Finally...
Here they are. Costco is selling surfboards in the Fountain Valley / Huntington Beach location. They've got shortboards, longboards, and foamies, too.
posted by travinator @ 7:43 AM
0 comments
Monday, June 16, 2008
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Post Mex, Volume I
Brett and I took our first trip to "real Baja"(1) the first week in June. it almost didn't happen, as work schedules, wife schedules and life schedules continuously got in the way, but we finally both committed to the trip, and went.
We packed lightly, having little time to do so. For food, we brought some bagels, cream cheese, fruits, oatmeal, and carrots. "The rest of our diet," I confidently asserted, "will consist of the taco food group."
We drove through Ensenada, stopping for a stomach full of tacos, and off of the 1-D road to the little seaside town of erindria, and turned north. There was supposedly a strong south swell in the water, but when we reached the rocky shoreline, we saw no such thing.
We drove north for a half hour, looking at the ocean conditions as we went. The further north we drove, the more the swell filled in. But, the coastline was pretty inhospitable, consisting mostly of very rocky reefs that didn't look pleasant to get into or out of.
With the town of erindria little more than a memory behind us, we came at last to an amazingly picturesque cove of sand. We drove down a trail to the beach and looked at the water. A single wave was breaking all the way across 200 yards of beach in one smooth motion. We watched the wave break for some time, and concluded it was a consistent wall.
I walked out to the point on the far side of the cove, where a rock rose from the beach up to a high point. From there I looked north and found a larger cove(2), some miles long and with sporadic beach break waves all throughout.
We navigated a series of trails to find our way to the beach and a camping spot. At one point, the sand was very thick and we feared an inability to drive back out. We started setting up camp several hundred yards from the water in the middle of a sand dune, but after some encounters with off-road gringos, decided to try the drive out and find a better spot.
A better spot we did find. Brett drove out on to the pebble beach and we found a flat spot in a sandy cliff overlooking the break. We set up an e-z-up, rather than pitching a tent.
The evening surfing was decent, with wind still on the water. We surfed alone until just before sunset.
At camp, we realized that we were miles from any source of food. The taco food group I had so confidently placed my faith in was to fail us. We rationed the bagels and cream cheese to last us the next day and a half and lit a campfire.
The next day was Saturday. We woke up and surfed a spectacular morning of chest to slightly overhead surf for about two hours. Not a soul was in sight in the water to either the north or the south. The water was clear blue, cool, and calm. The only living thing we saw was a seal that seemed to be in love with Brett, and followed him around.
By chance, this day was the day of the famous Baja 500 off road race. After some rest, we broke camp, packed the boards, and went up to the main road to sit up by the road for the day as the motorcycles, quads, dune buggies, and off road racing truck barreled by. The road was littered with an audience of both gringos and locals. We discovered that there was a popular camping flat about 2 miles north of our surf spot.
After watching the spectacle, we returned to our campsite, ate some bagels and cream cheese, and slept.
Sunday morning, the beach and our campsite were covered in fog. The idea of using an e-z-up tarp rather than a tent had backfired. Our sleeping bags and stuffs were wet from the fog and dew. Looking out to the water, I couldn't see any waves through the fog.
We paddled out into the gray midst.
Just outside of the visible range from the shore were glassy a-frame peaks. I think I caught a right at one point, but for the most part, they were super long lefts. We caught some rides that were ridable for 50 yards. The set waves were a foot or two overhead, with an accessional "crap, paddle fast!" wave bigger than that. Both of us had longboards, and the take off was soft and smooth on the shoulder with the wave gaining power after it broke.
We surfed for over two hours and left the water exhausted but entirely satisfied. Again, during the whole session, there were no other surfers to be seen. The seal was there, but he didn't hog any waves.
We took the long road, following the race path, back to Ensenada. Brett wanted to test the 4 wheel drive abilities of his car. We drove through Ensenada and thru to rosarito where we stopped with grumbling stomachs to feast on many tacos.
The border wait was hell. Total hell on earth. ...but worth every minute.
Notes:
(1) "Real baja" is what the "Surfer's Guide to Baja" calls Baja south of Ensenada. At that point, the author claims, Baja stops being a "low rent suburb of san diago" and becomes real Mexican territory.
(2) The spot we'd discovered, come to find out, is called Punta Cabras. Wannasurf.com has some cool pictures of the cove on the south as well as the spot we surfed at. Apparently, the south cove is what the locals call "Punta cabras" and it's a popular Mexican campsite for the weekends. The northern, less accessable cove is what the gringos (or, at least the "Surfer's Guide to Baja") call "Punta Cabras" and is where most of the surfing happens. The south cove is reported to break better in the winter, with wrap around north swells sending a right across the cove. But, when we saw it the wave was just dumping.
We packed lightly, having little time to do so. For food, we brought some bagels, cream cheese, fruits, oatmeal, and carrots. "The rest of our diet," I confidently asserted, "will consist of the taco food group."
We drove through Ensenada, stopping for a stomach full of tacos, and off of the 1-D road to the little seaside town of erindria, and turned north. There was supposedly a strong south swell in the water, but when we reached the rocky shoreline, we saw no such thing.
We drove north for a half hour, looking at the ocean conditions as we went. The further north we drove, the more the swell filled in. But, the coastline was pretty inhospitable, consisting mostly of very rocky reefs that didn't look pleasant to get into or out of.
With the town of erindria little more than a memory behind us, we came at last to an amazingly picturesque cove of sand. We drove down a trail to the beach and looked at the water. A single wave was breaking all the way across 200 yards of beach in one smooth motion. We watched the wave break for some time, and concluded it was a consistent wall.
I walked out to the point on the far side of the cove, where a rock rose from the beach up to a high point. From there I looked north and found a larger cove(2), some miles long and with sporadic beach break waves all throughout.
We navigated a series of trails to find our way to the beach and a camping spot. At one point, the sand was very thick and we feared an inability to drive back out. We started setting up camp several hundred yards from the water in the middle of a sand dune, but after some encounters with off-road gringos, decided to try the drive out and find a better spot.
A better spot we did find. Brett drove out on to the pebble beach and we found a flat spot in a sandy cliff overlooking the break. We set up an e-z-up, rather than pitching a tent.
The evening surfing was decent, with wind still on the water. We surfed alone until just before sunset.
At camp, we realized that we were miles from any source of food. The taco food group I had so confidently placed my faith in was to fail us. We rationed the bagels and cream cheese to last us the next day and a half and lit a campfire.
The next day was Saturday. We woke up and surfed a spectacular morning of chest to slightly overhead surf for about two hours. Not a soul was in sight in the water to either the north or the south. The water was clear blue, cool, and calm. The only living thing we saw was a seal that seemed to be in love with Brett, and followed him around.
By chance, this day was the day of the famous Baja 500 off road race. After some rest, we broke camp, packed the boards, and went up to the main road to sit up by the road for the day as the motorcycles, quads, dune buggies, and off road racing truck barreled by. The road was littered with an audience of both gringos and locals. We discovered that there was a popular camping flat about 2 miles north of our surf spot.
After watching the spectacle, we returned to our campsite, ate some bagels and cream cheese, and slept.
Sunday morning, the beach and our campsite were covered in fog. The idea of using an e-z-up tarp rather than a tent had backfired. Our sleeping bags and stuffs were wet from the fog and dew. Looking out to the water, I couldn't see any waves through the fog.
We paddled out into the gray midst.
Just outside of the visible range from the shore were glassy a-frame peaks. I think I caught a right at one point, but for the most part, they were super long lefts. We caught some rides that were ridable for 50 yards. The set waves were a foot or two overhead, with an accessional "crap, paddle fast!" wave bigger than that. Both of us had longboards, and the take off was soft and smooth on the shoulder with the wave gaining power after it broke.
We surfed for over two hours and left the water exhausted but entirely satisfied. Again, during the whole session, there were no other surfers to be seen. The seal was there, but he didn't hog any waves.
We took the long road, following the race path, back to Ensenada. Brett wanted to test the 4 wheel drive abilities of his car. We drove through Ensenada and thru to rosarito where we stopped with grumbling stomachs to feast on many tacos.
The border wait was hell. Total hell on earth. ...but worth every minute.
Notes:
(1) "Real baja" is what the "Surfer's Guide to Baja" calls Baja south of Ensenada. At that point, the author claims, Baja stops being a "low rent suburb of san diago" and becomes real Mexican territory.
(2) The spot we'd discovered, come to find out, is called Punta Cabras. Wannasurf.com has some cool pictures of the cove on the south as well as the spot we surfed at. Apparently, the south cove is what the locals call "Punta cabras" and it's a popular Mexican campsite for the weekends. The northern, less accessable cove is what the gringos (or, at least the "Surfer's Guide to Baja") call "Punta Cabras" and is where most of the surfing happens. The south cove is reported to break better in the winter, with wrap around north swells sending a right across the cove. But, when we saw it the wave was just dumping.
posted by travinator @ 6:24 PM
0 comments
Kinda big Wednesday 6-21-2006
Surfing on a Wednesday, it’s been a while.
I met Chase and Joe at Bolsa Chica this morning at 6:00 in the morning. My though was to stay north and out of the way of the brunt of the swell which had already made the papers. I had deliberately avoided the first day of the thing, hoping to let it loose some energy before braving it.
My friend, Chris was talking about paddling out at the river mouth in the overhead surf when I saw him and Joe on Monday night. There were sure to be quick take offs, fast turns and brutal walls of water.
“Doesn’t sound fun” Joe replied. “ I need a bit more time to stand up.” He smiled. “And when I turn, I ain’t so fast. I put on the turn signal first, you know.”
We laughed. “That sounds more like it, man.” I told him. “I think I’ll be going with you.”
So, we planned to meet at Bolsa Chica.
I got there early, about 10 till 6. The waves were small, textured by the wind, inconsistent, and the sets didn’t seem to be coming in at all. Chase pulled up in the his big white delivery van, and I waved him south.
“Nothing here.” I said, and recommended we try the cliffs.
Chase drove of to the cliffs. I stayed back to wait for Joe a few minutes. When Joe pulled in, I waved him to turn right back around.
We stopped at the upper parking lot first, but moved on. I got to the south parking lot at 15 minutes past 6, right as a monster of a set rolled in. I could see a big left shoulder from the road.
By that time, I was rushed. I typically need to be in the water before 6:15 to make my time count. I called the office from my cell phone.
“This is Travis. I’m running a little bit late this morning. Can you sign me out until 9?”
I hung up. I hoped the secretary wouldn’t pay attention to the time code on the message. It might be a give away to get a message at 6:15 in the morning saying that someone is running late to be at work by 8. But, in a sense, it was true. I was late getting into the water, and I wasn’t about to limit my time. So, I was going to be late.
On the shore, we walked south a bit looking for a lull. We crossed paths with a guy who was getting out, and asked him about the current. He said that he’d started at 17th street, and drifted to where we were in about an hour. 17th street was just over a mile away. So, the drift was going to be bad.
There were nice lulls between the sets to get out to the line up. The set waves were healthy and strong. Most of them looked like walled close outs, but here and there were shoulders and peaks among them. The “tweeners” (in-between set waves) were pretty good.
There was one girl in the water who seemed to be keeping good time with the current. She must have triangulated a spot on the shore, and was constantly paddling to the south. I followed her all morning. She was easy to spot, so when I noticed she was too far south of me, I put some paddling in. I fought the current for the whole hour, something I knew my arms would not forgive me for.
My first wave was too big and too late. I wound up on my knees, practicing my longboard kneeboarding technique. I actually made a decent turn, in an attempt to avoid killing a high school age kid on a shortboard.
