1. Stormy Newquay – Stormy seas and high winds roll into Newquay. Most of the local surf spots being blown out and totally unsurfable. We recorded wind gusts in excess of 45mph. However this didn’t seem to put off the local groms who on tuesday waited until high tide to try and bodyboard the backwash waves crashing off the main wall. When this got too dangerous, they simply dodged big waves as they rolled into Towan bay and broke on the ramp – occassionally sweeping one or two of them back out into the bay. See photos of Towan Bay here.
2. Boscombe Reef officially opens - while generally speaking artificial reefs are a great thing, its still hard to get over the fact that an artifical reef in Newquay would have been much more likley to produce world class waves year round than one in Bournemouth as the latter relies on the English channel. That said the regeneration work in the area of Boscombe and all the new jobs and improvements it has brought are all good things – lets hope the artificial reef works out well too. There’s been a huge amount of coverage from the local press on the development of the reef, however the BBC have also put together an article as the reef is officially opened this week – Read the BBC news article on Boscombe Reef here.
3. Over 50s Surf Competition – At the weekend the Huntington Beach City Council on Aging held the 2009 Southland Senior Olympics Surfing Competition in Huntington, California. The competition was open to men and women who were 50 and over, and you could surf either a longboard or shortboard in the competition. Reckon if you can still rip on a shortboard in your fifities and sixties you must be insanely fit! Photos of the event can be found here.
4. Top 10 places in the World to Surf – You wouldn’t really associate the Daily Telegraph with the world of surfing, however as a spin-off on reporting on the Boscombe Reef the Telegraph wrote an article on the best places in the world to surf this week. No major surprises in the Top 10 list - I guess they might have just watched Endless Summer and read a chapter of Alex Wade’s SurfNation but it’s good to see surfing in the news… and in the broadsheets too - Read the article here
5. UK’s first £1000.00 Train ticket! – Yes, the nation’s most expensive train ticket now comes in at over £1000.00 and its a return ticket from Newquay up to a remote part of the Scottish Highlands and back again. Of course it’d be cheaper to fly, buy a car & insure it or even catch a luxury cruise ship up the coast, but this sensationalist piece of news certainly got people talking about the rising cost of rail travel – Read the news piece here.
