FISTRAL

 



Fistral and South Fistral in particular is where I started taking photographs of surfers. I have been coming here since I can remember as my Grandparents lived in Newquay and as a kiddo I went rockpool fishing here with my cousins. We would catch Rock Gobies as we called them. In the early 80s, I skim boarded here with my friends from skateboarding who came down from Surrey and London. We had plywood skim boards and we would skim along the shallows doing 360s by pushing our hands into the sand and also shove -its and other easy stuff. Then I witnessed the Fosters competitions and saw the pros walk down the beach like Tom Curran and Shane Horan. We played Hackey Sack next to the café on the concrete patio before it was all built up and then around this time I did skateboard demos for Swatch on some terrible Portable half pipes, one of which we called the fibreglass wave as it moved and bounced you off as you rode up the ramp.  I did some good demos at Boardmasters after that, perhaps in the late 80s early 90s on the purpose-built wooden vert ramp and in the early 2000s on the ramp my friend Dave Allen built, and we skated this with Sean Goff and Andy Scott. 

So after all this it  brings me full circle to hang out at Fistral again whenever there is a swell and checking it every time I am in the area. 


                                                                








Not being the best at reading charts and understanding swells I have sometimes used the old Magic Seaweed and scoured the coastline for new waves based on the info given, this method always bares very little fruit and I more than likely end up at South Fistral in my favourite spot on the Pentire point at low tide, taking photos across the left hand wave which isn’t always ideal, because if somebody isn’t charging right and towards me I end up with the back of the head of the rider and 900 photos of his butt! 


                                                                

NUTTER!

I use my 500mm lens to look across to North Fistral and if I see any activity. I sometimes drive round, but nowadays with the new parking restrictions it’s getting harder to get a spot down there. A lot of surfers are using cardboard to cover their number plates from the bloodsucking car park cameras and I think that I will be following this trend . It is a definite infringement on the surf community. I believe it is detrimental and a turn-off to the visitors. It does not do any good, especially in the winter when there is hardly anybody around anyway. 


When North Fistral or a Little Fistral is pumping you get a special kind of hard-core surfer out there and to see them and photograph them is really an honour.


This is just a cross section of photos here in the last two years.


    

Crumple Car at Fistral (it's mine!)


CLICK ON THIS LINK TO GO SEE MY BOOKSHOP

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