My first real wave was a good drop into a fun left. In fact, all my waves were lefts. Such is life in Huntington in the summer.
“that’s one thing I know about this beach.” I told Joe while paddling south. “if ever you think you are lining up on a nice right…. you are mistaken.”
I had a really good wipe out also, trying to stand up and instead flipping forward to smack my face into the water before getting flipped about by the churning foam. I ended up on the inside, where two more set waves crashed into me before I could gain my board and paddle back out to the line up.
“Don’t worry” Joe said, paddling south and laughing. “nobody saw it!”
After my second good ride, my arms started to give. At one point, the girl I’d been following was missing. “Great.” I told Chase. “ I lost my marker. I guess I just paddle indefinably now.”
I also had the song from Pirates of the Carribean stuck in my head for some reason, probably having seen an ad for the upcoming movie. So, I kept humming to myself about "yo, ho, ho, ho, a pirate's life for me."
I started looking for a wave to take in, joking: “I’m going straight!”
“What do you mean?” Joe asked.
“That’s from when I started surfing. When somebody would ask: are you going right? Are you going left? The answer is ‘fuck that. I’m going straight.’”
I found my wave, and went left, turned off the bottom and headed up the face but saw that it was going to crash on me, so I turned back down and went straight.
I met Chase and Joe at Bolsa Chica this morning at 6:00 in the morning. My though was to stay north and out of the way of the brunt of the swell which had already made the papers. I had deliberately avoided the first day of the thing, hoping to let it loose some energy before braving it.
My friend, Chris was talking about paddling out at the river mouth in the overhead surf when I saw him and Joe on Monday night. There were sure to be quick take offs, fast turns and brutal walls of water.
“Doesn’t sound fun” Joe replied. “ I need a bit more time to stand up.” He smiled. “And when I turn, I ain’t so fast. I put on the turn signal first, you know.”
We laughed. “That sounds more like it, man.” I told him. “I think I’ll be going with you.”
So, we planned to meet at Bolsa Chica.
I got there early, about 10 till 6. The waves were small, textured by the wind, inconsistent, and the sets didn’t seem to be coming in at all. Chase pulled up in the his big white delivery van, and I waved him south.
“Nothing here.” I said, and recommended we try the cliffs.
Chase drove of to the cliffs. I stayed back to wait for Joe a few minutes. When Joe pulled in, I waved him to turn right back around.
We stopped at the upper parking lot first, but moved on. I got to the south parking lot at 15 minutes past 6, right as a monster of a set rolled in. I could see a big left shoulder from the road.
By that time, I was rushed. I typically need to be in the water before 6:15 to make my time count. I called the office from my cell phone.
“This is Travis. I’m running a little bit late this morning. Can you sign me out until 9?”
I hung up. I hoped the secretary wouldn’t pay attention to the time code on the message. It might be a give away to get a message at 6:15 in the morning saying that someone is running late to be at work by 8. But, in a sense, it was true. I was late getting into the water, and I wasn’t about to limit my time. So, I was going to be late.
On the shore, we walked south a bit looking for a lull. We crossed paths with a guy who was getting out, and asked him about the current. He said that he’d started at 17th street, and drifted to where we were in about an hour. 17th street was just over a mile away. So, the drift was going to be bad.
There were nice lulls between the sets to get out to the line up. The set waves were healthy and strong. Most of them looked like walled close outs, but here and there were shoulders and peaks among them. The “tweeners” (in-between set waves) were pretty good.
There was one girl in the water who seemed to be keeping good time with the current. She must have triangulated a spot on the shore, and was constantly paddling to the south. I followed her all morning. She was easy to spot, so when I noticed she was too far south of me, I put some paddling in. I fought the current for the whole hour, something I knew my arms would not forgive me for.
My first wave was too big and too late. I wound up on my knees, practicing my longboard kneeboarding technique. I actually made a decent turn, in an attempt to avoid killing a high school age kid on a shortboard.
My first real wave was a good drop into a fun left. In fact, all my waves were lefts. Such is life in Huntington in the summer.
“that’s one thing I know about this beach.” I told Joe while paddling south. “if ever you think you are lining up on a nice right…. you are mistaken.”
I had a really good wipe out also, trying to stand up and instead flipping forward to smack my face into the water before getting flipped about by the churning foam. I ended up on the inside, where two more set waves crashed into me before I could gain my board and paddle back out to the line up.
“Don’t worry” Joe said, paddling south and laughing. “nobody saw it!”
After my second good ride, my arms started to give. At one point, the girl I’d been following was missing. “Great.” I told Chase. “ I lost my marker. I guess I just paddle indefinably now.”
I also had the song from Pirates of the Carribean stuck in my head for some reason, probably having seen an ad for the upcoming movie. So, I kept humming to myself about "yo, ho, ho, ho, a pirate's life for me."
I started looking for a wave to take in, joking: “I’m going straight!”
“What do you mean?” Joe asked.
“That’s from when I started surfing. When somebody would ask: are you going right? Are you going left? The answer is ‘fuck that. I’m going straight.’”
I found my wave, and went left, turned off the bottom and headed up the face but saw that it was going to crash on me, so I turned back down and went straight.
posted by travinator @ 12:45 PM
0 comments
Friday, May 05, 2006
Jack Vance describes my Sandals. 5-5-06
Last Saturday, I had arranged to meet Chase at the cliffs at 6:00 a.m., and was running late. Mere blocks away from the beach, the sky was windless and placid. The flag atop the multi story Boeing building, a virtula barometer I observe en route to the surf, hung unruffled and inert.
However, upon my arival at the shoreline, I encountered a dim gray morning haunted by an unpleasent gale, under whose breath the surface of the water took on a texture of knobly tree bark.
I phoned my friend. He confirmed that the situation was ubiquitous, having himself driven from the northmost mouth of Bolsa Chica to the south side of the pier in quest of a more halcyon atmosphere.
I rambled my truck northward to the State Beach at Bolsa Chica, passing the attended gate into the vast and forsaken parking lot. Alighting, I gained the sand, removed myself the burden of my sandals to baptize my toes in the refreshing sand, and called Chase again. Abandoning our aspirations of surfing, we convered in some depth regarding several articles of theological distinction upon which Chase had recently argued. I started my truck and headed home.
Forty minutes later, arriving at my plesent suburban domicile, I realized my critical error: I had abondoned my footwear in the sand during my conversation with Chase. I tormented with the troublesome dilema: to return or not to return. After depositing my surfing gear in the garage, I marched into the house and inquired the opinion of my lovely wife. She, in the early dawn stupor in which her temperment is notoriously loathsome, bellowed a rebuttal that I should immidatly vacate the house and retrive the lost commodities.
Reconing that a rebound to the beach might avail another opportunity for surfing, I reloaded my board and suit into the vehicle and commenced the sustained commute back to the waterfront.
Upon my arrival, the wind was substantially reduced. I surfed for an hour and some minutes, catching three decent waves.
My wife, now awakened in an greatly improved coonstitution, wondered what took me so damn long.
Happy aniversary, my dearest. 5-5-2001 to 5-5-2006
However, upon my arival at the shoreline, I encountered a dim gray morning haunted by an unpleasent gale, under whose breath the surface of the water took on a texture of knobly tree bark.
I phoned my friend. He confirmed that the situation was ubiquitous, having himself driven from the northmost mouth of Bolsa Chica to the south side of the pier in quest of a more halcyon atmosphere.
I rambled my truck northward to the State Beach at Bolsa Chica, passing the attended gate into the vast and forsaken parking lot. Alighting, I gained the sand, removed myself the burden of my sandals to baptize my toes in the refreshing sand, and called Chase again. Abandoning our aspirations of surfing, we convered in some depth regarding several articles of theological distinction upon which Chase had recently argued. I started my truck and headed home.
Forty minutes later, arriving at my plesent suburban domicile, I realized my critical error: I had abondoned my footwear in the sand during my conversation with Chase. I tormented with the troublesome dilema: to return or not to return. After depositing my surfing gear in the garage, I marched into the house and inquired the opinion of my lovely wife. She, in the early dawn stupor in which her temperment is notoriously loathsome, bellowed a rebuttal that I should immidatly vacate the house and retrive the lost commodities.
Reconing that a rebound to the beach might avail another opportunity for surfing, I reloaded my board and suit into the vehicle and commenced the sustained commute back to the waterfront.
Upon my arrival, the wind was substantially reduced. I surfed for an hour and some minutes, catching three decent waves.
My wife, now awakened in an greatly improved coonstitution, wondered what took me so damn long.
Happy aniversary, my dearest. 5-5-2001 to 5-5-2006
posted by travinator @ 4:56 PM
1 comments
Thursday, April 13, 2006
4-13-06 Dead Arms, Live Ocean
Surfing before work… it’s been a while.
I found the beach pass in my wife’s van. Who knows how long it’s been there. I haven’t used it since at least before February. And, I noticed that the expiration date I though would never come is getting closer.
“What exactly does this mean” I asked the girl at the state park entry booth, “When May is the month with the cut out in it?”
“It means you’re good through May and you need a new one on June 1st.”
I was relieved. OK. So I’ve still got time. I’m sure that the thing has paid for itself twice over already, but I’d like to get a few more in before it expires, it being my first beach pass and all.
It wouldn’t surprise me if I’d missed the entire month of March for surfing. I’ve been following the Surfrider rule about not going for 72 hours after a significant rain, and I think it rained just about every 73rd hour throughout March. Brett and I met at the beach about two weeks ago, having found a day that should have been clean, but it was so cold and small and high tide that we just stood on the cliffs for an hour and talked like the old guys do.
So, when I got to the water this morning, I clearly realized two things. Number one: that water is pretty cold if you haven’t been in it in a month. Number two: I’m fat. And, I’m not talking fat spelled P-H-A-T like it’s a good thing. I’m talking fat, gordo, supersize and super lazy.
It all started at Christmas time, with all the candy in the office. Then, as we got into the New Year, I started surfing less and enjoying ice cream more. By late January, I was keeping a barrel of mint chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer at all times. By February, I was tapping it every day. Then, while watching an episode of Seinfeld featuring ice cream sundaes, I added chocolate syrup, whipped cream and maraschino cherries to the standard stock list. After all, if on is to enjoy a good bowl of ice cream, one may as well enjoy it with whipped cream, chocolate syrup and a cherry on top, right?
And, if one is not spending one’s morning’s surfing, what should one do? Well, I’ve taken up meditating. That’s right, meditation. Hey, it’s great for my spiritual condition, my serenity, my peace of heart and mind. But, let’s face it folks, meditation is the art of sitting on one’s ass. So, in addition to not surfing, and single handedly supporting the Haagen Daas company, I’ve been practicing sitting on my ass for extended periods of time without so much as moving a muscle. I can sit on my ass and do absolutely nothing for a solid fifteen minutes.
My arms hurt almost instantly.
Fortunatly, the conditions were perfect for a fat, out of shape louse on a longboard. The sets were chest to head high and only came about every eight to ten minutes. This gave me plenty of time to mosey out to the line up, pant and gasp, sit up and catch my breath, and then catch a fine wave. I actually caught my three wave quota in three successive sets and was feeling pretty good. My alarm went off as I was searching for a fourth, signaling time to get out of the water.
Then I saw him. A seal. He was just inside a breaking wave, his ugly little head poking out of the water like a groundhog or rat, moving from side to side and coming right for me. My first thought was about sharks, who love to eat these guys. Then, I remembered that the seal himself is no pleasant friend of man. I splashed at him, but he kept coming right for me, at a good pace. He got to within a foot of the end of my board, and I hollered.
“Hey man, get away, I’m afraid of you!”
