Earlier this year Mark joined our surf instructor course in Taghazout, Morocco, for 12 weeks of surf and an amazing cultural experience. He’s just sent over a couple of diary entries from his time with us…
Fellow course mate Amanda, on top of the world!
Diary Feb 14th 2012
It’s now week 5 in Morocco and the time is absolutely flying by. I’ve completely settled in now and I’m loving Taghazout and my new surfing lifestyle. … Read more
For the last four years, women’s surfing has been dominated by one character; Steph Gilmore. She hit the world tour in 2006 at the age of 18 and blew the socks off the surfing community. Steph was considered an anomaly, a freak of a talent. She now has the accolades to proove it, with four consecutive world titles under her belt at the age of 23.
Fast forward to mid way through the women’s tour in 2011 and Steph is a measly fourth with no competition wins in five events. You would assume the inevitable has happened and Gilmore has finally hit a blip in form, however this is not the case. She is being outperformed and outsurfed by the new power in women’s surfing; teenagers.
Here is evidence of that – the current standings on the world tour after five of seven events:
Of the seventeen girls on the elite tour nine are under the age of 21, and six of them are in the top ten. For most of them it’s their first or second year on tour. Gone are the days of turning off your live event webcast for the womens event, the renewed level of competition in this sport is making it just as exciting as the mens.
Another new power in surfing; Nike, have just released a free online full feature film called “Leave a Message”. Watch it and you’ll understand what we’re talking about…
When the GoPro cameras hit the market a few years ago I personally was a little sceptical of their value – the product seemed overly bulky, not particularly compatible and completely oversold by all sorts of celebrities. I brushed it off as a fad, thinking the craze would die off pretty quickly…I was very wrong!
GoPros have reduced in size, increased in quality (there is now the Go Pro HERO HD) and they are compatible with loads of adventure sports – conveniently including surfing, skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking.
To stop this sounding like a GoPro sales pitch here are some videos.
There is something mesmerising about this shot, everything is perfect; wave size, wave shape, no crowds, surroundings. I’ve found myself going back to watch this clip every month or so…probably because I can’t just go and get barrelled in real life…believe me it’s harder than it looks.
Avoid the crowds, choose between hundreds of great beaches and breaks, live the chilled out life style and surf clean, empty waves all winter long. Morocco’s Atlantic coastline is quickly becoming one of the most sort after places to surf in the world, with swell upon swell hitting it every week and 365 days of sunshine it’s not a bad place to set up for your next surf camp – even Kelly Slater spends part of his winter there, so if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for us!
Pete | May 31st, 2012
