Cape Breton breaks featured in surfing magazines

Cape Breton surfers have been excited to see local breaks featured by two of the industry's leading publications this month.

Both Surfer and Surfing magazines have photo spreads with shots of Nova Scotia in their online editions.

"I think it's awesome," said Ryan Mansfield, owner of Ollie Around skate, snow and surf shop in Sydney. "It's really surreal to see my local spots."

He said when he saw the spread titled North to Nova Scotia on the Surfer website, he expected to see shots of mainland sites such as Lawrencetown and Cow Bay.

"When I saw Cape Breton spots, I was pretty stoked," he said.

One of the shots is in Black Brook. Mansfield said he's tried to surf there, but hasn't caught the right conditions.

"It's a left-hand point break when it works good, and from those photos it looked awesome," he said.

Logan Landry is a professional surfer based in Halifax and one of the surfers in the photos. He said Nova Scotia photographer Scotty Sherin shot the pictures in January, and sold them to the magazines.

'Such a unique place'

It's not the first time they've featured Nova Scotia, said Landry.

"It's just such a unique place that people get pretty excited about it, because it's — it's just so cold up here. It's actually one of the coldest places you can surf before the water completely freezes over." 

For that reason, he doubts the recent publicity will draw many warm-water surfers to Nova Scotia's coastline.

But Landry said it may get more local people excited to give surfing a try in the summer months at places like Lawrencetown Beach and Point Michaud.