I, of course, instantly realized what a little girl I must have sounded like (and quickly therafter checked to see that nobody heard), but it seemed to work. His head dipped under the water and I saw his shape moving away.
The next thing I saw was a dorsal fin, which made me think of those sharks again. But, not for long. A dolphin breached about 10 yards away from me. Then, another one breached, then another. All in all, there were about a dozen or more dolphins. They all swam through were I was. By this time, I was laying on my board, just hoping that one didn’t decide to jump out and over me, knocking my head off. Some passed in front of me, some behind. There were blow holes on all sides.
“That’s it.” I breathed when they had passed, “I’m outta here.”
Dead as my arms were, I didn’t wait for a wave but paddled in.
So, now that the ocean has welcomed me back in freshman hazing style, I’d better keep going. I’m slated to meet my friend Steve at the cliffs tomorrow. Who knows, maybe the pelicans will try to scare me off.
I found the beach pass in my wife’s van. Who knows how long it’s been there. I haven’t used it since at least before February. And, I noticed that the expiration date I though would never come is getting closer.
“What exactly does this mean” I asked the girl at the state park entry booth, “When May is the month with the cut out in it?”
“It means you’re good through May and you need a new one on June 1st.”
I was relieved. OK. So I’ve still got time. I’m sure that the thing has paid for itself twice over already, but I’d like to get a few more in before it expires, it being my first beach pass and all.
It wouldn’t surprise me if I’d missed the entire month of March for surfing. I’ve been following the Surfrider rule about not going for 72 hours after a significant rain, and I think it rained just about every 73rd hour throughout March. Brett and I met at the beach about two weeks ago, having found a day that should have been clean, but it was so cold and small and high tide that we just stood on the cliffs for an hour and talked like the old guys do.
So, when I got to the water this morning, I clearly realized two things. Number one: that water is pretty cold if you haven’t been in it in a month. Number two: I’m fat. And, I’m not talking fat spelled P-H-A-T like it’s a good thing. I’m talking fat, gordo, supersize and super lazy.
It all started at Christmas time, with all the candy in the office. Then, as we got into the New Year, I started surfing less and enjoying ice cream more. By late January, I was keeping a barrel of mint chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer at all times. By February, I was tapping it every day. Then, while watching an episode of Seinfeld featuring ice cream sundaes, I added chocolate syrup, whipped cream and maraschino cherries to the standard stock list. After all, if on is to enjoy a good bowl of ice cream, one may as well enjoy it with whipped cream, chocolate syrup and a cherry on top, right?
And, if one is not spending one’s morning’s surfing, what should one do? Well, I’ve taken up meditating. That’s right, meditation. Hey, it’s great for my spiritual condition, my serenity, my peace of heart and mind. But, let’s face it folks, meditation is the art of sitting on one’s ass. So, in addition to not surfing, and single handedly supporting the Haagen Daas company, I’ve been practicing sitting on my ass for extended periods of time without so much as moving a muscle. I can sit on my ass and do absolutely nothing for a solid fifteen minutes.
My arms hurt almost instantly.
Fortunatly, the conditions were perfect for a fat, out of shape louse on a longboard. The sets were chest to head high and only came about every eight to ten minutes. This gave me plenty of time to mosey out to the line up, pant and gasp, sit up and catch my breath, and then catch a fine wave. I actually caught my three wave quota in three successive sets and was feeling pretty good. My alarm went off as I was searching for a fourth, signaling time to get out of the water.
Then I saw him. A seal. He was just inside a breaking wave, his ugly little head poking out of the water like a groundhog or rat, moving from side to side and coming right for me. My first thought was about sharks, who love to eat these guys. Then, I remembered that the seal himself is no pleasant friend of man. I splashed at him, but he kept coming right for me, at a good pace. He got to within a foot of the end of my board, and I hollered.
“Hey man, get away, I’m afraid of you!”
I, of course, instantly realized what a little girl I must have sounded like (and quickly therafter checked to see that nobody heard), but it seemed to work. His head dipped under the water and I saw his shape moving away.
The next thing I saw was a dorsal fin, which made me think of those sharks again. But, not for long. A dolphin breached about 10 yards away from me. Then, another one breached, then another. All in all, there were about a dozen or more dolphins. They all swam through were I was. By this time, I was laying on my board, just hoping that one didn’t decide to jump out and over me, knocking my head off. Some passed in front of me, some behind. There were blow holes on all sides.
“That’s it.” I breathed when they had passed, “I’m outta here.”
Dead as my arms were, I didn’t wait for a wave but paddled in.
So, now that the ocean has welcomed me back in freshman hazing style, I’d better keep going. I’m slated to meet my friend Steve at the cliffs tomorrow. Who knows, maybe the pelicans will try to scare me off.
posted by travinator @ 3:55 PM
0 comments
Saturday, December 24, 2005
12-23-05 The Prison Tower
Thursday was our office's last day of work. We traditionally close between Christmas and New Year's every year. And since Christmas Eve was on a Saturday, they gave us Friday off.
I woke up early and looked at the reports. The swell was still very much active at the beaches. But, it had died down substantially from the mess of Wednesday, and looked like there might be waves I could surf. The buoy charts showed six to eight foot seas coming in to Huntington and Bolsa Chica. I waited for the tide to rise, and went at noon.
My wife was at home, and decided to come to the beach with me, a rare treat. We tried to get the video camera working, but neither of the batteries had any juice. We loaded up the mini van with Gwen's beach toys, and drove off.
Of course, being the holidays, we were rushed for time. Jenn's mother was en route from Vegas, so Jenn was on the cell phone most of the way too the beach. My wife is no fun when she is late for anything. She panics into a very high stress mode which I've never understood. So, the trip had to be time conscious.
We arrived at Bolsa Chica and pulled in south of the prison tower. I stood up on the lip of a fire ring, with my daughter on my hip, and looked out at the breakers. They were still head and a half high, and there was a lot of white foam to swim through. Still, there looked to be sections where I could make it.
My wife showed her inexperience. "This looks good". She said immediately. "Those don't look too big. Just go here."
I raised my eyebrows, and told her to look closer. "Look at the wave relative to the size of that guy that's out there."
There was a surfer dropping into a big section. He didn't make it, but it was clearly head and a half high.
"Oh," she said. "Wow. Those are big."
I watched it for a few minutes more, and got the fears.
"Let's go to Seal Beach." I told Jenn. "It will be a bit smaller." Of course, I've never actually surfed Seal Beach, but I've heard that it does pretty well on these winter storms.
She agreed, complaining about the time, but acquiescing. I lead footed the minivan over to the pier at Seal Beach an pulled into the parking lot. Jenn got out and paid $3 to the parking machine. I walked to shore to look at the waves.
Crap. Total crap. Waist high close outs with about sixty surfers paddleling for each.
I was a little bummed, but knew we were pressed for time. I could probably handle the crowd, having learned crowd skills in Huntington in the summer. I started to suit up behind the van. Jenn had walked to the beach and came back over.
"This looks lame" she said.
"Yea. I should have stayed at Bolsa."
She thought about it. "I think we have time."
"Are you sure."
"Yes." She said. "I'm sure. We have time."
Half dressed in a wetsuit up to the waist, I pushed my board into the van and jumped back in the driver's seat. We high-tailed it back to the prison tower, where I quickly got Jenn and Gwen's toys and chairs out onto the sand. I walked the shore for a short stretch, sensing a southbound current, and jumped out.
The paddle out was not too bad, tiring for me, but I made it pretty quickly. While the big sets churned on the outside, I had to simply wait and take the abuse. But, there were lulls enough to make the paddle. Once outside, I lined up with the other surfers. There were six or seven of us lined up at a fairly consistent peak north of the tower, and another ten or fifteen guys at a larger section south of the tower.
I caught my first wave early on. It was an overhead right, but it stayed open for a pretty long ride. My wife saw it from shore, she told me later. She said it was big. She said that I didn't make any turns, but just stood there. That sounded right. Hell, I wasn't looking to win any contests, I was just looking at the peak of the thing up over my head and trying to keep out of the way of it. But, for a big day at Bolsa, it was a long ride for me. I wound up having to paddle all the way back out, this time through the impact zone during a set.
Once I made it back to the outside, my shoulder gave me pain signals. I paddled through them. A set of monster waves came in that all the surfers had to paddle out to. I paddled up the face of one that was almost twice the length of my 7'-6" board and slapped burst over the top just before the break, slapping down on the back side. They next wave was even bigger, and I paddled as hard as I could to make it. Nearing the top, it became obvious that I was not going to make it so I committed my sin: I ditched my board and dove through the peak to the daylight on the other side, then took a deep breath and turned around to see if my leash was going to drag me in. Fortunately, my board popped up over the breaking curl. I grabbed it and got back on. There wasn't a third wave.
The second ride I got was also a right. It was the second wave of a good sized set. On the first set wave, another surfer failed to take it on the inside of me. He looked like he could have made it, but pulled out. In my mind I cursed him. It's funny how easy it is to mock another surfer for not going when, given the same situation, I also would have backed down nine waves out of ten. Perhaps it was this brief feeling of superiority that compelled my to commit to the next wave. Of course, once I was committed, I did the right thing. I got to my feet and dropped.
The drop was big. It gave me a second of that stomach feeling like when you're falling on a roller coaster, when you become aware of your weightlessness in the absence of force between your feet and your body. Then my feet dug in, my knees bent, and I looked up in front of me to see where I needed to turn. The options were: go straight, or get screwed. I chose to go straight. I was probably a board's length ahead of the foam when it crashed down behind me. I even managed to stay on my feet for a second or two after the impact. Then it ate me.
I paddled back out to look for a third wave. But, my wife's chair was gone from the beach. I remembered the time situation. I knew there was trouble. I looked out at the swell, seeing if there would be a good wave soon. It was a lull. To wait for a third, and select it just right, would take me another quarter hour or better. I paddled in.
We were late. Jenn's mom was waiting for us at our house when we got home. Fortunately, we'd been dumb enough to leave the front door unlocked.
I woke up early and looked at the reports. The swell was still very much active at the beaches. But, it had died down substantially from the mess of Wednesday, and looked like there might be waves I could surf. The buoy charts showed six to eight foot seas coming in to Huntington and Bolsa Chica. I waited for the tide to rise, and went at noon.
My wife was at home, and decided to come to the beach with me, a rare treat. We tried to get the video camera working, but neither of the batteries had any juice. We loaded up the mini van with Gwen's beach toys, and drove off.
Of course, being the holidays, we were rushed for time. Jenn's mother was en route from Vegas, so Jenn was on the cell phone most of the way too the beach. My wife is no fun when she is late for anything. She panics into a very high stress mode which I've never understood. So, the trip had to be time conscious.
We arrived at Bolsa Chica and pulled in south of the prison tower. I stood up on the lip of a fire ring, with my daughter on my hip, and looked out at the breakers. They were still head and a half high, and there was a lot of white foam to swim through. Still, there looked to be sections where I could make it.
My wife showed her inexperience. "This looks good". She said immediately. "Those don't look too big. Just go here."
I raised my eyebrows, and told her to look closer. "Look at the wave relative to the size of that guy that's out there."
There was a surfer dropping into a big section. He didn't make it, but it was clearly head and a half high.
"Oh," she said. "Wow. Those are big."
I watched it for a few minutes more, and got the fears.
"Let's go to Seal Beach." I told Jenn. "It will be a bit smaller." Of course, I've never actually surfed Seal Beach, but I've heard that it does pretty well on these winter storms.
She agreed, complaining about the time, but acquiescing. I lead footed the minivan over to the pier at Seal Beach an pulled into the parking lot. Jenn got out and paid $3 to the parking machine. I walked to shore to look at the waves.
