Boardmasters offers an impressive bill of surfing, hip-hop, indie, punk and DJs

Watching a band from the back of the Main Stage crowd at Relentless Boardmasters, perched atop the cliffs, high above Watergate Bay, and enjoying some cold refreshment as the sun sets over the ocean is probably about as close as it is possible to get to paradise at a British festival.

The five-day music, surfing and extreme sports extravaganza is split across two main sites, with Watergate Bay hosting an impressive bill of mainstream British and US hip-hop, indie, punk and DJs, while Fistral Bay is home to the surfing competitions.

This year's event is blessed by absolutely ideal weather, with electric blue skies, seldom bothered by clouds, stretching out across the Atlantic, late summer sun and a cooling breeze whipping its way over the festival sites.

Warming up for a long day's musical entertainment by swimming in the sea, just a short stumble down the coastal path from the festival site, lazing on the beach or watching hundreds of surfers and bodbyboarders riding the glinting waves, is a fairly unique experience at a festival in this country. It certainly feels far removed from rising to a can of offensively warm lager and a pot noodle in a hot tent before a trip to the portaloos.

The split between two sites does throw up a couple of minor teething problems, though, at an event which otherwise appears to run like laid-back, effortless clockwork.

With Boardmasters' Beach Sessions kicking off over at Fistral on Wednesday and Thursday ahead of the main music programme five miles back up the coast on Friday, and the festival not having its own dedicated campsite, anyone staying near Watergate Bay is left with a slight problem, as the free shuttle bus laid on to connect the two sites does not start until Friday.

This presents festival-goers with a choice between finding a local bus, flagging down a less-than-affordable taxi or sacrificing the Beach Sessions for an evening reclining on the sand at Watergate Bay. In fairness, it's far from the worst choice to be confronted with on day one of a festival.

The surfing action at Fistral is of an impressively high standard, even more so to the casual, untrained observer, with the festival showcasing the 5 star ASP World Qualifying Series competition. BMX and skateboarding are also represented.

Ideal conditions see world-class surfers from the UK, Europe and America excelling on four-five-ft waves and competing for $120,000 in prize money, headed by the series-leading Australian Daniel Ross.

Back at Watergate Bay Friday and Saturday's music line-up is heavily peppered with hip-hop - Roots Manuva, Master Shortie, The Streets and Cypress Hill putting on heavyweight performances on the main stage and a fairly diverse spread of guitar music dominating on the Relentless Live, Vans Music and Jagermeister Unsigned stages.

The Streets, approaching their final year of existence, before Mike Skinner calls it a day and does something else with his life, are absolutely triumphant, with a towering, majestic Friday night headline set, following big sunset-accompanying performances from Roots Manuva and Calvin Harris. Saturday sees something of a coup in the securing of Latino-rap stoners extraordinaire Cypress Hill to close the festival after Welsh indie veterans Super Furry Animals.

The Watergate Bay site is compact and tidy, with a truly breathtaking setting. The stages are easy to navigate between and the crowds manageable. The sound on the Main Stage is, however, disappointingly quiet for large parts of the programme, but that seems to be an increasing, somewhat disappointing, trend over the past few years at British festivals generally and shouldn't be seen as a gripe with Boardmasters.

The site offers a pretty wide range of food, too, with the Mike-Skinner endorsed ribs, Caribbean and Asian food, alongside more traditional fare, and it's not exceedingly over-priced when compared to some of the larger festivals on the circuit.

Promotion and sponsorship seem to be ubiquitous throughout the event and it's pretty difficult to sit still in front of the Main Stage for much longer than 10 minutes without having a free energy drink, chocolate bar or club flyer thrust into your hands.

All in all, Relentless Boardmasters is an extremely difficult festival to dislike. The pace is refreshingly serene, the setting unique and almost impossibly beautiful, and the bill impressive for a festival of its size. The crowd is largely young and largely affluent, with a high proportion of students, which contributes to a lively, upbeat and unthreatening atmosphere. At £55, for a weekend ticket, taking in all of the music at Watergate Bay and with day tickets for the Beach Sessions, available at £15, Boardmasters also represents excellent value for money at a time when many similar-sized festivals with lesser bills are creeping relentlessly towards the £100 mark.

Leaving Cornwall after a couple of days basking in the sunshine, being pounded by the waves and reclining in front of bands while gazing out across the roaring, ceaseless surf, is possibly as satisfied as I've ever felt at the end of a festival. Highly recommended.

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