a magazine for surfing females

The end of the year is fast approaching and the waters are getting chilly here in the UK. Out come the boots etc. I’ve re-alised surfing in the winter isn’t half as bad if you’ve got a good thick suit, or equally as important, one that fits really well all over, which for women is really quite difficult to find. It’s no help though for the bit between getting your wetsuit off and getting your clothes back on - that bit is still painful! Just got to grit those teeth.

Here is December’s issue. Have a great Christmas - see you in the New Year!

ADVENTURES ON THE EMERALD ISLE / FROSTY / SIX-TIES SURFER / LONGBOARDS & LEFTS IN LATIN AMERICA...

Photo: Nick Plant.

Photo: Ellie Woodward

In October, The Slideshow took a little trip to Ireland. We fancied an adventure. So a little group of friends and contibutors flew to Belfast and drove across to the west coast of Southern Ireland for a week of wave-hunting.

A mixed group of abil-ity and bravery made each day a fun challenge to find waves to suit all of us. With so much coastline and so many set-ups on offer it wasn’t difficult to find size-able, heavier waves, then go round the corner and find friendly reeling peelers. We were spoilt for choice...

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View from the mighty Ben Bulben, out towards the sprawling coastline. Photo: Kit Stokes.

Room with a view - epic view from The Slideshow house. Words: Gemma Chalmers.

My first wave of the week - I took off on a little left hand peeler and quickly realised it was shap-ing up into a beautiful glassy wall and I was firmly wedged into the face. Looking down as I trimmed to the top and back to the bottom I could clearly see all the rounded boulders beneath the surface of the brackish brown water and didn’t feel an ounce of worry about the rocky bottom. It felt like the longest wave I’d had in ages and pulling off the back of it as it ran out of steam, grinning from ear to ear I paddled back out for more.

Photo: Hanna Richardson

Photo: Kit Stokes.

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Photo: Gemma Chalmers.

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Such a fun wave, small but per-fectly formed, it was the perfect lefthander. Just setting the line...

Further down the line it was get-ting smaller, but I could see the wind holding it up and I thought maybe...maybe if I tucked down low something radical might happen?!

It did! Tucked in super tight I saw the lip throw over and my head disappeared behind the curtain. A true head dip (but totally claiming a barrel), equalled true happiness. Stoke factor 10 out of 10!

Ellie Woodward.

Photos: Nick Plant.

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After Ellie and I paddled out at Augris Head on a clean day and it looked to be a manageable size. We sat out back and paddled for a few, took a few sets on the head then realised we were a little out of our comfort zone. Riding the whitewater in, we could see the rest of our gang who had opted to take photos on the beach, had gained pints of Guiness whilst we’d been gone. I quickly accepted a large gulp from a glass as it was handed to me after getting smashed around out there. Boosted, and with a change in equipment we went back out with a couple of bellyboards instead! Gemma Chalmers.

Photos: Kit Stokes.

Rounding the corner on the coast road at Mullaghmore we were met with a dramatic sight of white froth and pounding waves offloading onto the slabs. We knew it was going to be big and we hoped to see it doing it’s thing. There was nobody out - and we weren’t surprised, as it looked like no man could survive out there. Yet, as we arrived in the town, there was an array of jet ski’s on trailers and a group of guys pale with cold, hauling themselves out of their wetsuits. We had just missed a tow session at Mullaghmore on one of the biggest swells of the year! So much for no one being out, these guys had just had a session out there. Gutted we missed the action. Gemma.

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West coast barrels.

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On the last day of our trip we headed back up to Mullaghmore to see if the tow-in crew were back in action. Unfor-tunately there was no-one around, but tucked away around the corner the huge swell had turned into little peelers. Wrapping their way around the harbour, groomed by the brisk offshore wind, the clean waves were prime for an ‘anything goes, all craft, all party expression session’!

