Some times its difficult to use a camera to good effect, other times its easy to take good photos. A walk on the beach a couple of nights ago yielded some pleasing results.
The villages are buzzing with the various visitors and summer activities, and as soon as this un-seasonal weather leaves us July and August will be upon us and gone in a flash. The summer has been a blur of football, work and surfing. All good then.
I never write here with a political agenda, its not what this site is for. This space is for documenting and celebrating the village of Beadnell and the surrounding area. That said, I do want to mention the current plans for the village. The new housing estate behind Harbour Road is progressing its final stage with another batch of twenty plus houses to be finished by the year-end.
Along with this the Duke of Northumberland has plans currently with the Council for a large holiday park development right next to the car park for the bay, adjacent to the Long Beach development. These plans have come under much scrutiny and objection within the local community. The village has an ever-growing number of visitors and second home owners, and a local economy that is shrinking with no new facilities to support the new homes.
The Duke of Northumberland
The Duke plans a seasonal holiday park, with basic facilities to service its own users. This copies the format he has used elsewhere, such as Alnwick, where he corners his market and peripheral local business lose-out and fail.
Its easy to imagine that the Dukes plans will be passed – they usually are – but the point of this being highlighted here is to raise awareness for the need for more local facilties to support and maintain the local community, rather than line-the-pockets of the Duke.
Documentation detailing the plans is hard to find currently, but should be available through the planning website eventually..
The Dukes plans get the Daily Mail treatment – here.
Locally, the feeling is that people would like to see the Duke doing more to support local communities rather than profiteering from them. Being that he and his wife have earned so much from the County, its time he started to repay the communities which he lord’s over…
The previous post outlined and the predicted swell, and some early snaps indicated that it was going to be good, but really we have much more to talk about than just the waves.
Marching swell
A few highlights from the week just ended.
Early morning session in huge overhead conditions in the middle of the Bay – including creating a new hole in my knee
The new and highly questionable smell coming from my car
Jumping-off Stag Rock to paddle out in huge waves with Steve, James and Murds in a classic old-school session
Getting a luscious Sunday evening session with light off-shores and gorgeous golden light
Covering god-knows how many miles and spending £70 on fuel chasing waves around the coast (not exactly sure this is a highlight…)
Making ‘The Sacrifice’ successfully, twice, and scoring as a direct result… its as guaranteed as paying taxes
Meeting and surfing with lots of new faces from up and down the coast – great to see more people in the area
Big and onshore
All things considered, we have had a sensational week, lots of swell, mixed weather including plenty of sunshine, new faces, new boards and shapes to eye-up and plenty of spots visited and surfed.
Of course there are downsides, I appear to have developed a nasty chest-hack, and my head is a bit full -hopefully with just a summer-cold and not anything to do with swine-flu ;), and of course there are always the odd gripes over who should be surfing where and what photos get taken.
Beadnell Point reeling
Racing the wall
Big hack...
The happy place
There really are not many surfers up here, and of course this is one of the attractions of living here. But once you’ve lived and surfed in genuinely busy spots such as Croyde, Bude, Newquay – all of Cornwall actually – Australia, New Zealand et-all, you can realise just how good we have it. With that in mind im never going to subscribe to the narrow-minded, selfish and generally childish mentalities of some people. Life is too good and too short to hold these sort of feelings.
The long paddle-out
So with the swell gone and a return to normality lying ahead, im sitting here watching Occy and Tom Curren tear-apart perfect JBay… I had better hold onto these memories, they will probably have to last until the next decent swell sometime in November…. :).
Peaking...
Big out-east
Seahouses harbour taking the brunt
Screaming right
Big screaming left
Sunday evening slash
Lining-up...
Tucking-in
Sunset shimmer
It does look like there might be some nice waves at Thurso next week mind… maybe a trip is in-order.
beadnell, documentation, fishing, food, sunshine, video | admin | 
May 2, 2011 10:07 pm | 
Comments (0) 
Subscribe