CHRIS MURRAY • TIMO MULLEN • ADAM LEWIS • JOHN CARTER
Words &Photos JOHN CARTER
“Harlem Shuffle’’ is an R&B song covered by The Rolling Stones. Remixed for 2015 by DJ John ‘Flashgun’ Carter in the badly titled word document ‘Harlyn Shuffle’, it’s a tale of a motley crew of windsurfers taking on a hitherto unheralded wavesailing break in Cornwall. With a complete lack of knowledge, back of a box of Jaffa cake planning and a few pasties for luck, the group that could put the miss into the Misfits managed to score some crazy Kernow kegs on a thumping beach break that also pirated a heavy Cornish bounty of masts and egos.
SOLID AS A ROCK For once, the plan was all mapped out, pure and simple, a jump session at Mazza (Marazion). Timings were critical to catch the best tide, wind and swell so the Motley Crew had left Poole bang on 8am to arrive for the prime session of the day. You could say everything was ‘set in stone’, there would be no mincing around looking for new spots, this day had Mazza written all over it and I was content with Timo’s prognosis of the forecast. Yep we were 100% committed, no curveballs, no deviations and no stress. Mazza was locked in, good and proper. All best laid plans often go astray and naturally ours did of course. One random text sent to Muzza telling him we’d be at Mazza, yep correct we wanted ‘Muzza at Mazza’ started off this whole Harlyn Shuffle sojourn. Muzza wasn’t into Mazza and was headed elsewhere for cross off and not cross on. So all of a sudden Muzza had thrown a ‘spanner in the works’ for Mazza and our day was thrown into complete disarray. Here is kind of how it went:
One hour from arrival time for perfect tide and wind at Marizion, JC and Timo are driving along happily in the van.
JC text to Muzza: ‘Muzza, fancy joining us at Mazza?’
MUZZA: ‘Err Mazza, we are headed to Harlyn Bay, Adam (Lewis) reckons it will be fun’
JC: ‘Oh ok, let us know how it is?’
JC and Timo now slightly uneasy as they continue towards Mazza.
Ten minutes later, Muzza text to JC: ‘Hi JC, it’s sunny windy and over head high’
JC: ‘Are you sure Muzza, we are headed to Mazza and if we come and join you and it’s not happening our day could be ruined!’
MUZZA: ‘Er I don’t know, Adam says it looks decent; 4.7 and cross off’
The issue here was timing; it was critical. We were already past the turn off for Newquay, meaning we would have to back track on ourselves by half an hour to go check it out. The shuffle to head to Harlyn would potentially mean we would most likely miss the prime window at Mazza. Oh Muzza, why did you have to throw this bone to us at the last minute, for once in my life I had settled on a plan and was quite relaxed up until this text exchange. But it was quite a tasty sounding bone Muzza had thrown our way, a new spot, which was potentially a reeling cross off beach break plus a decent crew already on hand to shred it to pieces, it did indeed sound tempting. The big question though; was their ‘intel’ good? Could we have faith in this call from Muzza and Adam Lewis or would this detour blow the whole day and we’d go home devastated?. Well to cut a long story short, we decided to roll the dice and yeah, yeah, yeah we were going to do the Harlyn Shuffle! All I knew was that Muzza and Lewis would have hell to pay for if we rolled up to 2 foot cross shore slop.
Heads would roll, Muzza would never be trusted again and poor Lewis would be sent back to Tenerife with a one way ticket and his Windsurf subscription cancelled for life.
Finally after a frustrating drive through countless road works, being stuck behind slow rolling tractors and a hitting a couple of dead ends we managed to find the elusive Harlyn Beach. On the bright side, the clouds were literally breaking up on our arrival and down across the pearly white sand of the Bay, four sailors were blasting in and out through turquoise water with the place to themselves. A moment later the purple North sail of Adam Lewis dropped down onto a wave, screamed down the line and hucked into a huge aerial over a dredging shore dump. Wow! – Muzza and Adam had actually called it, we’d stuck gold, call it luck or superb judgement but it was epic conditions and UK wavesailing at its finest!