Crap. Total crap. Waist high close outs with about sixty surfers paddleling for each.
I was a little bummed, but knew we were pressed for time. I could probably handle the crowd, having learned crowd skills in Huntington in the summer. I started to suit up behind the van. Jenn had walked to the beach and came back over.
"This looks lame" she said.
"Yea. I should have stayed at Bolsa."
She thought about it. "I think we have time."
"Are you sure."
"Yes." She said. "I'm sure. We have time."
Half dressed in a wetsuit up to the waist, I pushed my board into the van and jumped back in the driver's seat. We high-tailed it back to the prison tower, where I quickly got Jenn and Gwen's toys and chairs out onto the sand. I walked the shore for a short stretch, sensing a southbound current, and jumped out.
The paddle out was not too bad, tiring for me, but I made it pretty quickly. While the big sets churned on the outside, I had to simply wait and take the abuse. But, there were lulls enough to make the paddle. Once outside, I lined up with the other surfers. There were six or seven of us lined up at a fairly consistent peak north of the tower, and another ten or fifteen guys at a larger section south of the tower.
I caught my first wave early on. It was an overhead right, but it stayed open for a pretty long ride. My wife saw it from shore, she told me later. She said it was big. She said that I didn't make any turns, but just stood there. That sounded right. Hell, I wasn't looking to win any contests, I was just looking at the peak of the thing up over my head and trying to keep out of the way of it. But, for a big day at Bolsa, it was a long ride for me. I wound up having to paddle all the way back out, this time through the impact zone during a set.
Once I made it back to the outside, my shoulder gave me pain signals. I paddled through them. A set of monster waves came in that all the surfers had to paddle out to. I paddled up the face of one that was almost twice the length of my 7'-6" board and slapped burst over the top just before the break, slapping down on the back side. They next wave was even bigger, and I paddled as hard as I could to make it. Nearing the top, it became obvious that I was not going to make it so I committed my sin: I ditched my board and dove through the peak to the daylight on the other side, then took a deep breath and turned around to see if my leash was going to drag me in. Fortunately, my board popped up over the breaking curl. I grabbed it and got back on. There wasn't a third wave.
The second ride I got was also a right. It was the second wave of a good sized set. On the first set wave, another surfer failed to take it on the inside of me. He looked like he could have made it, but pulled out. In my mind I cursed him. It's funny how easy it is to mock another surfer for not going when, given the same situation, I also would have backed down nine waves out of ten. Perhaps it was this brief feeling of superiority that compelled my to commit to the next wave. Of course, once I was committed, I did the right thing. I got to my feet and dropped.
The drop was big. It gave me a second of that stomach feeling like when you're falling on a roller coaster, when you become aware of your weightlessness in the absence of force between your feet and your body. Then my feet dug in, my knees bent, and I looked up in front of me to see where I needed to turn. The options were: go straight, or get screwed. I chose to go straight. I was probably a board's length ahead of the foam when it crashed down behind me. I even managed to stay on my feet for a second or two after the impact. Then it ate me.
I paddled back out to look for a third wave. But, my wife's chair was gone from the beach. I remembered the time situation. I knew there was trouble. I looked out at the swell, seeing if there would be a good wave soon. It was a lull. To wait for a third, and select it just right, would take me another quarter hour or better. I paddled in.
We were late. Jenn's mom was waiting for us at our house when we got home. Fortunately, we'd been dumb enough to leave the front door unlocked.
posted by travinator @ 9:26 AM
0 comments
12-21-05 Big Wednesday
A monster of a swell steamed into Orange County on a Wednesday. I was reminded of the movie "Big Wednesday", and the voice over: "they came in from the north".
Actually, these came in from the west. All the forecasters had seen it coming for several days. The daily surf report for Tuesday on Surfrider's web page had a caption under the day's photo reading: " Are you ready for tomorrow's big waves?"
Chase called me Tuesday night, to confirm a meeting spot for the morning. We agreed to meet a Bolsa Chica, near the "prison tower". Knowing what was coming, I told him that we may have to move up to Seal Beach if the waves were too big.
Then, I slept right through it. Being the week before our office's traditional holiday closure, I'd been working at an obscene pace, including preparations for a particularly dreadful meeting on Wednesday morning.
Instead of waking up to my alarm at 4:45 am, I woke up to my daughter tugging on my arm. "Daddy." She whined. "Gwen go pee-pee." She no longer wears diapers to sleep, but comes and wakes an adult up to go with her to the bathroom instead. I got up and followed her, realizing what time it was and that I had overslept.
While we were in the bathroom, my cell phone rang. It was Chase.
"Where are you at?"
"I never got up. I'm still at my house."
"I wouldn't come." he told me.
Chase reported the worst of what I had imagined. The waves were huge and the beach breaks at Huntington couldn't handle them. They were completely un-surf-able. Huge, 20 foot walls of water, breaking all at once in giant mounds of foam, one right after the other.
On my way to work, I got two other calls from people asking me if I had gone surfing. Both were from people driving by the beach, and seeing this outrageous spectacle, they felt that I was the one to call. I reported to both that I didn't go, and that I would probably wait for the swell to die down a bit before I attempted to surf in it.
On my lunch break, I drove to the beach. I simply had to see it.
It looked like hell. Gigantic breakers pushing foam up into the bottom of the Huntington Beach pier. As a spectacle of nature, it was awesome to see. Spectators lined the pier just watching the water explode all around them.
As a surfer, an old one, and not a very good one, it looked like death. I parked at tenth street and watched for a half hour or so. There were two or three brave souls in the water trying to paddle out, but nobody made it past the inside break, let alone out to where the monsters were. I didn't see a single surfer from the river to the pier and beyond who had been able to swim out through that mess.
Rumor had it that a few spots had produced waves worth riding. Seal beach, Blackies, San Onofre, a few spots north of Palos Verdes, and the reefs in north and south San Diego. My brother, in for the holidays, had paddled out in Pacific Beach in San Diego and caught a few big ones. Of course, he's been surfing north shore this year, so he's far more capable of swimming around in big surf then most of the surfing population here. Even he reported that the Sunset Cliffs were outrageous, and he decided not to risk it.
Actually, these came in from the west. All the forecasters had seen it coming for several days. The daily surf report for Tuesday on Surfrider's web page had a caption under the day's photo reading: " Are you ready for tomorrow's big waves?"
Chase called me Tuesday night, to confirm a meeting spot for the morning. We agreed to meet a Bolsa Chica, near the "prison tower". Knowing what was coming, I told him that we may have to move up to Seal Beach if the waves were too big.
Then, I slept right through it. Being the week before our office's traditional holiday closure, I'd been working at an obscene pace, including preparations for a particularly dreadful meeting on Wednesday morning.
Instead of waking up to my alarm at 4:45 am, I woke up to my daughter tugging on my arm. "Daddy." She whined. "Gwen go pee-pee." She no longer wears diapers to sleep, but comes and wakes an adult up to go with her to the bathroom instead. I got up and followed her, realizing what time it was and that I had overslept.
While we were in the bathroom, my cell phone rang. It was Chase.
"Where are you at?"
"I never got up. I'm still at my house."
"I wouldn't come." he told me.
Chase reported the worst of what I had imagined. The waves were huge and the beach breaks at Huntington couldn't handle them. They were completely un-surf-able. Huge, 20 foot walls of water, breaking all at once in giant mounds of foam, one right after the other.
On my way to work, I got two other calls from people asking me if I had gone surfing. Both were from people driving by the beach, and seeing this outrageous spectacle, they felt that I was the one to call. I reported to both that I didn't go, and that I would probably wait for the swell to die down a bit before I attempted to surf in it.
On my lunch break, I drove to the beach. I simply had to see it.
It looked like hell. Gigantic breakers pushing foam up into the bottom of the Huntington Beach pier. As a spectacle of nature, it was awesome to see. Spectators lined the pier just watching the water explode all around them.
As a surfer, an old one, and not a very good one, it looked like death. I parked at tenth street and watched for a half hour or so. There were two or three brave souls in the water trying to paddle out, but nobody made it past the inside break, let alone out to where the monsters were. I didn't see a single surfer from the river to the pier and beyond who had been able to swim out through that mess.
Rumor had it that a few spots had produced waves worth riding. Seal beach, Blackies, San Onofre, a few spots north of Palos Verdes, and the reefs in north and south San Diego. My brother, in for the holidays, had paddled out in Pacific Beach in San Diego and caught a few big ones. Of course, he's been surfing north shore this year, so he's far more capable of swimming around in big surf then most of the surfing population here. Even he reported that the Sunset Cliffs were outrageous, and he decided not to risk it.
posted by travinator @ 9:23 AM
1 comments
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
12-6-05 Some Surfbiz Commentary
Clark Foam is goin' down. One of the surf industry's most recognizable names has announced that, effective immidatly, they are no longer manufacturing surfboard blanks.
Very interesting. Buy up your boards now, boys and girls. The market for surfboards is about to get interesting.
But, before we get too excited, let's still one suspicion right away. Surftec had nothing to do with it. Surftec's market share is just not that big. Nobody is. All non Clark Foam manufacturing combined only holds a 20% market share. Clark makes 80% of the world's surfboard blanks.
Nope. It's not forign competition and glabalization. It's environmentalism. Clark Foam is loosing to the EPA. Here's a line from that other article:
"He said the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Orange County Fire Authority were concerned with Clark Foam's use of a toxic chemical, toluene di-isocynate, commonly called TDI. Clark said other concerns included the use of polyester resin, dust, trash and equipment that was built to Clark's specifications."
Not too surprising, really. Surfboards have always enjoyed an odd irony - designed to enjoy the beautiful, natural, pristine environment, but made from chemical stuffs and processes that are not kind to that same environment.
In predictable businessman speak, Mr. Clark belts out the line "They [Orange County and the EPA] have made it very clear they no longer want manufacturers like Clark Foam in their area."
This is true, of course, but not in the demonizing way that he probably said it. Laguna Niguel is a nice town in a beautiful coastal area. The people there value the quality of their environment, and not just because it reflects well on the value of their houses, but they actually like it. They want business. They want economic activity. They want jobs. they want commerce. But they are completely unwilling to accept any compromise in the quality of their environment. Why should they. If clean, progressive, environmentally sensitive manufacturers and businesses are an available substitute (which they very much are), why should they want dirty ones?
Now, I'm sure that Clark Foam has spent the last 30 year comply, comply, complying to environmental regulations. But, imagine this: What if Clark Foam had, 30 years ago, decided to make environmental progress one of their top priority business goals. What if they had consistently devoted resources to creating a zero-environmental impact blank manufacturing process, investigated alternative materials, targeted phase outs of the most dangerous and hazardous parts of the procedure, worked to eliminate all waste and effluent from their processes so leaving water and air from their plant is cleaner than when it comes in.
What if they'd made that commitment even twenty years, or ten years ago? What if they made that commitment five years ago? What if they make that commitment right now?
To many businessmen, the Double Bottom Line (environmental + financial) or Triple Bottom Line (environmental + social + financial) concepts haven't sunk in. But, California is starting to be the proving ground. In Laguna, and Newport, and Huntington, more businessmen would be wise to jump full throttle into sustainable and environmental business practices, because if you only pay attention to the one bottom line, that second one will creep up and get you.
Sorry about that, Clark Foam. I hope your replacement gets on board with the new program. Personally, I'm excited. I can wait to ride a board that didn't pollute very ocean and air I use it in.
Very interesting. Buy up your boards now, boys and girls. The market for surfboards is about to get interesting.
