Posts Tagged ‘Surfing’

This is Cut Across Shorty a VS 4c climb, courtesy of The Jersey Rock Climbing Club:

I was going to tackle the British Isles as a group, but Jersey has so much to offer – great climbing, surfing and scuba diving to name just a few of the recommended activities, that I am going to go no further than this jewel of an island where a weekend full of action is waiting for anyone looking for a variety of extreme sports in one small area.

Climbing is a great way to get a body workout, while at the same time challenging your mind, and Jersey has a wide selection for you. The island has some of the best climbing areas in Europe and the variety of rock and unspoilt scenery make it a spectacular experience for beginners and experienced climbers alike.

It’s an ideal place to visit: perfect days, un-crowded cliffs and great climbing, regular dips in the sea to cool off and great pubs to retire to at the end of the day.

From the impressive 50m tower of The Pinnacle to the extensive and confusing buttresses of Grosnes, through the delightful ‘mini-cliffs’ at Corbiere and out to the north coast, there really is plenty here to keep you busy.  Homesick Angle on The Pinnacle is one the the best HVS (hard very severe) routes you could possibly hope for.

All the routes on the island (there are 1100 listed in the book) are trad and most of them are on high quality granite. The island has long been a bolt-free zone – the local climbing club originally had just two rules for the members – abide by the Country Code, and no fixed protection!

If you want to arm yourself in advance with some useful information, ‘Jersey Climbs’ is the first guidebook to be produced for Jersey in twelve years. It has 188 pages with lists, grades, advice and details of the 1100 routes  to be found there.

And then there’s the surfing…

Jersey’s shores are bombarded by waves and not only are they some of the best waves in the British Isles but they are also some of the warmest… always worth bearing in mind.

And there are great scuba diving opportunities here too, whether you want to investigate an old wreck or float amongst black faced pennies, corals and luminous jewel anemones in pinks, blues, greens and oranges. The summer months are even more interesting when the warm waters bring in  exotic marine wildlife  such as sea horses, dolphins and basking sharks. Jersey’s coastal seawater is of award-winning cleanliness and this is reflected in the abundance of sea life to be found there.

Other things you can do in Jersey besides rock climbing, abseiling and surfing are BloKarting on the beach, Sea Kayaking, Caving, Coasteering, Clay Pigeon Shooting, Cycling, Golf, Powerboat Trips, Fishing Excursions, Horse Riding and Zorbing. I’ve probably missed some out.

Not just a banking paradise then…

And we’re talking about a surfing competition here…. However, we are also talking about a juvenile competition so perhaps that makes a difference? Juvenile being under-18’s. In this particular case we are talking about the ISA Quiksilver Juvenile Surfing Championships in New Zealand. But what about everyone else?!

Interesting combination the New Zealanders – well at least today has been interesting from a news point of view: first they publicly photograph and name their most famous soldier in action in Afghanistan – almost definitely to the detriment of his safety, and yet they proclaim a total ban on alcohol for a sport renowned for its laid-back-ness and total cool factor.  Hmmmm…… Is there an anomoly here?

But back to the extreme sport we are meant to be talking about and not the extremeness of a country’s reporting quirks…

The Quiksilver ISA World Junior Surfing Championship, an Olympic style event, is the biggest annual surfing event in the world for Under 18 surfers, considering the surfing level, amount of competitors and participating countries. This is the pinnacle of the juvenile career of every junior surfer around the planet.

The 21 participating countries in New Zealand 2010 are: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Fiji, France, Great Britain, Hawaii, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Peru, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Tahiti, United States of America, and Vanuatu.

This is the first time it has been held in the Australasia region. New Zealand being a natural choice because of its coastline packed with consistent waves.

It is reported that police are stepping up their presence for the championships at Piha Beach, west of Auckland, to ensure the event is trouble free and enjoyable for everyone.

The championships started on Thursday and up to 15,000 people are expected to crowd south Piha during the week long event.

“The primary focus of police will be on enforcement and compliance of the 24 hour liquor ban that is already in existence, the increased traffic flows to and from Piha, a zero tolerance to speeding driver behaviours, and merging with the daily crowds,” they say.

Officers from throughout the Waitemata and the Auckland police districts plus highway patrol, traffic alcohol group and team policing units will be on duty.

Ouch!

Behave everyone!!!

Piha Beach is a great location as it is considered to be one of Auckland’s most adventurous playgrounds for keen surfers. It was the birthplace of New Zealand board riding in 1958, and has been the scene of both New Zealand national and international surfing championship competitions.

However, it is a dangerous coast, the rip currents along this section of coast are very unpredictable and can shift with little warning, but the surf is relatively predictable and the life-savers very good at their jobs! Obviously they are not imbibing alcohol when on duty!

Tut-tut… I must be serious…

I am able to report that there was plenty of swell about for the first day of surfing, although it was a bit crumbly… possibly due to too many mixes and not enough spirit?

Enough, enough. Good luck everyone. Hope you have fun.

The last day of the Quiksilver Pro France at Seignosse, France saw 15-year-old Brazilian wonder kid, Gabriel Medina win the Quiksilver World King Of the Groms Finals in historic style. Medina scored a maximum possible 20-point combined heat score in the final in an unbelievable display of surfing talent.