Leashes removed, boards waxed, bellyboards flexed, flippers flopped, and handplanes held... it was an impressive array of stoke inducing equipment. Running down the dunes hooting and laughing we all dived in. The waves may have been super small but stoke factor was big! Steering bellyboards and handplanes into tiny tubes, high fives and hang fives, and racing speedy sections, we were on a total high. There was a tangled swath of kelp in knee depth water which was proving tricky but entertaining to negotiate, with rides ending up in total entanglement and near drowning from too much laughter.

Virgin bellyboarder Nick claimed he’d had the best surf ever and was in complete disbelief he’d never experienced the magic of a bellyboard. Best craft of the day. A perfect ending to a supremely epic trip to Ireland.

Ellie Woodward.

An early-ish start and a chilly morning - these two things combined are enough to make my shoulders sloop and my normally happy stomp slow to a grumpy shuffle. But arriving to open up the Surf Academy a couple of Saturdays ago I was greeted with this view! It 100% made my day... Frosty sand and the beginnings of what proved to be an amazing sunny day and fun waves. A much needed reminder of not taking where I live for granted. Perranporth beach is a stunner!

- Words & Photo: Jill Stott, Perranporth.frosty

An early-ish start and a chilly morning - these two things combined are enough to make my shoulders sloop and my normally happy stomp slow to a grumpy shuffle. But arriving to open up the Surf Academy a couple of Saturdays ago I was greeted with this view! It 100% made my day... Frosty sand and the beginnings of what proved to be an amazing sunny day and fun waves. A much needed reminder of not taking where I live for granted. Perranporth beach is a stunner!

- Words & Photo: Jill Stott, Perranporth.

Longboards and Lefts in Latin America

Photo: Richard Davies,

All I said was “Yes”; yes to going to Huanchaco, Peru. Yes to being part of the British team and yes to competing in the first ever ISA World Longboard Titles. Un-expectedly, it seems winning the 2012 La-dies British Longboard title granted me, a school teacher from Devon the opportunity to surf internationally against some of the best longboarders on the worlds surfing stage. Two months later, after three flights and 48 hours of travelling, over 100kg of lug-gage, 14 longboards, Team GB, arrive in the land of the lefts. After all the hours of planning, packing and travelling it was only at the moment when my feet first stepped out onto the dusty desert road and I saw the nearly empty three foot reeling waves, that the reality of competing for my country dawned on me. Never, in my 10 years of surfing, have I had the opportunity to surf a wave as long or as consistent as this. My next steps only lead me and my Dip-lock board across the road, over the un-even reef and out into the hazy line-up and into one of the first World Surfing Reserves and home to arguably the oldest known surf crafts, the Totora boat. The Pacific wa-ter was surprisingly cold and as the first set rolled in around the point, all I saw was line after line of waves to be ridden. Dropping down and speeding along the smooth face of my first Peruvian wave it focused me to the task in hand; to try to catch just two good waves in my first international com-petition.

Time ran out quicker than I could even have thought. The days running up to my first heat disappeared and then before I knew it, the disc had turned again from green to red. In just 45 minutes of surfing in some of the most unfamiliar conditions, I was out, out of the running for the World Title but still amazed to make it so far. My efforts in those few brief minutes came down to 450 points for the team, a pair of very tired arms and the knowledge that I had not come last…stoked!

Claire Smail, Devon.

While on an impromptu explore in North Devon I noticed signs for the Museum of British Surfing, with time to spare I popped in to have a ganders. First opened in the 2012, this bijou museum in Braunton is currently exhibiting its ‘Sixties Surfer’ collection which documents the rise of modern surfing culture in the UK. A variety of wave riding utensils and paraphernalia adorn the walls from home-made wetsuits to belly boards to retro boards shaped by a range of home grown talent. In addition, the museum provides a fascinating insight to British surfing’s starting point in Bridlington in the 1890’s (sorry Cornwall!) through a series of photos, personal anecdotes and classic grainy video footage. This little gem is

well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

Sixties Surfer is on until 5th Jan. December opening times: Friday 11-3pm. Saturday 11-4pm. Sunday 11am-3pm. School hols - open every day exept Christmas/Boxing/NYrs day. http://www.museumofbritishsurfing.org.uk/

Hanna Richardson, Devon.

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Courtesy: Museum of British Surfing.

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