May..New Van,Late frosts and not enough surf!!

Well , May has been a very busy month with lots of up and downs here at the land, The chickens have settled in wonderfully and continue to provide us with an egg each and every morning like clockwork, getting problems with rats creeping in and tunneling underneath the  coup,not sure how much this stresses out the chooks but they keep stealing the food from the feeder, no matter how many attempts we make at blocking there their progress they always get the better of us.mmmmmm.
As for the land itself ,its starting to get a little greener but still waking up to the occasional frost in early may, not good as its destroyed my potatoes, i hope they recover sufficiently,didnt expect frost in middle of may ,as we are around  ten miles inland from the coast we dont get the salty warm air of the coast in the morning,we have woken up many a morning to slight frosts and nothing of the sort on the coast where we work,All a  learning process i guess, only affected the potatoes and runner beans i had planted, most other veggies ive left in the polytunnel until they are ready, the carrots are under the ground but the potatoes have taken a real hit,its very depressing to see those wonderful green leaves all turn to black and wilt.
Had a busy time in the polytunnel getting it dug over and potting and seeding all the seedlings,very exciting,with all the cold weather weve been having ive been worrying about the warmth in there but they seem fine.

Weve bought a new van (well second hand ) because our car derived van is just getting too small,once we have our boards and wetsuits and a few bits in there it was just no room spare,so weve got a larger transit type van for £2400, i really dont like buying a new vehicle but needs must, very sad to see the old van go, got 1600 for it froman old school mate so it was nice to pass it on to someone i know.spending alot of our time now converting the van into a camper for us to have somewhere to sleep in an emergency and enjoy the summer  with, weve enlisted the help of a friend whom is great at carpentry and all that stuff so thats been a great help as its been hard finding the time between work hours to fit it.in. The van has finally been finished after a month of hard work on it,we are very happy with it but took longer than we expected,got room for the boards to slip under the seat come bed, gas stove and leisure battery with a plug to charge our laptop ,phone etc,more hi tech than our home!!on that subject,with the long nights ,not dark until at least 10-1030pm we havent even used any candles or lights towards the end of may .The compost toilet is working a treat, seems to be rotting down nicely with all the leaf and straw in there, reckon well only need to empty once this season,no smell at all!! oh and we had to stop using the river water to wash as we both had cuts turning septic and had to take antibiotics,not good ,the doctor said that the water maybe putting to many bad bacteria on our bodies and the good bacteria cant cope with it to equalize it all out, so we now use rainwater or tap water from work,not proven if its the river water but weve had no problems since weve stop using it..getting a few nice sunny days at the end of the month but still not enough surf,weve been so busy with all the plants and the van so not been to bad,reallly need to get in the water more,the sea is around 12-13degrees and not warming up much lets hope the waves improve next month..

caravan or boat?

few leaves on the trees(view from caravan)

ready for action

the chicken dilemna and life in the woods..

Well ,as we enter april after the glorious end of march the weasther is very indecisive, frost one minute and blazing sun the next, got the polytunnel straight, all dug and ready for the tomatoes , cucumbers, aubergine, lots of sweet peppers and herbs. Cleared out the shed , got loads more room now, the chickens have settled in beautifully, just going to stick to 3 for now, they are  laying perfect eggs everyday and are starting to become attached to us and us to them, i personally dont eat meat, only fish, my wife is a cold blooded meat devourer!, because of our winter routine of surfing abroad for 5 months, the chickens will either be re-housed or as originally planned my wife expects to be eating them but she is getting very attached to them, although we talked last  night and she still says she wants to eat one of them at least so she is not the hipocrite i claim her to be as i wont eat anything i am not willing to kill, she wants to prove  to herself as much to me that she can do it, its an old debate and maybe i should toughen up a bit and stop being so sentimental about the birds but id find it difficult to see them come to a tasty demise, i jokingly called her a murderer,she licked her lips and replied,yes..delicious murder....anyway...
My cucumber, kale ,beetroot,and calabrese seeds have all pushed through the soil and looking healthy, just waiting to thin them out , choosing the healthiest looking`peppers and toms taking longer as expected..
Lots of pheasants roaming on the land at the moment,havent seen anymore deer for a few days.
Weve been washing with the stream water, id like to get it tested really,it looks clean and lots of life around the stream but you never know, we use it for washing up and washing us, we use fresh tap water from town for cuppas and drinking generally at the moment.we  still havent seen the need for a generator,we love living by candlelight and headtorch, with the late nights of our summers this really isnt proving a difficulty.
All cooking by propane in the caravan and the toilet is now a humanure composting bucket using straw and leaf mould, no problems.Heating is supplied by propane heater,it heats up the caravan lovely, even when there has been frost outside it takes minutes to get the place cosy, we would have a woodburner if it was worth it but it would just get too hot in there and we are only here for the warmer months its just not worth it, shame as weve got 6 acres of trees!! well have lots of fires anyway and the potash will go lovely on the plants.