But, before we get too excited, let's still one suspicion right away. Surftec had nothing to do with it. Surftec's market share is just not that big. Nobody is. All non Clark Foam manufacturing combined only holds a 20% market share. Clark makes 80% of the world's surfboard blanks.
Nope. It's not forign competition and glabalization. It's environmentalism. Clark Foam is loosing to the EPA. Here's a line from that other article:
"He said the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Orange County Fire Authority were concerned with Clark Foam's use of a toxic chemical, toluene di-isocynate, commonly called TDI. Clark said other concerns included the use of polyester resin, dust, trash and equipment that was built to Clark's specifications."
Not too surprising, really. Surfboards have always enjoyed an odd irony - designed to enjoy the beautiful, natural, pristine environment, but made from chemical stuffs and processes that are not kind to that same environment.
In predictable businessman speak, Mr. Clark belts out the line "They [Orange County and the EPA] have made it very clear they no longer want manufacturers like Clark Foam in their area."
This is true, of course, but not in the demonizing way that he probably said it. Laguna Niguel is a nice town in a beautiful coastal area. The people there value the quality of their environment, and not just because it reflects well on the value of their houses, but they actually like it. They want business. They want economic activity. They want jobs. they want commerce. But they are completely unwilling to accept any compromise in the quality of their environment. Why should they. If clean, progressive, environmentally sensitive manufacturers and businesses are an available substitute (which they very much are), why should they want dirty ones?
Now, I'm sure that Clark Foam has spent the last 30 year comply, comply, complying to environmental regulations. But, imagine this: What if Clark Foam had, 30 years ago, decided to make environmental progress one of their top priority business goals. What if they had consistently devoted resources to creating a zero-environmental impact blank manufacturing process, investigated alternative materials, targeted phase outs of the most dangerous and hazardous parts of the procedure, worked to eliminate all waste and effluent from their processes so leaving water and air from their plant is cleaner than when it comes in.
What if they'd made that commitment even twenty years, or ten years ago? What if they made that commitment five years ago? What if they make that commitment right now?
To many businessmen, the Double Bottom Line (environmental + financial) or Triple Bottom Line (environmental + social + financial) concepts haven't sunk in. But, California is starting to be the proving ground. In Laguna, and Newport, and Huntington, more businessmen would be wise to jump full throttle into sustainable and environmental business practices, because if you only pay attention to the one bottom line, that second one will creep up and get you.
Sorry about that, Clark Foam. I hope your replacement gets on board with the new program. Personally, I'm excited. I can wait to ride a board that didn't pollute very ocean and air I use it in.
posted by travinator @ 10:52 AM
1 comments
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
A little wind never hurts 11-16-05
Leaving a trade dinner meeting on Tuesday night, I tasted dryness on my lips and noticed a flag blowing from east to west. The offshore Sant Ana winds were in town. I decided that I'd go surfing the following morning, no matter what the surf reports said.
And, they weren't exciting - the surf reports, that is. Zero to two feet, with a six foot plus high tide at eight thirty. In other words, junk.
But, true to my original decision, I woke up and drove to the beach. I pulled in to the parking lot at the cliffs at 5:45 in the morning. The sun was not visible yet, but there was a full moon shining on the water. There was already one guy surfing by moonlight. I got dressed in my superhero outfit and walked the shaky trail down the cliff under only moon light. Halfway down the trail, there was a guy smoking some weed. Can't say that I fault him, particularly in his choice of scenery. The morning was clear as could be. Even in the relative darkness, the oil rigs a mile offshore looked close enough to swim to.
As the sun rose, the morning fulfilled it's promise. the waves were small and weak, but well shaped and steeper than usual with the offshore winds pushing on them.
For the first twenty minutes, there was only me and the moonlight surfer. The set waves were only waist high, but they were rights, and pretty long rides. Between sets, the water was flat with only a light texture of dry offshore winds. Paddling back out was a lazy and slow endeavor. We were grossly outnumbered by very busy pelicans, for whom the clear morning was a boon. Even I could spot the little fishes breeching the water sporadically.
To the west, I could see the buildings of Long Beach, the docks of San Pedro and the hills of Palos Verdes. To the east, the rising sun shone a blinding light right at eye level. From the north came the winds, and to the south was the big island, Catalina, whose peaks were clear over a low horizon of brown and grey fog.
I caught a big set wave. Mind you, by big I mean maybe chest high. But, it was big enough, and very well shaped. The wind sprayed foam backward off the lip. I carved a big slow bottom turn, lazily flipped around at the top, rode high for a while to beat out a section, then repeated a second big carve, hitting the top and dropping down into foam.
"Damn." I commented, grabbing my board to paddle back out. "I love this sport."
No one heard my commentary, of course. Heck, there were only five people there.
And, they weren't exciting - the surf reports, that is. Zero to two feet, with a six foot plus high tide at eight thirty. In other words, junk.
But, true to my original decision, I woke up and drove to the beach. I pulled in to the parking lot at the cliffs at 5:45 in the morning. The sun was not visible yet, but there was a full moon shining on the water. There was already one guy surfing by moonlight. I got dressed in my superhero outfit and walked the shaky trail down the cliff under only moon light. Halfway down the trail, there was a guy smoking some weed. Can't say that I fault him, particularly in his choice of scenery. The morning was clear as could be. Even in the relative darkness, the oil rigs a mile offshore looked close enough to swim to.
As the sun rose, the morning fulfilled it's promise. the waves were small and weak, but well shaped and steeper than usual with the offshore winds pushing on them.
For the first twenty minutes, there was only me and the moonlight surfer. The set waves were only waist high, but they were rights, and pretty long rides. Between sets, the water was flat with only a light texture of dry offshore winds. Paddling back out was a lazy and slow endeavor. We were grossly outnumbered by very busy pelicans, for whom the clear morning was a boon. Even I could spot the little fishes breeching the water sporadically.
To the west, I could see the buildings of Long Beach, the docks of San Pedro and the hills of Palos Verdes. To the east, the rising sun shone a blinding light right at eye level. From the north came the winds, and to the south was the big island, Catalina, whose peaks were clear over a low horizon of brown and grey fog.
I caught a big set wave. Mind you, by big I mean maybe chest high. But, it was big enough, and very well shaped. The wind sprayed foam backward off the lip. I carved a big slow bottom turn, lazily flipped around at the top, rode high for a while to beat out a section, then repeated a second big carve, hitting the top and dropping down into foam.
"Damn." I commented, grabbing my board to paddle back out. "I love this sport."
No one heard my commentary, of course. Heck, there were only five people there.
posted by travinator @ 8:22 AM
0 comments
Friday, November 04, 2005
And, finally, there was peace in the universe 10-7-05
My wife and I had a class together on Thursday nights. This Thursday, she met me in the parking lot a burger joint across the street from the community college. (We only have one parking pass.) I was standing in the parking lot next to my truck. The fins of my surfboard hung over the edge of the tailgate tellingly. She parked and opened the back of the mini van and I put the surfboard in. It was the 7'-6", so it filled both rows of the vans cabin space.
She handed me a bowl of reheated spaghetti. I thanked her.
"You don't sound too good." She said.
"I wouldn't think so." I replied. "I feel like complete shit."
It was the truth. I was a sick as a dog. My throat was sore and course. My nose was suffed in the back with small leaky channels draining the thinnest of liquid constantly. I'd rubbed the area under my nose raw with tissues. My head hurt horribly.
"You never listen to me." She said. "I old you you shouldn't be surfing when you get a cold coming on like that."
She had told me that only two days before. But, it had been months since I'd been surfing consistently, and Brett and I had agreed to meet Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in the mornings.
"Actually," I told her. "when I'm surfing I feel fine. It all this damn working that sucks. What I really should do is go surf for three hours tomorrow morning, skip that damn working thing, and go home and rest."
What a happy, fleeting thought. It would never happen, though. I'm too much of a workaholic to do anything so sensible. Actually, I had brought work with me to do in class. Imagine that. In college, I used to stare off into the walls and doodle while not paying attention to my teachers. Now, here I was bringing wiring diagrams and controls sequences to class to work on while I occasionally pretended that I was listening.
It was also true that surfing was the best I felt all day. The cool water soothed my head and my joints. The salt opened up my nose. The crisp air over the ocean felt like a clean medicine in my lungs. The waves had been fun, too. There was an elusive north swell filtering softly into the beaches all week, never quite getting to be good, but wavering just below. Plus, the mornings were rising tides to pretty high tides. Surfers at 8 or 9 o'clock found nothing, with the tide so high that the mediocre waves couldn't push through. But, the 6 o'clock hour had been a little better, with peaks and mounds of waist to chest high waves pushing through the tide. Brett and I had caught our share of fun rides, a good re-introduction into the sport we loved.
Halfway through the economics lecture, I finished my work and sat back to listen. There was no point in starting to take notes, my wife had been scribbling profusely since the lecture began. Besides, I'd read about four economics books in the last year and browsed the extensive collection of theory on Wikipedia. There wasn't much in this class that I needed explained twice.
Our teacher was talking about the Multiplier effect. In economics, it is said that there is a multiplier effect to money. If Joe Blow the billionaire gives me $100, I'll probably spend it all. Out of what I spend, it will go to various companies and their employees, most of whom will spend it right away again, and so on down the chain. So, $100 added to the economy can generate $1000 of economic activity, if ten people touch it and re-spend it.
The teacher smiled and asked a question. "Is there anything else in your life that has a multiplier effect?"
The class was stumped.
"Anything in your life where you get more from it than what it really is?"
The class was silent. A few mummers bounced around the back.
"Surfing." I said.
She smiled, and motioned to my wife. "This guy really likes the surfing, eh?"
The class chuckled.
"Explain. Why?" she prodded.
"Because you only have to surf one hour in a day to have a good day." I answered plainly.
To the classes surprise, my answer was right. "Many people say exercises" she went on. "Or yoga, or meditation. Something that they say gives them more than what the put in to it."
The next morning, I caught two handfuls of waves. The rumored swell never came in, but I didn't really care. I was paddling around, catching little fun waves. I saw some surfers I knew in the water and said whatsup to them, did some low turns, some falling dismounts. I even swam underwater between sets, dragging my surfboard behind me by the leash as I took five or six breaststroke strokes under the cool water.
I got out, got dressed, went into the office, ignored all calls, and pushed like a bulldozer through the last three hours to make a 12:00 deadline. When 11:00 a.m. came, I sent out the package, drove home, took some medicine and went to bed.
In sleep, I dreamed of a foggy autumn morning at the Huntington cliffs with nice, small fun waves, families of dolphins swimming by, pelicans swirling overhead, and a fun board - a dream quite like the morning I'd had. I surfed one hour that day, and for all I cared, there was peace in the universe.
She handed me a bowl of reheated spaghetti. I thanked her.
"You don't sound too good." She said.
"I wouldn't think so." I replied. "I feel like complete shit."
It was the truth. I was a sick as a dog. My throat was sore and course. My nose was suffed in the back with small leaky channels draining the thinnest of liquid constantly. I'd rubbed the area under my nose raw with tissues. My head hurt horribly.
"You never listen to me." She said. "I old you you shouldn't be surfing when you get a cold coming on like that."
She had told me that only two days before. But, it had been months since I'd been surfing consistently, and Brett and I had agreed to meet Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in the mornings.
"Actually," I told her. "when I'm surfing I feel fine. It all this damn working that sucks. What I really should do is go surf for three hours tomorrow morning, skip that damn working thing, and go home and rest."
