Patrick Barkham: on surfing in Britain
Features
Jack Johnson. Flip-flops. That Guinness advert. Stitchless technology. Silent movies of the ocean showing in pubs. It is as if all kinds of random things have been thrown together by an enormous wave and carried to our shores. Surfing may have begun as a countercultural trickle, frozen out of British popular culture by small seas and an inconsiderate climate. Now it is a vast breaker. Once the exclusive domain of gilded young men, more than half a million people of all shapes and ages now surf regularly in Britain. This year, another half a million will join them.
Source: Guardian Unlimited
Date Published: August 10, 2006
Top 10 UK surf spots
Features
Surf's up in the UK this month, in fact it'll be up for considerably longer than that, but between now and mid-November is prime time for hitting the waves since relatively mild air and water temperatures combine with regular swells and less crowded beaches to give the best conditions of the year. Here are ten of the best options for some autumn surf action.
Source: Guardian Unlimited
Date Published: October 12, 2007
Coasteering and surfing in Woolacombe
Features
Our magical memories of childhood summer holidays in north Devon were too beloved to be spoilt by commercialisation, over-crowding, and two decades of change.
Source: Guardian Unlimited
Date Published: September 15, 2006
Hugnry Traveller: Surf and turf, Mediterranean style
Features
Sète is where the Canal du Midi meets the sea, allowing the town to style itself "the Venice of Languedoc". Sète's tourist literature alludes to "the effortless energy that exhumes from the Canal". Notwithstanding such breathless hype, Sète makes a great base for the food lover, or more specifically, for lovers of flesh. My day starts with a swing along the banks of the Bassin de Thau, where are farmed some of France's finest, fleshiest oysters.
Source: Guardian Unlimited
Date Published: August 11, 2006
Sun, surf and semillon sauvignon blanc
Features
Whether it is cheaper than therapy I don't know, but revisiting your past by aeroplane at least means you can get a ticket out again. I was quite an intellectual child and felt thoroughly deracinated when moved, at the age of 12 or so, from the relatively urbane environment of Sydney, on the east coast of Australia, to Perth, 4,000km away as the kookaburra flies across the flat, arid, lonely interior of the continent to the opposite, western shore.
Source: Guardian Unlimited
Date Published: February 06, 2006
The best surf break
Features
This surf break might be considered a bit obvious, given that surfing lore would generally hold that the best surf break is the one you reach after (single-handedly) hacking your way through the jungle with a machete. Waimea Bay is the antithesis of this; widely considered to be the birthplace of big surfing, it has nurtured legends such as Brock Little and Greg Noll.
Source: Guardian Unlimited
Date Published: February 09, 2006
All at sea
Features
Some things in life seem utterly alien. For me, it's always been surfers.
Source: Guardian Unlimited
Date Published: November 24, 2005