The two perfect 10-point scores were given by the judges, which rewarded Medina’s incredible technical ability. Few surfers in the world today can boast such a repertoire of aerial manoeuvres, even fewer can perform this level of surfing heat after heat in a competition environment.

This is a kid to keep an eye on.

Thanks to digomaresias and RipCurl for the video.

It’s the Xperience09 Weekend at Tynemouth, North Tyneside on the weekend of the 24th and 25th October – the second time round for this competition. Thousands of extreme sport enthusiasts and spectators from across Europe are expected to gather there.

A weekend of extreme sports… what more could you possibly want?! There will be BMX, in-line skating, surfing and snow sports on offer. Even better, if you’re just planning on going along as a spectator you will be able to join in on the action and hone your skills by learning new tricks from the pros.

Team Extreme, the organisers of the event, have been in the business for 20 years and know everything there is to know about extreme sports. They will not disappoint with this event.

The serious part of the event is the surfing. This is the UKPSA North East Open, part of the Triple Crown of Surfing.  Dozens of surfers from around the world will be there to compete for prize money and tour points in the icy North Sea at Longsands Beach, including the current men and women open champions, Sam Lamiroy and Caroline Perret

The North East can provide some of the best quality waves in the country, though the swell unfortunately only lasts for a short period of time. However, surfers are known to accept challenges anywhere and as  Dave Reed of UK Pro Surf says, “We had a fantastic event last year at Tynemouth.  To be associated with all the other activities raised the profile of not just surfing but all extreme sports  and we look forward to returning to Xperience09!”

But, this is not just a surfing weekend – it is an EXTREME SPORTS weekend too. Some of the best UK snowboarders and skiers will be there demonstrating their skills as they catch some serious air on the specially built ramps and if you fancy giving something a go, you will be able to try the snow tubing ramp for free.

For avid BMXers and skateboarders, Team Extreme will be offering coaching sessions and a massive Big Top will also feature a half pipe and skatepark. There will also be a smaller skatepark for younger participants hoping to fine tune their skills at a tender age.

In addition there will be live music, DJ’s, urban art and the country’s leading beatboxers including Bellatrix – the Queen of Beatboxing (c4mc4st):

Xperience’09 is set to be bigger and better this year…

For more information visit www.xperience-festival.com The full schedule will be confirmed shortly.

“Oh man it is not easy out there with the cold and the paddle, no jet-ski assist, massive paddle, freezing, but man, the waves are insane!” said Kekoa Bacalso, Hawaii.

A late start, but off at last, the Billabong Pro is starting its second day today. The waves at the legendary South African pointbreak yesterday were clean three-to-five foot (1.5 metre) and the world’s best surfers reveled in the opening day of competition.

Event No. 5 of 10 on the 2009 ASP World Tour, the Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay chose to make the most of the conditions on offer, opting to run the new competition format of man-on-man elimination matches from the outset, completing 18 heats of competition, highlighted with some incendiary performances.

“We’re sending Curren and Occy out there right now for the Clash of the Icons, starting around 7:15am and then we’ll be straight into Round 2,” said Mike Parsons, Billabong Pro Contest Director, when explaining why they had decided to go with the new format. “We’ve got some nice waves this morning, but the consistency isn’t quite there to call on the dual-heat system for now. We’ll monitor conditions and if it seems viable, we’ll pull the trigger.”

This video of the 2008 highlights (billabongbrasil) is the sort of wave the competition are hoping they will get before time runs out:

However, in the meantime, this competition has begun and so has the fun.

The world’s 45 highest ranked surfers, including 8X World Champion and current run-away ratings leader Kelly Slater (Florida), reigning World Champion Mick Fanning, defending event champion Taj Burrow (AUS) and former 3X World Champion Andy Irons (Hawaii) are all here.

Also in Jeffreys Bay are a whole panel of A-list surf journalists, photographers and videographers documenting, for national and global distribution, TV footage of each day’s action, saturating websites (including ours!) and webcasts worldwide with live video images and scoring accompanied by expert commentary in English, Spanish. Portuguese and French.

Although the waves were not memorable yesterday, rookie Nic Muscroft, who progressed to the second round after downing compatriot Josh Kerr in their Round 1 bout, had this to say: “It’s still a pretty challenging wave here though, especially with the sand build-up at the moment. It’s really fast.”

Heath Joske and South African veteran Sean Holmes are the only two wildcards through to the second round.

The forecast for the next three days … hmmm, not increasing it seems:

Well that’s bad news, but it seems to be the case.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, there is the possibility of a very small south 2- to 3-foot wind swell appearing Friday afternoon, which will be your best bet for a surf session before the upcoming doldrums.

So, as it’s Saturday and we’re off to do something exciting (though not surfing as the sea today is like a swimming pool down here in the Med), I thought I would just put a couple of teasers on the page for you… something you can dream about… for the next time.

It’s cheating rather as these fabulous waves are, of course, Teahupoo, with thanks to skatesurfsnowcom, and Teahupoo3.

For a bit of variety, have a look at some extreme Tasmanian slabs (AshBur7).

And we’ll end with a video from nzheraldtv showing the Billabong XXL nominees for 2009 on big extreme waves around the world:

Did I say a couple of teasers? Sorry, just couldn’t resist them…