What a happy, fleeting thought. It would never happen, though. I'm too much of a workaholic to do anything so sensible. Actually, I had brought work with me to do in class. Imagine that. In college, I used to stare off into the walls and doodle while not paying attention to my teachers. Now, here I was bringing wiring diagrams and controls sequences to class to work on while I occasionally pretended that I was listening.
It was also true that surfing was the best I felt all day. The cool water soothed my head and my joints. The salt opened up my nose. The crisp air over the ocean felt like a clean medicine in my lungs. The waves had been fun, too. There was an elusive north swell filtering softly into the beaches all week, never quite getting to be good, but wavering just below. Plus, the mornings were rising tides to pretty high tides. Surfers at 8 or 9 o'clock found nothing, with the tide so high that the mediocre waves couldn't push through. But, the 6 o'clock hour had been a little better, with peaks and mounds of waist to chest high waves pushing through the tide. Brett and I had caught our share of fun rides, a good re-introduction into the sport we loved.
Halfway through the economics lecture, I finished my work and sat back to listen. There was no point in starting to take notes, my wife had been scribbling profusely since the lecture began. Besides, I'd read about four economics books in the last year and browsed the extensive collection of theory on Wikipedia. There wasn't much in this class that I needed explained twice.
Our teacher was talking about the Multiplier effect. In economics, it is said that there is a multiplier effect to money. If Joe Blow the billionaire gives me $100, I'll probably spend it all. Out of what I spend, it will go to various companies and their employees, most of whom will spend it right away again, and so on down the chain. So, $100 added to the economy can generate $1000 of economic activity, if ten people touch it and re-spend it.
The teacher smiled and asked a question. "Is there anything else in your life that has a multiplier effect?"
The class was stumped.
"Anything in your life where you get more from it than what it really is?"
The class was silent. A few mummers bounced around the back.
"Surfing." I said.
She smiled, and motioned to my wife. "This guy really likes the surfing, eh?"
The class chuckled.
"Explain. Why?" she prodded.
"Because you only have to surf one hour in a day to have a good day." I answered plainly.
To the classes surprise, my answer was right. "Many people say exercises" she went on. "Or yoga, or meditation. Something that they say gives them more than what the put in to it."
The next morning, I caught two handfuls of waves. The rumored swell never came in, but I didn't really care. I was paddling around, catching little fun waves. I saw some surfers I knew in the water and said whatsup to them, did some low turns, some falling dismounts. I even swam underwater between sets, dragging my surfboard behind me by the leash as I took five or six breaststroke strokes under the cool water.
I got out, got dressed, went into the office, ignored all calls, and pushed like a bulldozer through the last three hours to make a 12:00 deadline. When 11:00 a.m. came, I sent out the package, drove home, took some medicine and went to bed.
In sleep, I dreamed of a foggy autumn morning at the Huntington cliffs with nice, small fun waves, families of dolphins swimming by, pelicans swirling overhead, and a fun board - a dream quite like the morning I'd had. I surfed one hour that day, and for all I cared, there was peace in the universe.
posted by travinator @ 3:37 PM
1 comments
True story
My wife was sitting in the passenger seat of my truck.
"Hey." She said accusingly, glaring at me sideways. "What the hell is this?"
In her hand she held a woman's make up applicator. It was an odd type. I can't say for certian that I understood the design. It looked like a pen, but had make up of some sort in it.
"Uh.... I dunno. What is is?"
"It's lipstick"
"Right.... it's lipstick."
She got a little more glaring. "Whose lipstick is it, Travis?"
"Uh... I dunno."
"Travis." she said, urgently. "Whose lipstick is it."
"Uh.... it's the funniest story, really..... uh.... well, you see... sometimes, when I'm out surfing.... uh... I come across, uh, trash, you know, uh, just random trash floating in the ocean. So, when I come across it, I usually stuff it into my wetsuit arm, you know, so I can throw it away, later, when I get out. So... I found that, in the ocean, and I put it in my wetsuit to throw away, and just forgot to throw it away, you know. So, it's been laying in my truck for a week or two. You can throw it away if you want."
She stared at me, as if to discern the truth from the chaff, and the shrugged it off.
Hey, what could I do? It was a true story.
"Hey." She said accusingly, glaring at me sideways. "What the hell is this?"
In her hand she held a woman's make up applicator. It was an odd type. I can't say for certian that I understood the design. It looked like a pen, but had make up of some sort in it.
"Uh.... I dunno. What is is?"
"It's lipstick"
"Right.... it's lipstick."
She got a little more glaring. "Whose lipstick is it, Travis?"
"Uh... I dunno."
"Travis." she said, urgently. "Whose lipstick is it."
"Uh.... it's the funniest story, really..... uh.... well, you see... sometimes, when I'm out surfing.... uh... I come across, uh, trash, you know, uh, just random trash floating in the ocean. So, when I come across it, I usually stuff it into my wetsuit arm, you know, so I can throw it away, later, when I get out. So... I found that, in the ocean, and I put it in my wetsuit to throw away, and just forgot to throw it away, you know. So, it's been laying in my truck for a week or two. You can throw it away if you want."
She stared at me, as if to discern the truth from the chaff, and the shrugged it off.
Hey, what could I do? It was a true story.
posted by travinator @ 3:34 PM
0 comments
Sunday, October 30, 2005
10-30-05 At the Cliffs
I met Steve and Brett at the Cliffs for a Sunday morning session the day before Halloween. Steve had called me midway through the morning.
"Hey, it looks good. It's three foot, glassy, and pretty good shape."
"Should we bring the longboards?"
"Nah. Looks shortboard-able if you want."
After the dismal summer of no surf and a wholly unsatisfying Autumn where I worked enough hours to kill a lesser man, it felt good to be in the water. My brother was in town from Hawaii. I let him take the 7'6" and took the 6'8" for myself.
"Are you sure?" he asked. The waves looked a bit mushy, not exactly ideal short board conditions.
"Yea. Take it." I said. "It's not like I'm going to be catching a bunch of waves anyway." I was out of shape, out of practice, short on confidence, and just glad to be at the beach.
The session went a whole lot better than I could have hoped for. I waited inside a lot, and only took off on a few waves. Mostly, I got short rides on late take offs. My shortboard take off was lacking in smoothness, and I wound up on my knees a few times. That seems to be a defensive cop out for me. When I paddle into a wave, and get the idea that I'm too late, I botch the stand up and find myself kneeboarding. Of course, on a shortboard, once you are on your knees, there's no recovering. So, I try to make the best of it. I carve what I can and try to get some turns in.
"Man," I told Brett. "I could have been a kneeboarding champion."
Visualization, my brother told me once, is the key to the shortboard take off. "Visualize yourself popping up quickly and into perfect position." I ran the idea through my head a bunch of times. It worked.
The wave of the morning was ridden by an bellied and older guy on a big board. He caught one of the set waves on the outside, found a clean line to the left and dipped his head into the curl for a solid two seconds and recovered to two more short turns before dismounting. He fell into the water only a few feet from me, paddling out. I'd gotten a perfect view of the whole ride, and congratulated him accordingly.
After my last ride, a reversion to kneeboarding, I came across Brett on the inside.
"I gotta get out soon." he said. "My parking meter is almost up."
I gasped. "Ah... fuck." I had forgot to put quarters in the parking meter. Normally, I surf in the wee hours before eight a.m. when the meters start ticking. I was so used to leaving by eight, that I had completely spaced out on putting money in the meter. I got out. Brett followed.
No ticket. Lucky, I guess.
I got dressed. Brett and I walked up to the railing at the top of the cliffs and watched the surf below. The dropping tide was improving the quality of every set. I saw my brother catch a nice looking right. It was good to be at the beach. We stood in the cool morning, talking work and family and surfing.
"It looks like I'll be in town until Christmas." Brett told me. He'd been doing week long business trips consistently through the summer and Autumn. "We should try to get back into surfing during the week."
"Absolutely."
I need to be surfing more. It's such a satisfying balance to the daily grind. I noticed the other day that I hadn't posted to the surf blog in over a month. Probably, because I'd only been surfing two or three times in that same month.
When Steve got out of the water, he joined in the pledge, committing to try to meet us on Thursdays into the winter. I know my buddy Chase can usually go on Wednesdays, given a phone call.
Just talking about getting back into daily surfing rose my spirits. I'd been in the working man's attitude funk lately. You sell you labor, your time, your beliefs, your haircut and matched shirt and tie, your mind, and your obedience, for money to buy shit that you need to keep up the shit that you have and more shit that you don't need or you don't know why you need except that you need to buy shit. You work to buy shit. You buy shit to get to work. You sit in cars. You sit in buildings. You sit in traffic and listen to commercials for more shit. You sit in meetings and think hard about the best way to make other people more money to buy shit. You look at computer screens. You look at faxes. You read emails from rude people and you answer nicely. Yes, master. I can do that for you sir. Yes, sir. No problem, sir. You're absolutely right, sir, it's better to pollute the ocean than for the company to make less money. You stress. You get sick. You come home tired, and listen to how you don't spend enough time at home in the same sentence as the explanation for why you need more shit. Yes, ma'am. No problem ma'am. Sometimes, it's easy. It's just life and I can do it without complaining. But, sometimes, I start to see through it. The emperor really doesn't have any clothes.
Soon, the water will be cold. I'll be bringing booties, and might even try to buy another one of those stupid looking caps. The north swells will start to wrap around LA and push the right breaking waves into Huntington. The pelicans be gone. Daylight savings time is over. Dawn patrol is back to 6:00 a.m. and it should be at least a half a month before the rains get going. In San Diego, the reefs at Sunset Cliffs will start to get waves. Tomorrow in Huntington, the forecast is for 2 - 3 foot swell from the north, with offshore winds predicted overnight and into the morning.
I'll be there. And, I can't imagine why I wouldn't be there Tuesday....
Travis R. English
"Hey, it looks good. It's three foot, glassy, and pretty good shape."
"Should we bring the longboards?"
"Nah. Looks shortboard-able if you want."
After the dismal summer of no surf and a wholly unsatisfying Autumn where I worked enough hours to kill a lesser man, it felt good to be in the water. My brother was in town from Hawaii. I let him take the 7'6" and took the 6'8" for myself.
"Are you sure?" he asked. The waves looked a bit mushy, not exactly ideal short board conditions.
"Yea. Take it." I said. "It's not like I'm going to be catching a bunch of waves anyway." I was out of shape, out of practice, short on confidence, and just glad to be at the beach.
The session went a whole lot better than I could have hoped for. I waited inside a lot, and only took off on a few waves. Mostly, I got short rides on late take offs. My shortboard take off was lacking in smoothness, and I wound up on my knees a few times. That seems to be a defensive cop out for me. When I paddle into a wave, and get the idea that I'm too late, I botch the stand up and find myself kneeboarding. Of course, on a shortboard, once you are on your knees, there's no recovering. So, I try to make the best of it. I carve what I can and try to get some turns in.
"Man," I told Brett. "I could have been a kneeboarding champion."
Visualization, my brother told me once, is the key to the shortboard take off. "Visualize yourself popping up quickly and into perfect position." I ran the idea through my head a bunch of times. It worked.
The wave of the morning was ridden by an bellied and older guy on a big board. He caught one of the set waves on the outside, found a clean line to the left and dipped his head into the curl for a solid two seconds and recovered to two more short turns before dismounting. He fell into the water only a few feet from me, paddling out. I'd gotten a perfect view of the whole ride, and congratulated him accordingly.
After my last ride, a reversion to kneeboarding, I came across Brett on the inside.
"I gotta get out soon." he said. "My parking meter is almost up."
I gasped. "Ah... fuck." I had forgot to put quarters in the parking meter. Normally, I surf in the wee hours before eight a.m. when the meters start ticking. I was so used to leaving by eight, that I had completely spaced out on putting money in the meter. I got out. Brett followed.
