Thursday 12 November 2009

Croyde Contest Update


OK, I'm holding my hands up on this one. Proving I'm as normal and gaff prone as anyone else, In this weeks Journal column I gave the wrong date for the latest Croyde Surf Club contest. The contest is now slated for Saturday Dec 5th. Normal 9am checkin etc etc - NOT THIS WEEKEND!!
Hopefully we'll have some quality waves and it will be unseasonably hot!! I can dream.....
(Any other mistakes, errors or inaccuracies are unintentional, please let me know if you spot any as I want to keep everything as accurate as possible, cheers)

For more club & contest info visit croydesurfclub

Tuesday 10 November 2009

Cottys big wave oddessy


This is a piece on Cotty that I did for the North Devon Journal, Unfortunatley they had to trim it down a bit due to space restrictions so I thought I post the article in full.

Andrew Cotton - Croyde

With Autumn well and truly here, and the nights creeping in, denying many the chance of an after work surf, the surfing exodus begins as people head to warmer waters and world class waves. The Bali bail-out has already begun leaving the local line-ups that little bit quieter. Some of the areas top young surfers will spend the next couple of months cramming as much quality wave time to boost their performances and hopefully improve on their 2009 successes.

One person happy to be back home is Croyde surfer Andrew Cotton. Line-up caught up with the him following his latest globe-trotting monster surf seeking trip, which saw him covering almost 8000 miles in ten days to surf some of the biggest waves in two oceans.

30 year old RNLI lifeguard, and Pro-surfer Andrew “Cotty” Cotton has followed an unconventional path even by surfing standards. Following a pretty successful 2005 season on the British Pro tour, culminating in the champion of champions event held in Sri Lanka, he rekindled a long time friendship with Irish surfer Alistair Mennie (have a ganders at www.almennie.com ,big waves and Irish lunacy). Since then, the two friends have gone on to forge a reputation as one of the top Tow-Surf teams in the world. Their exploits began on the wild western coast of Ireland at a menacing break called Aileens. Breaking beneath 700ft sheer cliffs, this Atlantic monster offers some of the biggest surfable waves in the world with faces of 40-50ft.The team have since gained accolades and even a Billabong XXL bigwave award nomination for their trail-blazing exploits and have featured in the documentary Driven, a film that catalogues their Irish adventures.

And that's where his most recent trip led him to first.

“We'd seen a chart that we knew was perfect for Aileens, so I was getting ready and making plans when we got a call from the states.” Said Andrew as we chatted at his home in Croyde at the weekend

The two had been invited as the only European entrants in the invitation only Nelscott reef Tow classic the unofficial start of the tow-surf season with a world class field of big wave riders.

“We were really stoked to be invited to the contest, but we didn't want to miss Ireland as it looked like it would be epic.”

“Luckily everything worked out as the contest date was rolled back a day and we had just enough time to hit Ireland beforehand. So I had a mad dash via Bristol and Belfast followed by a 7 hour van ride for our first session at Aileens.”

“The waves were huge, it was almost too big to surf! It was critical stuff with the real prospect of not being able to get close enough to pick each other up in the event of a wipe-out.”

He usually plays down the dangers faced surfing giant waves, but mentions “Heaving death-pits and close calls.” when talking me through this particular session.

“It was great though and probably the biggest its ever been surfed”

Following a full on day of adrenaline fuelled giant Irish keg riding it was the small matter of the 48 hour dash to Oregon's pacific coast for the comp. As forecast the contest ran in 20ft+ waves.

“It was a great event. Ireland had been the perfect warm up for us. We were fresh and able to enjoy ourselves on the big open faces that Nelscott offers. I had a good surf and was pleased with my performance and had a really good spell driving Al into some real bombs.”

Cotty at Nelscott ©Richard Hallman/www.freelanceimaging.com

By the end of the day they finished 12th in the world class field. With Cotty 24th in the individual rankings. Rather than resting on their laurels the 2 big-wave junkies immediately headed via another long drive to Portland airport to start the next leg of their big wave odyssey. The charts were showing Ireland was going to pump, AGAIN, and their home break was calling. So several airports and a few thousand miles later the boys found themselves back on Eire's spectacular Atlantic coast towing big waves and grinning like Cheshire cats despite the lack of sleep.

“Its been mental, I've drunk more caffeine and travelled more miles than I thought possible. We didn't stay in the same place for more than eight hours”

What does the future hold? “ We've got 2 Hawaiian tow contest invites in the new year, again these are invite only, we'll be on standby for the 48hr call from the 1st of January. Jaws will be the big one I think. We'll continue to do our thing in Ireland as and when the swells hit. Our sponsors have been fantastic. The Thatch in Croyde have supported us so much in sponsoring the ski for the last 2 years, West wetsuits have paid entry fees and Analog have given me help, motivation, cash and support and can't thank them enough”

The question why do you do it Leads to a pause, a grin and a fumbled eeerrrr...

