News

Its taken a long time but the new website is finally online. What began with a trip to Jon (a really good St Ives surfer) at Fuse2 8 months ago for a cup of tea and a chat about a ‘few minor tweaks’ mushroomed into a full scale revamp that involved the designers at Dis-similar and a month hunched over a keyboard, eyeballs bleeding and a severe case of repetitive strain injury from date input.

I have to say I am pretty pleased with he results so far but its clear that I am going to have to devote a bit more time to keeping this baby up and running – more time out of the water but I reckon its worth it.
The plan was to make the site a little more interactive rather than just be an advert for our services and to have more interesting video content for our customers to look at. There will be loads more videos getting posted up there in the coming weeks.
It ain’t Facebook but it ain’t bad either. I hope you enjoy it and if you have any ideas on how it could be improved then send me a message.
In other news Paddy Daniel, our young aspiring surf coach, has been sent to Peru to compete in the World Junior Surfing Games and we wish him the best of luck.
Go Paddy!

The Godrevy Pro Junior was completed earlier today in obscenely poor conditions. Howling South winds smashing the rights to bits and making the lefts, to my mind, all but un-surfable – but the groms proved me wrong.

They took to it with gusto and I have to single out a young chap called Jobe Harris who tore what remained of the waves to shreds. He won both the Under 16’s and Under 18’s (no mean feat for a 16 year old) and impressed anyone who watched him – except the other competitors of course. He’s got a really mature and powerful style so I reckon he could be one to watch.
He’s off to Peru in mid May with local lad Paddy Daniel to compete for Britain in the World Junior Surfing Games so keep an eye out for them in the coming weeks.
Well done to the National Trust, Robyn Davies and Nick Holden for putting on such a great event. Can’t wait till next year.

Under 18 Girls
1st Tassy Swalow
2nd Emily Currie
3rd Peoni Knight
4th Flora Lawton

Under 16 Boys
1st Jobe Harris
2nd Miles Lee Hargreaves
3rd Paddy Daniel
4th Max Payne

Under 18 Boys
1st Jobe Harris
2nd Miles Lee Hargreaves
3rd Harry de Roth
4th Taz Knight

I am gutted because April will never be the same again. It was that good.
The best run of swell, sandbanks and good weather and all at the beginning of the season when the place is still relatively quiet. So much so that I am now pretty much surfed out and when I check the waves they have to be pretty good for me to bother! A very rare feeling.

The surf went off the boil for a couple of days over the Easter weekend but the wind has swung offshore again and it looks like it will stay that way for the rest of the week at least. More sunshine is predicted but they reckon it may be a bit cooler. Thats just the way it goes with Easterly winds normally but if thats the sacrifice I have to make for good surf then I guess I’ll have to take it.
Meanwhile Gabbi (surf school manager and my right hand man – its short for Ian Gabbitas) and I have to go up to Padstow in the week to do a course that will allow us to teach the new Academy of Surfing Instructors surf coach awards. They are a super high standard award so it will be a hard day I reckon but totally worth it. We have always prided ourselves on keeping the standards high with our surf coaches and the ASI is the gold standard of surf coaching in Australia – as good as it gets to my mind. The Australians certainly take surfing seriously and the surf coach awards are properly backed up by quality infrastructure and a decent support network. It can only benefit us to work more closely with them.
In other news my wife (and by association, me also) has re-homed a tortoise called Ged. It broke out of his pen in 2 minutes so we had to strengthen that straight away. Apparently he was too aggressive for its previous owner. I’m not too sure how this aggression manifests itself but I’ll keep you posted. Ged already hates the cat, perhaps recognising that he is a fat, lazy, feckless (though loveable) gadabout and hisses at him whenever he come nearby. If nothing else at least he is a good judge of character.

I know we’ve been open for a while now but I’ve just got around to sorting out the accompanying video. Check it out.

Yeah, I know. A week has passed and I haven’t updated. But look outside – its sunny, the sunniest April ever perhaps – and the surf has been un-be-lievable. Basically we have had almost two weeks of perfect surf which for the first time ever has coincided with the Easter holidays so we have been super busy. Best of all the sandbanks (or swell direction, whatever) have been as good as it gets. I have run out of superlatives to describe it.
As you can see.

The Easter weekend is now almost upon us and my good mate Dave has come back from his new home in London to share some of the waves again. Despite not surfing for the last three months he was out at 7am this morning and ripping it up like he used to when we were growing up (he lived two doors up from me as a kid). He’s had three surfs today and every land based minute was spent sunbathing so I’m guessing that the pint we are about to have in the Red River Inn will floor him. At least it will be a cheap night.
In other news we are sponsoring the Godrevy Pro Junior again. Its on in a fortnights time (7th and 8th of May) and should be good to watch. You won’t be able to catch this one online so get down the beach and watch the best juniors in Britain surfing in the flesh.