Great to be home and our first chickens

Back in blighty and what a beautiful spring to welcome us back! The sun is shining and the first buds are appearing on the trees . Done my order with real seeds for our first veggies to get into the seed trays,loving the real seeds company  for their ethics, a small company in wales selling old reliable strains and heritage seeds,fingers crossed that their seeds are as good as they boast,put in peppers,gardeners delight toms,aubergine and cucumber so far as want them to get a good start and the weather is nice and warm.
Had a nice suprise yesterday morning as we lay in bed looking out at the stunning woodland view,two roe deer crossing right outside our caravan! love it! really cute, as they sauntered off we cracked on with a hard days work getting the polytunnel tidied up ,and finishing the chicken coups and fencing.
Still a bit exhausted from the 36 hour journey home but just cant stop working on the land once we get started,the surf is looking good at the moment and bloody cold as march is about as cold  as it gets as far as water temp goes in the atlantic,but with these nice sunny days i think im gonna brave it tomorrow...

Phoned around the county looking for some point of lay chickens,suprisingly difficult to get hold of,went to a place in redruth in the end, got three hybrids to start with ,very cute,they were very quiet on the journey home in their cardboard box,when we released them i was suprised how mellow they were! i had visions of them going crazy and not coming near us but they were immediately friendly and managed to pick them up without difficulty,lets hope that we fenced well enough to keep mr fox away.....

Peru,the longest waves of our lives...

As i sit here in sri lanka looking at the A frame reef in front of me with 24 surfers fighting and hustling for the few weak and insignificant waves that i didnt even bother to paddle out for this morning, my thoughts wandered to my  longest ride on a single wave. It was last winter and the place.. 'Chicama' in northern Peru.
I had been surfing at a left point called 'Huanchaco' for a couple of weeks or so and had been told that the legendary  chicama will only start to get good when huanchaco is far too big. One misty early morning i paddled out onto the point into the thick murky mists, (a common occurence in peru) and lo and behold, as i paddled over endless waves each getting bigger i soon realised today felt more powerful than previously. I could not see the sets as they stacked up on the horizon, it was a case of trust your instincts, (visibility was around 50 feet) , as i turned and took a thick heavy wave i looked over the top of the breaking wave as i bailed out and saw that actually the oncoming set was  huge, far beyond my comfort zone, alone , in the mists at dawn.
 I rode in  and back to the guest house to start packing for the two hour bus journey north, is it going to be big enough for it to work? its got to be worth a look..
Id heard of chicama, probably the longest left in the world over the years and seen photos in various articles claiming it was a very desolate place, nothing but desert ,mists and ridiculously long waves.
As we approached the small dusty town i was bristling with excitement to get my first glimpse of the famous wave and to see if the journey wasnt wasted, i was not dissapointed, the swell was stacking up out to the horizon! i couldnt tell how big it was but it was very definately on!
We booked into 'el hombre' guesthouse, one of the very first places there to cater to surfers needs and is also the name of the barrelling section of the wave that breaks out the front of the place, the accomodation was spartan and a bit damp and basic but the lady running the place made you feel part of the family and the photos and news articles on the walls were great to look at.

