You may have noticed that we’re big fans of the one and only Attenborough.

Three years in the making, the new BBC nature program, Life, has arrived, the first installment went down on Sunday at 9.
Some awesome bits of footage in there; dolphins surrounding fish with mud, monkeys using stone tools, and penguins learning to swim. Nature blows you away sometimes.

We were blown away again though, after 45 minutes, when we spotted Finisterre jackets everywhere in the ‘behind the scenes’ section of the program, which followed the film crews aboard a Royal Navy icebreaker, a helicopter and a yacht around the antarctic filming leapord seals and Killer Whales.

Doug and John (aka BBC crack underwater unit) are Finisterre Product Testers and had been helping us develop the new 09/10 Storm Track Jacket and Etobicoke whilst on location in the Antarctic filming Leopard seals for ‘Life’ last winter.

Obviously we are pretty humbled to make a cameo appearance on such a groundbreaking project and to have played our small part in helping those guys stay warm and dry, doing what they do best.

Life is available on iPlayer now, dont miss it!

View Life on iPlayer

Posted by Mart

A couple of us sneaked away for a little trip not so long ago. It turned out better than expected - waking up to super long lefts was the order of the day.

We can’t disclose the location, but managed to grab a sneaky frame of this guy about to get a super long cover up…

The Finisterre team was out supporting the ‘Buntabout’ last weekend. The competition has been an annual event down here for as long as anyone can remember, organised by local shaper Steve Bunt and Co. Anyone can enter, and it’s usually a bit less serious than the standard comps. This year the Buntabout was raising money for the Precious Lives Appeal, a cause well worth checking out.

The waves weren’t as good as last year (which went off!), but with some shock results, the sun shining and a good excuse for a party later into the night, it proved to be a great weekend.

Trev Garland, A.K.A Finisterre’s up and coming young gun longboarder, who’s been flying the Finisterre flag and winning competitions up and down the country, grabbed first place in the Longboard division knocking out most of his mates, and as usual without much messing around. Good work Trev and Happy Birthday!

We thought we’d done some big jumps round these parts. We’ve even written so in this blog before ‘one jump to bind them all’, but this guy is taking things to a whole new level…not quite sure why one the judges gave him a 7.5 - also lucky he’s got sun block on his nose… (TK)

Vince Medeiros is the editor of Huck Magazine, he launched it, made it, broke the bank pushing it and it’s now one of the most successful and exclusive titles in the mag market. We’ve know Vince for a while, we’ve had beers in Soho, we’ve talked to him about the brand and being from Brazil, the Carlos Burle connection was a natural point of relation.

Four years later, the mag is strong, the contact between us is tight and the man has quietly persevered with film making, as a producer and screenwriter of Rio Breaks. We haven’t seen it yet, as it’s just making its way through the fingers of the many independent film critics, but a little birdie did mention that it’s a breakthrough in surf film documentaries.

Not to mention, our man Carlos Burle and his cameo appearance. Way to go Vince, so happy for you hermano. To check out more about the film, check the links below:

http://hawaii.bside.com/2009/films/riobreaks_hawaii2009;jsessionid=7C9EB6409B74F1D3401B43D254A70912

http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/blog/rio-breaks-–-world-premiere/

SAS beach clean a week or so ago and we were offering a prize for the most unusual UFO (Unidentified Floating Object). This is what turned up in a small plastic case, half in Russian (USSR), half in English….

Some kind of cold war spy fish? We’re trying to track down the story and find out what the reward is…!

This past weekend we were up in London, we caught up with James Bowthorpe and family at his ‘Well done’ fiesta, we dropped by the Bike Film Festival, enjoyed some independent films, gazed at some fine Velocipede’s, grabbed a bite in Bricklane (good shout Debs), saw the Bike Polo Championships and met up with some product testers - a most rad adventure!

Debs, James, Ernie and Tom - hugfest

Old dude with a ‘free tibet agenda”, getting a little camera time.

Bike polo signup’s and the occasional mexican stand-off

The gate keeper - this chick was rad, sported a blue campagnolo race cap, mean dew and a voice that could bring a house down - hot!

Who’s been knocked out?

Trusty steed at rest

You get in this guys way and you were almost always on the pavement.

whooooa Tonto, whooa - this pony was rather fractious, rearing up on several occaisons.

Rad mustache, killer cap and a lovely weak side swing.

Lead this pony to some water.

We love Lesley, she has a way of writing, as if she’s right there next to you, squeezing every bit of energy out of her words and onto a computer screen. Her commitment to her animals and our Bowmont, has once again - inspired!

You may think that preserving a modern rare breed like the Bowmont is simply a case of putting male and female together as often as nature allows and encouraging them to get on with it, taking care of course to nurture the offspring especially well.

Yes of course this is the main way we go about things and I spend a good deal of time around now ensuring I am putting the right animals together in order to get the best possible fleeces on the healthiest animals. But it is not enough. Rare breeds of any kind are in constant danger these days from disease outbreaks and their control measures. DEFRA’s heavy handed approach to Foot and Mouth in 2001 is a very present memory round here and the fresh outbreak in 2007 was a real wake up call. The government vet agency, now called Animal Health seem to have no mechanism to give special status to my goats and sheep despite their unique genetic status. This means that they will be slaughtered along with any other animals in a disease outbreak.

I cannot allow 30 years of work to go to waste. I already have some embryos and semen frozen from my goats. I am now slowly doing the same for my Bowmonts. Last year I had semen frozen from Pickle, my senior ram. This year it is embryo collection. One good ewe who has not lambed since she prolapsed spectacularly and is consequently sitting around doing not much, is being programmed for embryo harvesting. This is an invasive process. The vet came yesterday and inserted sponges to get her cycling and in a few days time I must start injecting her twice a day with a cocktail of chemicals to make her superovulate.

At the due time, she and my chosen ram will go to the AI centre together and the eggs she has produced (hopefully many more than normal) will be fertilised – not naturally but by laparoscopic techniques, semen having first been taken from my ram. This is to ensure the highest success rate possible. A few days later the ewe will return to the AI centre to have the resulting tiny embryos flushed out of her. They will then be frozen until I need them. The ewe will then come home for some rest and recovery.

All this sounds quite matter of fact. It hides mixed feelings on my part. I have no doubts at all that I need to do this for the sake of the breed. It only takes one walker on our footpath to bring in FMD if it is in the area. The sheep of course are also perfectly capable of developing some catastrophic disease problem themselves. I have the only guaranteed pure bred Bowmont flock in the country. These sheep are unique. There is no other way at the moment to ensure their survival in the event of disaster.

Yet I am not comfortable. Sheep are probably the most abused and neglected of all farm animals. My vet said yesterday when we were discussing this very point, that the commonly held belief that sheep just suddenly decide to die for no apparent reason is on the whole complete rubbish. Sheep show symptoms just like any other animal. It’s just that they are looked at relatively rarely by many farmers and the early signs get missed. The greater the numbers the less you will notice.

They are long suffering, quiet beasts and it goes against the grain for me to put this ewe through all the injections and the trauma of two surgical procedures despite the excellent care I and the vets will of course give her. She is with two companions in my isolation block and is in the sheep equivalent of 5 star luxury with comfy bedding, good hay and a handful of concentrate. What more could a sheep want? And yet I feel guilty. The day I stop feeling so is the day I shall have abandoned my principle :

“It is our privilege to share the lives of our animals and to use their fibres. It is our duty to treat them with respect and kindness at all times.”

For more on Lesley and the farm:
http://devonfinefibres.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/preserving-the-bowmont/