England. We’ll probably do some of the London sites, check out Richmond and the surrounding area, as well as relax back in Essex and maybe go up to Cambridge to see some of the colleges, churches and pubs.

I am really excited and hope she will like it here, also looking forward to her meeting my friends and family.

All good, now back to work!

Here’s the first round of photos the Lee Bay Riders took of their trip to the summer flatness, check them out here.

Our week in Lee Bay was a great success. The (surf)riders re-grouped last weekend to make the annual trip down to North Devon for a little surfing, camping a few beers and a who lotta fun. Our week was characterised by lots of hot, sunny weather, small, but clean surf and plenty of time spent in the water and on the beach.

This year we hit Croyde, Woolacombe and Saunton again, the 4 riders with their quiver of boards. The first day had the biggest swell, which gave us a few fun rides on the 6′4 and 8′2, but no pits or barrels though
I think the best day must have been the 3rd day in. After surfing 11 hours on two consecutive days, I hit day 3 feeling a little tired, but still up for it. The difference this time, was that I decided to take it back to where it all began, the 8′2 Mitch. Trying to catch a 2ft wave with a 6′4 board is nobody’s idea of fun, so I went big, went retro, and took it back to the old skool with the 8′2.

It was like bonding with an old friend again. I must have got 50 waves that day, if not more, rights, lefts, grabbing the railing, walking along the deck etc. I spent so much time up at the nose that I may as well have picthed my tent there. Hang time with 5 toes over became commonplace and I was digging it big style.

Another thing I noticed this year, apart from the summer crowds and surf school foamy crews, was that the water was warm, maybe in the 20 degree range, which meant that I could surf (for the first time ever) in just board shorts. Granted, when the breeze picked up, the shivers set in, (after spending 3 consecutive hours in the water) but apart from that it was pretty toasty.

I must mention though, that although it is great seeing more people take up surfing and getting out in the water and trying things, that surf schools need to educate people more about etiquette, as I lost count of the number of times a foamy rider dropped in on me, when I had clearly been on the wave for at least 20 seconds. They need to do something about this, as it i just plain dangerous when you are riding a 8′2 board. I took a few people out on the way, as did Lukey on his bodyboard, but hey it is all part of the fun I guess. This time around we only have a few scars and dings to our boards, but it could have been worse.
All in all a good trip, we have a little footage, not enough for a DVD, but I might edit a short sequence together.

I now look forward to hopefully getting in some late summer/autumn/winter waves at Runton, as hopefully the swells become more consistent and bigger as we approach the latter half of the year. I should also have a little crew to go up there with, as I found out that an old school mate, Steven Sell now surfs, all good.
Onwards and upwards!

So Beej and I have got our sh*t all sorted, and just chilling now with a beer and pizza and watching a little bit of Twister, all good. Tomorrow is a 4am start, 5am on the road, hopefully in the water and catching some waves by 1pm.

Might be a while until I get online to update the blog, so to everyone who ain’t coming with us, well, unlucky.

P Dog, Lukey and Perrie, we’ll catch up with you guys on Sunday arvo and Monday, it is gonna be a quality week, lets hope the waves are there for us, fingers crossed.

Peace people, it’s time for a (Tesco Finest) cookie and tea break.

PS: Elise, not sure when I will next speak to you, but hope the hike went well, you were goo, and it was fun, catch up soon sweetheart x.

So after a while of not having comments on the blog (through some prick trying to spam me), I have decided to allow people to post comments again, so here we go guys and gals, let me know what you think of all this cr*p that I write!

All you have to do is click the link below next to the Posted in text and you are laughing.

PS: And yes that includes you as well Ms. Boyson, I wanna see plenty of state-side interest…

Inspired by my recent surf tour of the world, I am thinking about heading off again next year. I will escape the British winter again to hopefully head off to North, Central and South America. Rough idea of countries goes something like this:

• USA
• Baha (Mexico) - feature some Todos Santos, Cortez Bank, hook up with Mike Parsons, haha!
• Costa Rica - Witches rock, hang with Robert (August) and Wingnut
• Chile
• Peru
• Argentina
• Brazil

Mmm, lucky I am busy with the old web dev, looks like I am gonna need the finance. All good though, the dream is to basically surf as many places as I can before I am 30 years old. I have this thing where I write all the differnt breaks on my board bag, think I have got up to 50 destinations, world wide now. Will be kinda funny turning up in North Devon next week, where I am sure if there is any swell at all, people will be hustling over a 3ft slop, best I show them what I learned in Noosa, Fiji, Ocean Beach etc. No comparison really, even though the dominator crew (Mornington Peninsular crew) won’t be there, I will put in a good show for the crowd, haha!

And so after 3 months of extremely hard graft, the WST06: World Surf Tour DVD is now complete. The first few copies are coming off the burner and I am getting read to send them to various people I met on the tour.

The short flim is about 50 minutes long, with about 15 or so different scenes. The footage is a mxiture of surfing, travel and a bit of fu*king around, so a little something for everyone really. Although the language in the film is a bit strong, (so anyone who gets upset with the C word, the F word etc will surely be in for a treat), the dialogue is pretty chill, so all good.

Next video project looks to be a doco about our forthcoming Devon surf trip, keep ya eyes peeled folks!

So although this isn’t a.) ground breaking and b.) particularly interesting, we had a load of new bins delivered by Uttlesford District Council today. We get a green one for recycling, a black one for kitchen waste and a brown one for non-recyclables. Anyway my point is that it is great to see the council doing something for the community and trying to make it a greener place to live in. Now that everyone in the village has “green facilities” on their doorsteps, there really is no excuse for anyone in Elsenham not to recycle.

Lets hope everyone helps out to make it a postitive step for the community and the local environment.

Ride on!

So it was my girlfriend’s birthday today, she is off to see the Boston Redsox tonight as a little bday treat, which sounds like it will be good fun. I once went to see the DC Nationals play in Washington, the game was ok, but more amusing was when my lady got chucked out for having a beer, quite funny.

Anyway babe, hope you have a wicked time tonight, shame there is this thing called the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of us at the moment, but hey, less than 5 weeks now until you come over, cant wait, love ya!

PS: Expecting to get muchos sh*t from Sulli for this post, but hey Sulli, when your quiver is as big as mine (see previous post), then you can comment brah, haha!

PPS: There is a typo on pic below, Mini Mitch, not Mini Micth, whatever!