After unpacking the boards and having some lunch,we put on our suits and raced down the point to have our first taste of chicama. As we walked along a sandy/rocky track that skirts the sand dunes the smell of decay and death was in the air , as we turned a corner a huge and i mean huge sea lion was rotting in the sun! ,holding our breaths , we got to a  small rocky  beach which is the best entry point into the first peak, paddling hard to get out in time before the strong current drags you towards some nasty looking rocks, (it wasnt difficult but you couldnt hang around), its then that i took off into my first of many long rides down the point, i couldnt believe how mellow the wave is to ride as it makes its way reeling off down the point, at times you need to straighten out and wait for the wave to reform properly until suddenly you are racing off down the line again. It took me 2 waves to surf the entire length of the point which incidently is about 2kms! and the size was around 3-4ft with the occasional bigger set. At the end of the point you simply get out and walk the 20 minute walk back along the track and do it all again. It was after an hour or so that i decided i was going to time these rides on my stopwatch, i had a couple of nice rides of around 45 seconds and 1minute rides when a bigger set swung around the corner and with no one around me and a strong offshore blowing i took off on what became the longest ride of my life!. I put the stopwatch on as i came out of my bottom turn and raced along until the wave gave me the opportunity to cutback , then another and another , perhaps 15-20 or so then race another section then more cutbacks, this wave was way more lined up than the previous waves and with my thighs burning with exhaustion the wave finally closed out on me and i stopped my watch at....1 minute and 43secs!!Now a surfer averagely gets a wave that would last 10-20 secs long at most  places in the world and this was ridiculous, plus, i was only half way down the point! i waited in the same spot until another set came through and took another beauty all the way through to the end, i didnt time it but it was easily another minute ride! i couldnt wait to tell my wife (who,the next day got a ride of 1 minute 30 secs!! , this place is amazing, i spent another hour or so riding the second section near el 'hombre' and getting a couple of sweet little barrels just to put the icing on the cake, as i returned up the hill feeling like a hero and stoked to have had one of the best sessions of my life, the sun was just starting to set  and we sat with a cold beer and watched the endless sets of waves rolling mechanically along the point reflecting on how its a joy to have experienced something only a tiny preportion of people on the planet will ever witness, this evening was the most surreal and awe inspiring surfing moments ive experienced... 

First day,moving the caravan..





We will be updating this blog every week or so as of end of march as we will be back in the uk ready to commence our new life.. At the end of october last year we had our caravan moved up to our  plot. It was a nervous time the day of the move as the caravan hasn't really moved for at least 4 or 5 years and is getting pretty old now. Some friends of ours turned up on a lovely crisp sunny autumn morning with their landrover and hooked it up with minimal fuss and we were off, it was only ten miles to the land from the holiday park weve been living on for the last 3 years and couldn't have gone any smoother really.Our first major hurdle was the narrow access lane that we had to negotiate the caravan around, the first turn was done with little fuss but the length of the land rover and the caravan combined was around 30 feet,so after a few failed attempts the van finally snuck through the wooden farmgate with a squeak and a scrape.

Once on the open field that greets you as you enter our land we needed to get the caravan into a tight clearing that we had planned to use as our new home.  Another expert piece of driving and that was it! job done, we were looking at our new home and our first day living in the woods, no electricity,no running water (except the small stream that borders our property) and no idea how it was going to turn out.

Immediately we gave our competent friends a tour of the woodland with pride.We were quite shocked at how much the level of the stream had risen during the last bout of heavy rainfall, a little bit concerning as it had pretty much doubled since the previous week! our friends dog thought it a great idea to jump into the stream come rapids and the strong current dragged the dog off downstream at quite a pace! combined with the freezing cold water the dog looked a little suprised and we all gave chase downstream, luckily just around the corner was a section where the dog scrambled up the bank and after a good shake was no worse for wear, just a bit embarassed i should imagine haha.The rest of the day was spent doing the usual sort out in the caravan and by nightfall and the lighting of the oil lamps with good food we were able to have a lovely sleep in the woods with just the sound of a local owl. Next step is getting the vegetable plots dug over and the huge polytunnel cleaned out ready for our first season of growing on the land,also very excited about the chickens too,lots of fresh eggs and manure,wish us luck......





Philippines

Just spent two months in the philippines, mostly in san juan on luzon island 6 hours north of manila. San juan is a mellow little beach resort that we heard about from several people and is featured in the stormrider surf travel books. We found a 2 bed apartment set back across the road from the beach with kitchen and cable t.v for £40 a week, so nice and cheap.It was fortunate that the place had a kitchen because the food in the local restaurants was not my favourite in asia,have you ever seen a philippino restaurant at home? I thought not.