Now it was time for Timo to shuffle into action, and in no time he was rigged and scurrying across the beach to tune into the session. As it turned out, the quartet on the water, Adam, Muzza, George Shillito and Jamie Gibbs were all staying in in a house overlooking Daymer Bay with their respective girlfriends and had all been given the green light to go for a quick afternoon windsurf
session. Harlyn was the closest beach that looked like it might have side shore winds in a westerly and hey presto all the pieces clicked into place including the completely random timing of myself and Timo passing the Newquay turn off and sending an impulsive text to Muzza.
THE HARLYN SHUFFLE The waves at Harlyn were only head to half-mast high, but whatever they lacked in size they certainly made up for with raw power. Within five minutes of my arrival on the shoreline with the camera, Adam Lewis was crawling out of the surf with his mast in pieces after a gnarly wipe out in the impact zone. A few minutes later I spotted poor George Shillito amidst a tangle of sail and broken mast, also trying to drag himself out of the surf; the guys were getting decimated.
Despite this heavy beach break seemingly being able to snap masts like match sticks, Timo wasn’t going to let this minor deterrent hold him back from joining the gig. On his very first wave, his first riff was to launch into a huge aerial over an ugly section and nail it right into the flats. The show went on for the next hour and a half with the boys trading waves in this pristine paradise. Adam wasted no time returning to the stage with a new axe, and with Timo pounding out the beat, Muzza thumping down the bass line and George and Jamie providing the rhythm section, this band was rocking the place and putting the Stones to shame. With barely a cloud in the sky and stunning Cornish scenery on both sides of the bay, I could not believe how this gig had just played into our hands. Yep nothing like breaking a plan and doing the Harlyn Shuffle!
ADAM LEWIS “Sailing in the UK can be just about as frustrating as it gets but just when you least expect it total gold can be waiting unexpectedly just around the corner. It was George Shillito’s birthday and he had a cottage booked for a long time in advance down in Daymer Bay. As the time drew nearer and nearer we all started to see this promising forecast. We finally made it to the cottage overlooking the infamous Doom Bar and it was the first time we’d all had a chance to catch up so quite a lot of beers were sank in the all the excitement.
When Wednesday morning dawned there were a few ripples breaking over the doom bar but it was nothing special, so we came up with the idea to go look at Haryln just around the corner. After hurrying everyone up and a quick bit of rally driving, we pulled up to the sight of wall to wall sunshine and it was pumping! There were head to logo sets peeling in and it was perfect cross off with beautiful blue water. It was going off! We rigged up as fast as possible and frantically let JC know that it was looking decent and we headed straight out there. I think Jamie Gibbs was in such a rush to rig he had the wrong mast in the sail and just tried to blag it; it looked terrible. The RNLI guys were really cool and wandered over to tell us we could use all the break we wanted and they would move the surf/swimming flags to where ever we weren’t going to sail; epic! It was just getting better and better! My first run and it was 4.5 perfection with a glassy bowl; just perfect for a good old smack!
It wasn’t long before Timo and JC rocked up, the tide was still dropping and the wave was getting hollower and starting to double up in some parts, it was pretty gnarly on the end bowl! I had one hit just too late and came up with a face full of sand and broken mast just as I saw JC coming down the beach. It was a flat out sprint back for another mast and round two – I needed to get back in the ring! The tide had dropped even more and it was quite tricky; with the wind swinging less and less cross off there was some decent beatings to be had but if you got it right, it was magic! We totally scored it!, two or three hours of side off perfection and some of the best sailing I’ve ever had in the UK!’’
MUZZA “Myself, Adam, Jamie and George were down in Padstow for a weekend with the girlfriends wandering around shops and stuff like that. The whole trip was supposed to be spending ‘quality time’ with the girlfriends so we didn’t want to big the sailing up too much. It was just a sneaky session away from the ladies and a chance for the boys to have some fun! When we arrived at Harlyn it looked epic; over head high and down the line. It was a sick session and it is always cool to score a cheeky sail when on a weekend trip with the girlfriends. We sailed until the tide came up; it was a pretty brutal shore break by the end. It was George’s birthday so we had an epic BBQ to round the day off, you can’t beat that in the UK!’’
