A journey across East Africa .

A Kigali Sun down (Rwanda)

Arrrrrrgh final few months of uni. wow wee it was going to be a struggle placement was a high secure forensic hospital so for the entire three months I saw little to no sun shine . but essays were handed in and some how I had squeezed enough cash together to buy a ticket to Rwanda for the day after I graduated . With that in mind I bashed my way through the hours and packed my bags again and stuck new NOOKIE stickers on my shiny WAVESPORT Project X .
August the second, 0900 hours boat blagged on to the plane, bashed a sleeping pill, woke up some hours later , walked up and down Cairo airport until my feet hurt , Boarded a plane slept like a log, had a G&T landed drank a beer found a hotel out like a light .


They say Rwanda is the switzerland of East Africa

Morning broke. I had to know what it felt like to stand in a land where a Meer 18 years ago 80,000 people were hacked to death, plus I had been told that the rivers were worth a look.


Looking toward Kassase and Western Nile (the place of Amine )


Kigali was super cool and relaxed , but no water in sight, the drought that had consumed east Africa paid its toll on Rwanda too. So nice to know you Rwanda cheers for all the beers . I got a bus to the Uganda Congo border . It took ages and the man I was squashed next to stank like a pig , but I was back in Africa and didn’t give a shit. Crossing a national park on route I saw elephants and gazelle grazing at the side of the road . I think my stinky companion thought I was mad as I pointed in delight and grappled for my camera . I had to explain to him after that we only had cows and sheep in England. He asked inquisitively weather the lions ate many of the cattle. Laughing I said we had the fox.


Crammed in to the matatu talking about Lions

So the Congo border was a laugh, along with some stunning sights around lake Ungaruba, a crater lake in the Ruwenzori mountains . I wanted to go up there to do some time laps filming for my movie Im making . So a few days went by and a lot of games of cards sat next to a rolling camera . Time to bugger off back to the Nile for a few weeks and then on to Kampala for more filming and coffee.

The congo border


Doug air screw


high water made malalu work, a wave i hadn't seen in years


Surf till sun set , the river just keeps rising


Early morning super high Club wave

After three more weeks of surfing and filming on high water Nile , I spent a day in Entebbe at lake Victoria drinking with some south African gold miners from Congo . Then it was time to fly home and do some work , and quite possibly plan a few more trips.


Lake Ungaruba, filming with a beer




So what will become of our adventurer ? Gabon, Mexico, Senegal, or even back to morocco. Looking back its been an epic year , and it couldn’t have been done without all the awesome gear that NOOKIE WAVESPORT and STREAMLYTE have given me . Massive thanks.


Hear is a short flic of the trip.

east africa from douglas cooper on Vimeo.

Article by Team rider Doug Cooper

Revelations of a Curry

">
The most southerly point of India

“India, not a place I imagined to ever have surf”.
Sitting comfortably in my seat on the plane bound for Thiruvananthapuram the capital of the state of Kerala. “Consider the vast state of poverty mixed with high class Mercedes” were the departing words of my mother as she dropped me off for the thousandth time at the airport. Landing in this eastern country I couldn’t help think, how wonderful it was to leave dissertations and drug calculations aside for a month and concentrate on waves again.
The first thing that struck me was how lush and green the land was, it felt like Uganda but almost greener. Lush banana and coconut trees stood tall around the airport, marking the way out and in to the jungle.

The temperature was crazy hot with humidity so high that it felt like my louse fitting jeans were trying to strangle me in the heat. Three weeks pre monsoon season was the time for big waves so we would just have to put up with the stifling humidity. Danny had done a bit of mad research and had us a driver waiting to take us to a house for the night.

Strapping boats on to the roof was like torture, heat blazed down on us and we were more than happy to get in to the air-conditioned pickup truck. Not very eco of us but looking back it was a saving grace that’s for sure .
Our house was tucked in to the jungle out of sight and only a five min walk from the beach “ perfect”. We settled in and melted in to pools of sweat and discomfort.

