FFS

I'm sure I'm not the best parent that's ever walked this planet but then again I'm definitely not the worst.

I have a very vivid memory of my son Ace Winston waking up at 3am in the morning about a year ago and turning on his toy piano which blasted out mad beats and flashed crazy lights. As I lay there in bed listening to him wrestle his piano trying to bring it into our bedroom, he gets it stuck on the door way. Still persisting but getting no where the frustration builds.

'For fucks sake' where the words that came out his mouth.

I know exactly how he feels, these same words came out my mouth this exact moment .

It has my signature on it.

Andrew Cotton - Hossegor, France from SunGod on Vimeo.

Have you seen me recently? Yeah, I’ve been rolling in my brand new GLA, Mercedes Benz, it has my signature on the side in case you didn’t know but they missed out the words ‘plumbing and heating’ instead replacing it with my website andrewcotton.co.uk. Of course I play loud rap music with the windows down and the system up but wouldn’t you if you had one. Yeah me neither, but it does seem like being a complete lunatic is starting to pay off and my surfing is finally moving forward and my dreams being achieved. Not bad as it only took about 20 years, but that’s what makes it feel so good. My winter training schedule has already started and I can’t wait to hopefully surf some big waves again and get the ball rolling with my new goals and be prepared for what the ocean has up it’s sleeve this winter.
While we’re waiting you can watch this new video from Sungod, it’s about me ‘Andrew Cotton, big wave surfer’ and my new sunglasses. There limited edition and like my car has my signature down the side. Check them out on sungod.co, Bloody hell I’m famous.

Not a World Record

‘Must write more blogs, must write more blogs’ is what I keep telling myself then I post another photo on Instagram, write a few words and all my creative inspiration disappears for another 24 hours or more. I think the internet is sucking the life out of me, twitter, Instagram, Facebook; it’s just a never ending feed of constant dribble. 99% is pointless and completely boring yet I still find myself either posting it, sharing it and very occasionally reading it.
So what’s happened in the past 6 months since my last blog post? Not a lot really. In case you didn’t know, that wave that I caught in February at Nazare, that everyone kept banging on about, which was global news with the tag line ‘biggest wave ever’ wasn’t a new world record. Yep you heard me correct. It wasn’t a World record, didn’t even get the nod from the judges at the 2014 XXL awards for Biggest wave!. I’m not really that surprised to be honest, the surfing world is a fickle old place and how the feck do you measure a wave anyway? I still have arguments with my mates on how big a 2ft wave is let alone an 80fter or 60 or 50 or whatever size anybody thinks it is. Does it even matter? No, to be honest it doesn’t. I enjoy surfing big waves and am looking forward to surfing bigger ones this winter. See you at the XL in 2015.

This is England

This is England. No surf here, move along please. I haven’t been on a surf trip at home for years, obviously I surf when I’m home I just don’t really make the effort to go anywhere apart from my local beach. Priority’s change and it just hasn’t been high on my list so it’s probably been about 5-6 years since I’ve been on a proper UK mission and I to be honest I’d forgot what I was missing.
I went for a little drive before Christmas and a few days later I came back with a new hunger to spend more time searching for waves at home. England pumps……. Well sometimes.

Am i famous now?

Am I famous now? Some strangers did ask to have their photo taken with me the other day, it was a little confusing as the language/commination thing wasn’t going great bearing in mind I struggle to speak English let alone Portuguese, so I tried to take the camera off the woman and take a photo of her and her husband. We had a little wrestle with the camera but she just wouldn’t let go, as she stared me in the eye it all became clear that she actually wanted me in the photo not me to take it. Little bit embarrassing being so bloody famous.
What does famous even mean? Does it mean I won’t be able to wear my red stripy t-shirt for weeks at a time and I’ll get served in Billy Budds village pub? I hope not. So it has been a bizarre old week with all these interviews, TV time and Facebook LIKES, who would have thought just a wave would do that, I’m stoked and can’t believe how lucky I am. But it is only November, the winter's only just begun, can’t wait for the next swell.

shaky windows

It’s kind of hard to sleep when all the doors and windows in the house are shaking; it took me a few minutes to work it out, as outside there wasn’t a breath of wind. The strange thing was it was incessant, not just a one off rattle or shake. A continuous noise, a constant reminder that in the morning I would possibly see the biggest waves I’ve ever seen. Bizarrely though I slept really well.
With a small window of opportunity everything was pretty much prepped days in advance, what boards were working, safety, flotation, all we had to do was put the skis in the water and head out. We’ve surfed here so many times now it was just another day. As we left the harbour at first light and my first glimpse of the waves the reality hit, it was huge. At first I wasn’t even sure about surfing; my mission was to put Garrett on the biggest wave possible.
Some opportunities only come once and when I had a chance to grab the rope I wasn’t going to let it pass, I’ve been wanting this so much for years and I feel truly lucky to be in this situation. The waves were dangerous, giant, fast and incredibly hard to read, I didn’t want to make any mistakes or take any silly risks but I also wanted to try and get to the bottom of one of these waves and try and actually surf it (which is surprisingly hard to do believe it or not,) rather than just hop down the shoulder.
I got a couple fun ones like this shot from Jose Pinto above. Thanks to Garrett for the tow and inspiration, Hugo Vau who drove safety and all the crew I’ve had the pleasure of hanging out with and made me feel so welcome.
Thank you Nazare, you have the biggest, scariest most beautiful waves I’ve ever seen.

Beach break barrels

How much fun are head high beach break barrels, it’s been so long I’d pretty much forgotten. It’s not like we don’t have good beach break waves at home because we do its just never that good for that long and its usually really really busy.
So after a couple weeks of being in Nazare, going over the falls, snapping boards and falling off a lot I managed to get my shit together and hook up a few times with water photographer Helio. We didn’t get any gold so to speak but just had a lot of fun.

Does anyone even read blogs anymore....

Does anyone even read these old school blogs anymore or is it just me and the fact that I haven’t written anything for months. It’s not that I haven’t been surfing or though to be honest I haven’t surfed anything to write about over summer apart from the obvious, it’s just trying to find the time.
The good news is over the next 6 months I intend on having a lot more time, not just to write blogs that no one reads on the internet. But time to travel and surf some of the biggest, heaviest waves I can possibly find across Europe. I’m currently warming up in Portugal and have already scared myself senseless in the shore break at Nazare yesterday, I seem to forget how heavy and deadly that place is every year or maybe it’s just my brain trying to block it out.
So here’s to the North Atlantic winter, let's hope she’s a good one.

Mision Mexico

After watching this short clip above and feeling incredibly lucky and a little bit emotional I wanted to give a bit of support to Mision Mexico , not that I can do much but just by making people aware of the charity helps I suppose.
So please check out the  Mexican Wave fundraising initiative and see if you can get involved. I'm going to be giving a surf  lesson with the help from Ticket to Ride to 6 Trustess of the Misión México (UK) Board - none of whom surf, which could be interesting  so they can experience what the kids experience when they surf this is going to be followed by a showing of Somewhere near Tapachula documentary at 2pm, 30th June at Seiners Arms, Perranporth beachfront in Cornwall so if your in the area please come and show your support too.

Mr Whippie

Oh my goodness, little bit embarrassing that I haven't blogged for so long. People of The Internet must have been wondering where an earth I've been.
Mainly Devon is the answer but I did briefly visit hot London for the day and ate a Chinese in that China town place and also went to Amsterdam and had a Mr Whippie. God I love those ice creams, sometimes just too much.