Did I mention he's done all this with a busted cruciate ligament and wearing a knee brace??

The exploration of big wave surfing will continue and we'll keep you updated on his progress over the coming months.

Monday 2 November 2009

CSC contest


This weekend sees the last contest in the Croyde Surf Club calendar, the Steve Mckewan Memorial. Hoping for some decent swell, and some sun would be good for photos, though not going to get my hopes up too much. Hope you like the poster design(mine if you couldn't guess!!) Currently sorting through some photos from the last couple of swells to hit the North Devon coast (as well as doing an interview for this weeks Journal with Big wave headcase Cotty- check out the photos on thursday).
Captured some good stuff, lots of pretty waves & lineups etc. Didn't get loads of surf action due to the tricky winds and ragged nature of the swell, the ones I got however are pretty good. Heres a sneak peek of Croyde doing its low tide thing.


Check of my surf galleries for some of the recent action.

Wednesday 16 September 2009

ONEDAY - Woolacombe

ONEDAY



Spent the day in Woolacombe with Wavedreamer film-maker Richard Gregory shooting footage for his latest project "ONEDAY Woolacombe".

New Surf Galleries

Croyde-GalleySaunton-Gallery

New surf photo galleries uploaded...sun surf and another dawn till dusk mission on the North Devon coast. Not the epic conditions we'd all hoped for but a good day in the water none the less. Surf photo action from Saunton and Croyde, enjoy..........

Wednesday 1 July 2009

Well we've had surf, wind, lots of rain and even some sun...sounds like summer in Devon to me. First an apology for neglecting the blog recently. With surf , contests, articles, family it seems there is never enough time. I started several new posts but they never made it to completion and time kept marching on. Enough of the excuses, on with stuff whats happened.

Waxer sprays the crowd as Croyde A lift the North Devon Cup.

My first lineup article for the Journal passed off OK, all pretty accurate and even spelled right, this weeks not quite so good. I'd managed to string a pretty good piece together about the North Devon Cup only to find that someone had inserted text about the King of the Groms right in the middle....aaahhhh!
The North Devon Cup all shiny and new

The North Devon Cup at Woolacombe was great, although I did have to turn down the evening of free beer(a first for me), lots of surfers from across North Devon coming together to enjoy a day of competitive surfing and social drinking(big thanks to Dan Newsome for sorting out a cracking day). Sounds like Saunton want to host the next one and we all know how good their BBQ's are!
Saunton show that they are the champs when it comes to sand fights
I've scored a couple of great surf sessions, getting new angles, and ace lookin waves. Unfortunately for me that meant foregoing the fun of swimming around with my housing and instead scrabbling across rocks and gully's trying to avoid being cut to ribbons on the barnacles or dropping a fairly expensive bit of kit in the sea. Pleased with the results.
where every surfer wants to be.......low tide perfection at Croyde

I went to Subway, next to Barnstaple's Tesco store, the other day for the launch of their Summer Surf Lifesaving promotion. All good fun with Bideford's top pro surfer Sophie Hellyer in attendance as ambassador for Surf Life Saving GB, Check out the subway scratch cards for surf prizes. Good fun and I got and ace sausage and bacon sub, well tastyMore stuff coming soon both here and in LINEUP over the next few weeks
Stand Up Paddle boarding, more contests, profiles, longboarding, and I promise to keep it more regular....honest

Tuesday 16 June 2009

Where has the last 3 weeks gone?


Croyde at the Weekend

The easy way to answer this question is to go back through my archive and look at the photographic evidence and work it out from there. Not the easiest thing at the mo as the office in a state of flux, caused by me getting a new laptop and now having photos strewn across 3 systems and numerous hard drives. One of these days I will get organised, I might even solve the problems of were to stash my kit so the kids can't get to it and I don't have to move half the furniture to gain acsess(maybe).

Croyde last week

We've been blessed with some great swell and I've scored some good water sessions, swiming round snapping unwary riders as well as trying to produce some new wave imagery. The summer sun is starting to warm the waters, but its still a cold place to be if you're immersed for a couple of hours although I've finally ditched the gloves!!


Paddle4relief memorial circle, Croyde 13th June

Spent most of Saturday over a Saunton covering the Paddle4relief charity paddle to croyde and back. Luckily I didn't have swim the whole way, thanks to James and the crew of the Saunton IRB who motored me about and managed to not run me down when I was swiming about.



I'm currently getting everything ready for my weekend at Goldcoast oceanfest in Croyde this weekend. Must remember all the batteries, chargers, leads, bags, lenses etc, nearly forgot them last week on the Bungee weekend - won't be making that mistake!!!
Looks like the weather is going to be perfect and we may even have a little tickle of surf. I'll be the lunatic trying to snap everything alongside this years photo team of Gordon, Dan, Matt, Pete & Dave. We've even got snapper Tshirts this year and hopefully I'll be sponsored by Tuborg(or my hangover will).

See you there