HQ

After a few days we were slightly more acclimatized and were beginning to scare ourselves on the local reef. Breaking only a foot from a bank of Muscles and other sharp bits of rick made wave selection quite important.


The reef outside our house


Nookie's team rider beach babe

Later in the week we hooked up with this American guy “J” who had uprooted his entire family for three years to teach them the value of money and to get some good waves. He seemed to have all the local knowledge and was super stoked to share some of the waves that he had found ( for the purposes of keeping India’s waves un crowded I will rename the waves and will not let out their locations ). First off we headed to a super long beach, after about fifteen mins of looking sadly at beach mush suddenly a river mouth appeared, and a set of waves, perfectly formed for getting shaqued up in . Well we rode the pants off that, and were able to hold back a little as the floor was sand rather than reef, but still pretty shallow.


Walk from HQ to the reef

Next up a 5 am start and a long drive out of the jungle across the bustling town of Thiruvananthapuram in to the quiet suburbs ( back in to dense jungle). We arrived at a river. J jumped on his board in to the river and told us we had to float down to the beach. Floating down we passed what looked like a harbor wall, out in to the sea and then paddled round the wall to a quiet bay. “J where are these waves “ “ set will be hear in a min “ a few mins later a perfect left formed off the deserted harbor wall. The face held for ages and Danny and my self could get a good three turns in before we had to think about charging.
The waves lasted until about 11am, but by then it was time to get out of the sun and chill for the evening beach set back at the house beach.

J's secret harbour Left


The river mouth pumping


Another sweet wave


We surfed a fair few waves, reefs and beaches over the month. The culture was incredible, but not as good as the food.
My departing thoughts from India were from an old man whom I met on the jungle road from the beach to the house. He pointed up to the coconut trees and said, “ keep your helmet on, if one of those hit you, no more surfing “

Team rider Doug cooper

GB Freestyle Selection Event

Hey this is new Nookie Team Rider Sam Stephenson checking in with my first blog post.. I'm a 17 year-old freestyle paddler on the British Squad who loves paddling and can be found at a different playspot almost every weekend! Last weekend was the British Team Selection Event at HPP - probably the most important competition of the year for me as it decides who gets a spot on the team for the Euros next year. I've spent the past few weekends paddling lots both at Cardiff and Nottingham in preparation for the event, trying to perfect some of the harder moves such as the McNasties and Phonics Monkeys which would give me the high scores I need to place in the top 3 and get my place on the team.

The first half of the competition, held on Saturday, was in the Inlet Gate - a very even, predictable feature in which I'd had lots of practice over the summer. This all paid off as I put together my best ever competition ride, getting McNasties, Space Godzillas and maybe a Phonics too totalling at about 750 points! My following two rides didn't go quite as well, but it was enough to give me 3rd place for the day - just behind James Benns and Bren Orton - who as usual both laid down some seriously impressive runs!

On the Sunday the competition moved to twin-waves, which is a much trickier - less predictable hole compared with the inlet gate, making it harder to do all the moves both ways. This put me in a slightly difficult position - with some of the easier, usually bankable moves like Space Godzillas being much harder to do in this feature - instead I had to resort to going for a Switch McNasty instead, something I hadn't practised much but that would really boost my points if I pulled it off. Luckily I hit my first ride almost perfectly and scored about 600 points, which made up for my slightly lack-lustre second and third rides - this was just enough to put me in third again for the day, closely followed by Tom Goddard in 4th and James and Bren taking the 1-2 again.

Overall this was a really good weekend for me, getting the results I was looking for and setting me up in a good position for the Team selections. I also had lots of fun messing about on the course afterwards, paddling with my little brother and working on a new combo-move, the Splitwheel to McNasty - not working yet but still pretty fun to try!

I also did a bit of filming over the weekend so I'll put a short edit together with that and some other footage from the summer - expect to see that on the Nookie blog fairly soon!

In the meantime though check out this video from Jonny Williams with some of the highlights of the weekend...