In the main town nearby san fernando, they have a good market with veggies, fruit, and amazing seafood. We made the most of the cheap seafood having it 2 or 3 times a week, tuna ,mahi mahi and monster prawns for next to nothing.

Our main purpose for visiting san juan was to surf the right hand points of the area, namely mona lisa point and carille point. Mona lisa is the main break, a gentle consistent right that worked most of the time we were there, quite crowded with expats and locals alike, but easy to score a few waves, mona lisa point is the main focus in the area while carille point only a few kms down the road starts to work conveniently when mona lisa becomes too big and closes out. Carille is a longer ride than mona lisa but both waves are easily ridden  by all abilities.

The prime season for this area is nov-april and the rainfall is at its lowest, if you are searching for big hollow waves then this is not the place to come, better to wait for the season to start at cloud 9 or various other spots, this place is strictly gentle fat waves but long rides,not for me personally but Helene enjoyed them (except when she cut open the top of her foot and needed  5 stitches!).

Plus points of san juan..cheap, safe, consistent surf, seafood, weather, cheap alcohol.
Bad points..way to many sex tourists, fat waves, bad food, not much culture compared to the rest of asia..
A worthwile sidetrip to the town of sagada was maybe even the highlight of the trip, a mountain town full of caves, trails and better food, well worth a visit,reminded me of northern india strangely...
So to sum the trip up, will i go back, no, im glad we went because we wanted to see somewhere new that was the good time of year but the waves are not challenging enough and the sex tourism is a bit depressing for me......

Searching For Michael Peterson Movie

A somewhat sad story of one of australias best ever surfers, M.p won the first pro contest in australia, the' 77 stubbies at burleigh heads, Peterson grew up around Kirra point and swiftly became a key player in the 'Kirra' scene.

Although his surfing was explosive and dynamic, his mystique remains because of his elusive nature and perhaps lack of footage of such a great surfer.. for me his most memorable surfing growing up is of him in Albe Falzons 'Morning of the Earth', shot in the typhoon season of 1970 at Kirra, it remains one of the most beautiful and influential pieces of film ever shot, the famous cutback to this day remains watchable over and over.

As the film charts his history through the seventies, it turns to the darker side of the m.p story, drug abuse and a later diagnosed schizophrenia led to him being ever more withdrawn and elusive, after winning at bells beach in '75, he hid in some bushes, rather than come out and accept his trophy. After the '77 stubbies win he was involved in the biggest car chase on the gold coast when the police were racing towards an unrelated incident and m.p took off and a high speeed chase proceeded, eventually stopping him and sending him to jail, which resulted in him being diagnosed and sent to psychiatric hospitals and suffering electric shock treatment,mp never surfed again... He still lives in burleigh heads with his mum.

I enjoyed the movie and thought it was well put together, if you are familiar with the m.p story you may be left wishing there was more footage found but still its a captivating story with lots of amusing and insights from surfers of the time such as Rabbit and m.p's brother. I would say it is a must watch if you are interested in this period of surfing and the dvd includes bonus film of  'dogs run free'  and rabbit talking about the hawaii story of which  they are famous for all presented in a nice case.

Incidently if you havent got the book on mp,s life by sean doherty,then get it NOW, i promise you will not be able to put it down................

marching powder

Just finished a good book ,marching powder by rusty young. Its a memoir of a british guy Thomas McFadden ,who was inprisoned in san pedro prison in bolivia for cocaine smuggling. Its the usual story of the harshness of being incarcerated in a third world prison and the corruption and torture, in san pedro you even have to pay an entrance fee and purchase your own cell! .Thomas finds his own way to get by and survive by becoming a tour guide to backpackers and even letting them stay over for the prison experience. Thomas is a likeable character and rusty young tells the story well, wont tell you too much but thought it was well worth a read...

Lloyd Khan..inspiration..

I Bought a book recently by Lloyd Khan,its an amazing book full of alternative places people live and have hand built. Lloyd is 73 years young and lists himself as publisher,  editor, photographer,  builder, skateboarder,  gardener,  explorer. The book is a must for anyone with even the remotest interest in building,  wacky houses and forms of shelter utilising existing structures,  trucks, trees, anything. His blog is a fascinating read and all i can say is this guy is seriously inspirational. Check out his blog at www.lloydkahn-ongoing.blogspot.com.