No ticket. Lucky, I guess.
I got dressed. Brett and I walked up to the railing at the top of the cliffs and watched the surf below. The dropping tide was improving the quality of every set. I saw my brother catch a nice looking right. It was good to be at the beach. We stood in the cool morning, talking work and family and surfing.
"It looks like I'll be in town until Christmas." Brett told me. He'd been doing week long business trips consistently through the summer and Autumn. "We should try to get back into surfing during the week."
"Absolutely."
I need to be surfing more. It's such a satisfying balance to the daily grind. I noticed the other day that I hadn't posted to the surf blog in over a month. Probably, because I'd only been surfing two or three times in that same month.
When Steve got out of the water, he joined in the pledge, committing to try to meet us on Thursdays into the winter. I know my buddy Chase can usually go on Wednesdays, given a phone call.
Just talking about getting back into daily surfing rose my spirits. I'd been in the working man's attitude funk lately. You sell you labor, your time, your beliefs, your haircut and matched shirt and tie, your mind, and your obedience, for money to buy shit that you need to keep up the shit that you have and more shit that you don't need or you don't know why you need except that you need to buy shit. You work to buy shit. You buy shit to get to work. You sit in cars. You sit in buildings. You sit in traffic and listen to commercials for more shit. You sit in meetings and think hard about the best way to make other people more money to buy shit. You look at computer screens. You look at faxes. You read emails from rude people and you answer nicely. Yes, master. I can do that for you sir. Yes, sir. No problem, sir. You're absolutely right, sir, it's better to pollute the ocean than for the company to make less money. You stress. You get sick. You come home tired, and listen to how you don't spend enough time at home in the same sentence as the explanation for why you need more shit. Yes, ma'am. No problem ma'am. Sometimes, it's easy. It's just life and I can do it without complaining. But, sometimes, I start to see through it. The emperor really doesn't have any clothes.
Soon, the water will be cold. I'll be bringing booties, and might even try to buy another one of those stupid looking caps. The north swells will start to wrap around LA and push the right breaking waves into Huntington. The pelicans be gone. Daylight savings time is over. Dawn patrol is back to 6:00 a.m. and it should be at least a half a month before the rains get going. In San Diego, the reefs at Sunset Cliffs will start to get waves. Tomorrow in Huntington, the forecast is for 2 - 3 foot swell from the north, with offshore winds predicted overnight and into the morning.
I'll be there. And, I can't imagine why I wouldn't be there Tuesday....
Travis R. English
posted by travinator @ 9:20 PM
0 comments
Monday, August 15, 2005
The Drifter 8-14-05
I met Brett and Joe at seventeenth street on Sunday morning. The promised swell had begun to show. Waves were chest high on the sets, with a few nice standout waves less frequently.
Joe was a newcomer to the surf. He was the husband of a girl that I work with. He’d tried surfing in Hawaii on a big kahuna board, and decided to take up the sport. Through email, I’d advised him a bit during his board buying process. Joe was a good sized individual, and for learning, I told him bigger was better. He’d picked up a nice big 9’ plus board, plenty wide and thick.
Joe had met me for dawn patrol one other time, during the long flat spell where the waves were indistinguishable from the oil tanker boat wakes.
Brett had spent two of the last three weeks in Texas on business, cheerfully doing his part to help design bigger and better instruments of death for the Department of Defense, so that no future developing country might be deprived of the opportunity to sacrifice their young to the corpse pool. Needless to say, he was desperate for a few waves.
We jumped into the warm water and paddled into the whitewash. Having suffered the pain of weak arms the day before, I was prepared. I set my concentration out to sea and paddled over a few waves and through a few more. Minutes later, I sighed and sat upright.
Brett was to my left by several yards. I looked right and left. Joe was nowhere to be seen. I looked back to shore, and found him. He was well to my right, struggling with the inside waves, and rapidly drifting away from us. I looked at my position relative to the shoreline. I hadn’t realized how strong the northbound current was during my paddle. It was pretty strong.
Brett and I dabbled, catching a few waves as we drifted northward. After my second wave, I’d completely lost track of Joe. Then, I saw him walking at the shoreline. Brett and I waved our arms to let he know where we were. He matched our position on the shoreline, and entered the water a second time.
“You know” brett said. “he should’ve kept walking. He’s going to drift right past us again in the whitewash.”
I shrugged. Sure enough, the current at the shore being much stronger than the current outside the break, Joe drifted right past us. This time, however, the waves cooperated. We were between big sets and Joe was able to paddle out. He then turned south and swam back to our position.
“Man.” He said, recounting his ordeal. “The first time, I didn’t even make it past the insdide break. I looked up and saw the cliffs, and said fuck it. I got out and walked back.”
We drifted a bit longer. Brett caught the wave of the morning, a long left. Then, I made my suggestion.
“Hey guys, you feel like walking?” I asked. “The grass is defiantly greener back there. We’ve drifted too far.”
Brett agreed. Joe hesitated.
“Come on.” I chided. “We got to get you to paddle out one more time! Only this time, in bigger waves.”
I clumsibly caught a small wave, riding it on my knees. Brett came in just after me.
“Boy, I’m telling you.” I said. “I could have been a kneeboarding superstar.”
We sat in the sand to wait for Joe.
We’d drifted nearly a half mile, so the walk was long back to lifeguard tower 12. We’d met at 6:00 a.m. and it was nearing 7:30. Both Brett and Joe had places to be in the morning. By the time we to tower 14, Joe had made up his mind.
”I’m taking off.” He said.
Brett stuck it out, pushing the clock for an extra couple of waves. His morning appointment was to help a friend of his wife move, so my egging him to stay must have reached receptive ears.
I stayed even longer after Brett left, because I saw Venice on shore and I waited for her to paddle out to say Hi before I took a wave in. I hadn’t seen Venice in weeks. Dan was on shore with a camera shooting pictures of her.
Joe was a newcomer to the surf. He was the husband of a girl that I work with. He’d tried surfing in Hawaii on a big kahuna board, and decided to take up the sport. Through email, I’d advised him a bit during his board buying process. Joe was a good sized individual, and for learning, I told him bigger was better. He’d picked up a nice big 9’ plus board, plenty wide and thick.
Joe had met me for dawn patrol one other time, during the long flat spell where the waves were indistinguishable from the oil tanker boat wakes.
Brett had spent two of the last three weeks in Texas on business, cheerfully doing his part to help design bigger and better instruments of death for the Department of Defense, so that no future developing country might be deprived of the opportunity to sacrifice their young to the corpse pool. Needless to say, he was desperate for a few waves.
We jumped into the warm water and paddled into the whitewash. Having suffered the pain of weak arms the day before, I was prepared. I set my concentration out to sea and paddled over a few waves and through a few more. Minutes later, I sighed and sat upright.
Brett was to my left by several yards. I looked right and left. Joe was nowhere to be seen. I looked back to shore, and found him. He was well to my right, struggling with the inside waves, and rapidly drifting away from us. I looked at my position relative to the shoreline. I hadn’t realized how strong the northbound current was during my paddle. It was pretty strong.
Brett and I dabbled, catching a few waves as we drifted northward. After my second wave, I’d completely lost track of Joe. Then, I saw him walking at the shoreline. Brett and I waved our arms to let he know where we were. He matched our position on the shoreline, and entered the water a second time.
“You know” brett said. “he should’ve kept walking. He’s going to drift right past us again in the whitewash.”
I shrugged. Sure enough, the current at the shore being much stronger than the current outside the break, Joe drifted right past us. This time, however, the waves cooperated. We were between big sets and Joe was able to paddle out. He then turned south and swam back to our position.
“Man.” He said, recounting his ordeal. “The first time, I didn’t even make it past the insdide break. I looked up and saw the cliffs, and said fuck it. I got out and walked back.”
We drifted a bit longer. Brett caught the wave of the morning, a long left. Then, I made my suggestion.
“Hey guys, you feel like walking?” I asked. “The grass is defiantly greener back there. We’ve drifted too far.”
Brett agreed. Joe hesitated.
“Come on.” I chided. “We got to get you to paddle out one more time! Only this time, in bigger waves.”
I clumsibly caught a small wave, riding it on my knees. Brett came in just after me.
“Boy, I’m telling you.” I said. “I could have been a kneeboarding superstar.”
We sat in the sand to wait for Joe.
We’d drifted nearly a half mile, so the walk was long back to lifeguard tower 12. We’d met at 6:00 a.m. and it was nearing 7:30. Both Brett and Joe had places to be in the morning. By the time we to tower 14, Joe had made up his mind.
”I’m taking off.” He said.
Brett stuck it out, pushing the clock for an extra couple of waves. His morning appointment was to help a friend of his wife move, so my egging him to stay must have reached receptive ears.
I stayed even longer after Brett left, because I saw Venice on shore and I waited for her to paddle out to say Hi before I took a wave in. I hadn’t seen Venice in weeks. Dan was on shore with a camera shooting pictures of her.
posted by travinator @ 1:53 PM
1 comments
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Back in the Water 8-13-05
Finally, on a Saturday morning after what seemed like an eternity of flatness, we got a little bit of surf. I woke up late and looked at the surf report, but debated with myself whether it was worth my time. I was headed for the office for the day to put in some unpaid overtime, a depressing reality that cast a gloom over my whole attitude and shaded the surf reports towards hopelessness.
I went our to my car. I had “forgotten” my cell phone there the afternoon before in a deliberate set up to close the blinds and watch movies all evening with no phones ringing. On the phone were three messages from Chase, one from the night before and two from the morning.
I called the voicemail to get the story. Chase had called the night before to say he was going. Then he’d called at 5:30 in the morning to say he was on his way. Finally, he’d called at 6:15 to say that it looked promising.
“Hopefully, I’ll see you out there, bro. Looks a lot better than we’ve been getting lately.”
The pep talk was well all I needed. I put the funboard in the truck and headed for the ocean.
Having a beach pass is pretty nice. I knew that there was an event going on at the pier, so I decided to go to the state beach by the power plant. As I drove through the gate, displaying the annual pass hanger from my rear view mirror, I got a smile and a nod from the girl in the booth.
The state park system in California knows how to plan beaches: showers, restrooms, nice sidewalks, retaining walls to hold the sand, long beaches to prevent erosion.
I suited up and paddled out into a light crowd. The water was warm, almost too warm for my full wetsuit. But, the most immediately obvious factor was that my arms were useless gelatinous matter, incapable of paddling through a wave. I was going to hurt later, I knew. But, it was all for the best. If the predictors were accurate, this light surge in wave size was going to build into a full utility swell over the next four days. Best to get the arms moving as soon as possible.
The waves at Magnolia Street are a little bit faster than their northern counterparts. On this morning, they tended to be walled. Still, there were waves to be caught. Most of what I caught were very short rides to the bottom of the face with no turns. But, there were a few stand outs. I caught one pretty good left where I managed to outrun the shoulder for a few seconds.
It felt great to be back in the water. Between sets, I flopped off my board and lounged floating on my back or dove to the bottom for long leisurely underwater swims.
Though the clouds were thick, the summer heat came through. I unzipped my wetsuit to let in cool water. An Australian fellow next to me was in shorts only, and flatly told me that the water was too cold for it. I, on the other hand, was overly warm in my long sleeved and full legged outfit. I made a not to bring the Costco spring suit the following day
(I bought my spring suit for $40 at Costco a few summers back. I think it’s designed for water skiing or the like. It’s a horribly ugly and conspicuously off-brand light blue and black monstrosity which I rarely use, as I prefer to wear trunks when I can. But it does have its days.)
