Hither & Thither...

So Phileas has made some moves of late. After leaving Clovis, Phileas went ofn to Frank Fellous. Frank has a thing for white mats so they got on just fine. Frank took our Girl to Isreal and got some waves in the Med (another body of water ticked off!).

Frank says:

“I had fun here in Tel Aviv. It’s the beach in front of the old city of Jaffa. Waves were pumping and all over the place! ;-)”

— Frank Fellous

And that made photos tricky. We got a snap of Phileas’s latest tat though!

Frank and Phileas by Noam Eshel

And then, perfectly timed, John Adkins ofer in California got in touch out of the blue to ask “has Phileas been to South America because I have a trip booked in April/May”.

GREAT! South america was one of 2 continents that I was struggling to find a host for and now its on!

John Adkins and Phileas - Not in Cile though…

All good… All systems ar GO! Lets do thi… Oh balls… COVID-19….

Well, like all things then we’ve hit the pause. Phileas will stay with John until he is able to get her down to South America. There’s no stopping Phileas!

Cheers

G

French Connection

Clovis Donizetti and Phileas. Photo:: Thomas Lodin

So then, Phileas has ben hanging around with Clovis Donizetti. For those who don’t know him, Clovis is an astonishing longboarder.

Clovis got in the water with Phileas. Here is what he had to say:

We shot in the water with phileas with analog cameras, but eventually the film was not good. So no action pictures. 

I tried to have a different take eventually 

So here it is. 

Thanks again for the opportunity !

( don’t hesitate to correct my English please !)

Phileas, being the seasoned traveler he is, arrived at my house in a discreet yet fancy inflatable pool toy package. 

Unfolding it was quite a moment, discovering and reading about all his travels and adventures around the world..

We hit off the moody Atlantic swell pretty quickly after that, and that strange quality that you can meet in those weird travelers you might cross paths once in your life was obvious : this feeling of déjà vu, easy and instant communication sharing a few waves together..

Of course as a good host, I had to show him around, including the local wine bar...

It was then already time to say farewell and wish the next adventures to be as good as the time we spent together...

Thanks Phileas and Graeme for getting us in touch !

Photos Thomas Lodin

Photo:: Thomas Lodin

Photo:: Thomas Lodin

Photo:: Thomas Lodin

Thanks Clovis for hosting our girl and adding to her story.

And many thanks to the amazing Thomas Lodin for the images. http://thomaslodin.com/

Cheers

G

The Phileas Project Pt 11 - Charl van Rensburg in South Africa

So here we go, Phileas and Charl managed to get some waves. Charl has been super busy with his projects so I’m really grateful that he managed to get some waves. Charl says:

 “I would’ve loved to get some better footage and some nicer waves… but it is what it is and its just not the greatest time of year for us wave-wise. ☹

 Thanks for everything!”

No, thanks to you Charl. Great stuff!

So Phileas moves on, I need to firm up where but I’m feeing Europe.

Stay tuned

Cheers

G

ThatTricky Work, Waves, Camera Combo...

Phileas is still in South Africa with Charl van Rensberg. Charl has been having some difficulty getting things to align since the last update but we have a bit of promise.

“Ok, so I got to take Phileas out recently and a friend of mine came along with his drone to do some filming. We got some footage and will be editing it into a short clip to send you soon.

Disclaimer… my friend uses drones for crop spraying, so trying to film someone from the beach who is a few 100m’s out to sea was new for him. Truth be told, he missed most of my waves, but the footage is scenic and includes a big swim I had when I lost Phileas trying to duck under a big set.

The waves were actually pretty meaty… you’ll notice no-one else was out. It was hard work paddling to the back and most of the waves would close out, so you’d have to choose them carefully or risk a long and taxing paddle back out through some pumping sets.

Hope it is going to be worth the wait. 😊”

— CVR

Bated breath…

Cheers

G

A Change of Continent

Phileas has had a change of scene, having left Indo and moving on to hook up with Charl van Rensburg in South Africa. Charl has had a low key outing already.

“Hi,

I took Phileas out for the maiden voyage on African waters, in the Atlantic Ocean, today.Had a great time. Our coast was recently buffeted by a pretty severe storm, so the swell was big and lumpy, but today was completely windless.

I paddled out at a local spot called ‘Van Strand’ with just 2 other guys in the water. Caught about 7 or 8 waves. It was pretty solid ground-swell around 4-6ft. Even managed to make it into and out of a barrel on one. Paddling back out was a mission though. The waves were rolling in relentlessly.

Phileas rides super smoothly, hits the power-band and just goes. Wow! Something that was new for me was the grippy top deck. I’m used to moving around a bit on my mat, and maybe it was just the combination of the grip with my wetsuit, but it took some adjusting.

On the whole, it was a great experience and, while I unfortunately did not have anyone taking photos today + we were a few 100m’s out to sea, I’m hoping to get some video of Phileas in the water and other footage on my next surf which will probably only be next weekend.

Thanks for letting me share the stoke!

Charl”

Looking forward to seeing what the weekend throws up!

Cheers

G