I surfed for about an hour and a half, showered and dressed in the parking lot, and drove to the office to work alone on a weekend. Pity to waste a perfectly good free day helping somebody else get richer, but at least there were some waves.
I went our to my car. I had “forgotten” my cell phone there the afternoon before in a deliberate set up to close the blinds and watch movies all evening with no phones ringing. On the phone were three messages from Chase, one from the night before and two from the morning.
I called the voicemail to get the story. Chase had called the night before to say he was going. Then he’d called at 5:30 in the morning to say he was on his way. Finally, he’d called at 6:15 to say that it looked promising.
“Hopefully, I’ll see you out there, bro. Looks a lot better than we’ve been getting lately.”
The pep talk was well all I needed. I put the funboard in the truck and headed for the ocean.
Having a beach pass is pretty nice. I knew that there was an event going on at the pier, so I decided to go to the state beach by the power plant. As I drove through the gate, displaying the annual pass hanger from my rear view mirror, I got a smile and a nod from the girl in the booth.
The state park system in California knows how to plan beaches: showers, restrooms, nice sidewalks, retaining walls to hold the sand, long beaches to prevent erosion.
I suited up and paddled out into a light crowd. The water was warm, almost too warm for my full wetsuit. But, the most immediately obvious factor was that my arms were useless gelatinous matter, incapable of paddling through a wave. I was going to hurt later, I knew. But, it was all for the best. If the predictors were accurate, this light surge in wave size was going to build into a full utility swell over the next four days. Best to get the arms moving as soon as possible.
The waves at Magnolia Street are a little bit faster than their northern counterparts. On this morning, they tended to be walled. Still, there were waves to be caught. Most of what I caught were very short rides to the bottom of the face with no turns. But, there were a few stand outs. I caught one pretty good left where I managed to outrun the shoulder for a few seconds.
It felt great to be back in the water. Between sets, I flopped off my board and lounged floating on my back or dove to the bottom for long leisurely underwater swims.
Though the clouds were thick, the summer heat came through. I unzipped my wetsuit to let in cool water. An Australian fellow next to me was in shorts only, and flatly told me that the water was too cold for it. I, on the other hand, was overly warm in my long sleeved and full legged outfit. I made a not to bring the Costco spring suit the following day
(I bought my spring suit for $40 at Costco a few summers back. I think it’s designed for water skiing or the like. It’s a horribly ugly and conspicuously off-brand light blue and black monstrosity which I rarely use, as I prefer to wear trunks when I can. But it does have its days.)
I surfed for about an hour and a half, showered and dressed in the parking lot, and drove to the office to work alone on a weekend. Pity to waste a perfectly good free day helping somebody else get richer, but at least there were some waves.
posted by travinator @ 2:37 PM
0 comments
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Profound Flatness 8-11-05
For what seems like the opressive majority of the summer of 2005 so far, surf has been scarce. My favorite forecaster at stormsurf.com has consistantly issued depressing forecasts. He's spoken of the southern hemisphere being "locked down in low pressure", having "no swell producing activity", and has even commented on the state of "profound flatness". Surfrider's daily report and photo taken at the San Clemente Pier have been flat and empty, with captions like "again, nobody is surfing today due to small size".
Not that this put a damper on the OC Regiseter's excited coverage of the Honda US open of Surfing, presneted by O'Niell, a small part of the Bank of the West Beach games. Look here, here, and here. You can use my login/password, communitst/charlie if you want. It quite funny, knowing that the whole time the surf at Huntington was complete and absolute shit!!
I'd gone to the beach last week and surfed in some ankle to knee high waves. the red tide was still in the water. I caught three waves in forty minutes and got out, not having gotten the fix from surfing that I'd craved.
On a rumor of possible incoming swell, Chase called me last Friday, and we met at the beach Saturday morning. We never even unpacked our wetsuits, and ended up sitting on the bench at 17th street, staring out at the water and talking about work, kids, family, and life in general. I got to see Chase's new board - dry, that is.
"It's always a shame to drive down here and leave without surfing" he said as we both got back into our cars. I tried to make use of the morning: got an oil change, took my wife's minivan to the radiator shope.
I still watch the surf forecasts daily or every other day, hoping against hope. Yesterday, I thought I saw a bump coming in for this morning. So, I paked up my truck last night and drove to the beach this morning.
There was nothing.
I ran into Dan, cruising the beach on his bike in the gray dawn.
"You know." he said. "I've been surfing for a long time, and I can't ever remember it being like this." Dan talked about surfing the day before. "I took my friend out to teach him. I caught like two waves."
"Well." I told him, heading back to my car. "In these last weeks, I've always come ready to surf. But, I've learned to also bring a book."
The beach can, after all, be quite calming in the morning, even if there are no waves. And these days, there are no waves.
There's some storm activity going on in the south, some say it's bound to break the spell. One can only hope. I need some frickin' waves, man! (Unfortunalty, when they come, I'll be so damn out of shape!)
Not that this put a damper on the OC Regiseter's excited coverage of the Honda US open of Surfing, presneted by O'Niell, a small part of the Bank of the West Beach games. Look here, here, and here. You can use my login/password, communitst/charlie if you want. It quite funny, knowing that the whole time the surf at Huntington was complete and absolute shit!!
I'd gone to the beach last week and surfed in some ankle to knee high waves. the red tide was still in the water. I caught three waves in forty minutes and got out, not having gotten the fix from surfing that I'd craved.
On a rumor of possible incoming swell, Chase called me last Friday, and we met at the beach Saturday morning. We never even unpacked our wetsuits, and ended up sitting on the bench at 17th street, staring out at the water and talking about work, kids, family, and life in general. I got to see Chase's new board - dry, that is.
"It's always a shame to drive down here and leave without surfing" he said as we both got back into our cars. I tried to make use of the morning: got an oil change, took my wife's minivan to the radiator shope.
I still watch the surf forecasts daily or every other day, hoping against hope. Yesterday, I thought I saw a bump coming in for this morning. So, I paked up my truck last night and drove to the beach this morning.
There was nothing.
I ran into Dan, cruising the beach on his bike in the gray dawn.
"You know." he said. "I've been surfing for a long time, and I can't ever remember it being like this." Dan talked about surfing the day before. "I took my friend out to teach him. I caught like two waves."
"Well." I told him, heading back to my car. "In these last weeks, I've always come ready to surf. But, I've learned to also bring a book."
The beach can, after all, be quite calming in the morning, even if there are no waves. And these days, there are no waves.
There's some storm activity going on in the south, some say it's bound to break the spell. One can only hope. I need some frickin' waves, man! (Unfortunalty, when they come, I'll be so damn out of shape!)
posted by travinator @ 7:34 AM
0 comments
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
US Congress to Cut Dawn Patrol Surf Hours 6-27-05
The United States congress is currently reviewing a law that would eliminate 28 hours of prime dawn patrol surfing time each year for working class surfers.
The law is the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (HR 6), which has been approved by a joint Senate-House Energy Conference Committee and is now moving to the House and Senate floors for approval. Congress is expected to vote on the bill this week. A portion of the law mandates that, beginning in 2007, standard daylight savings time be extended by four weeks. Daylight savings time would span from the first Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November.
During these weeks, sunrise times are between 6:00 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., making them perfect times to get out and catch a few waves before the work day begins. Additionally, these weeks are in the Spring and Autumn, a time for great crossed-up swells from storms in the north and south. They are in October and November, which the winter spots start to bloom while the summer spots are still breaking, and the converse weeks in March. This daylight savings time extension would push the sunrise an hour later, into the 7:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. window, effectively killing an hour of dawn patrol surf time every day for those 28 days.
Of course, the members of congress have no idea what a horrible blow they will issue to the surfing masses, with their short-sighted focus on energy savings. The extension of daylight savings time is designed to reduce electrical demand in those four weeks by extending sunset times and reducing evening or nighttime energy used. Supporters claim that it will increase economic activity and induce improved social wellness for all. Of course, none of that is an appropriate substitute for a clean and cold north swell on a November morning.
It should be noted that not all surfers will notice the change. Only working class surfers and high school surf team members, being those who have places to be at obligatory morning times, will be affected. The time change will neither burden the self employed, multi millionaires, and capitalists, nor the moochers, squatters, drug addicts who sleep in their cars, and fast food and retail workers on the night shift. In the long run, it could be estimated that the measure will have no overall impact on surfers at all, if housing prices drive the working and middle classes out of beach areas entirely.
But, for the time being, and for those who like to surf in the morning and still make it to work by 8:00 a.m. or 9:00 a.m., the time to speak is now! Write your senators and congressmen! Call them! Send them emails! Tell them how important the dawn patrol session is to the American constituency! You'll get back vaguely worded form letters on completely different topics, and feel like you contributed to the great responsive machinery of democracy.
Copyright 2005
Travis R. English
The law is the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (HR 6), which has been approved by a joint Senate-House Energy Conference Committee and is now moving to the House and Senate floors for approval. Congress is expected to vote on the bill this week. A portion of the law mandates that, beginning in 2007, standard daylight savings time be extended by four weeks. Daylight savings time would span from the first Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November.
During these weeks, sunrise times are between 6:00 a.m. and 6:30 a.m., making them perfect times to get out and catch a few waves before the work day begins. Additionally, these weeks are in the Spring and Autumn, a time for great crossed-up swells from storms in the north and south. They are in October and November, which the winter spots start to bloom while the summer spots are still breaking, and the converse weeks in March. This daylight savings time extension would push the sunrise an hour later, into the 7:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. window, effectively killing an hour of dawn patrol surf time every day for those 28 days.
Of course, the members of congress have no idea what a horrible blow they will issue to the surfing masses, with their short-sighted focus on energy savings. The extension of daylight savings time is designed to reduce electrical demand in those four weeks by extending sunset times and reducing evening or nighttime energy used. Supporters claim that it will increase economic activity and induce improved social wellness for all. Of course, none of that is an appropriate substitute for a clean and cold north swell on a November morning.
It should be noted that not all surfers will notice the change. Only working class surfers and high school surf team members, being those who have places to be at obligatory morning times, will be affected. The time change will neither burden the self employed, multi millionaires, and capitalists, nor the moochers, squatters, drug addicts who sleep in their cars, and fast food and retail workers on the night shift. In the long run, it could be estimated that the measure will have no overall impact on surfers at all, if housing prices drive the working and middle classes out of beach areas entirely.
But, for the time being, and for those who like to surf in the morning and still make it to work by 8:00 a.m. or 9:00 a.m., the time to speak is now! Write your senators and congressmen! Call them! Send them emails! Tell them how important the dawn patrol session is to the American constituency! You'll get back vaguely worded form letters on completely different topics, and feel like you contributed to the great responsive machinery of democracy.
Copyright 2005
Travis R. English
posted by travinator @ 9:07 PM
3 comments
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Travis spews advise to the new guy 07-13-05
Got this email the other day:
--------------------
Hey man,
Long story short, I found your blog from 10 or so clicks off a google search. Anyways, I'm a new surfer looking to surf without making the 'pros/locals' mad. I've longboarded before, but I'd really like to short board. Everyone has told me it's really hard, but being a waterpolo player for 6 or so years, I find that when people tell me something in the water is hard, it's just their inexperiece in the water. So with that said, you seem to be a surfer who just likes to surf, and not be worried about the 'surf-scene' and I thought you'd be a good person to get advice from.
If you have the time, I'd love to hear what you have to say.
Xxxx
---------------------------------
Hey, bro.. Sorry it took me a while to get to your email.
I've never really had probelms with "pros/locals" as you say. Contrary to the popular image that surfing has to completely dominate every aspect of the surfer's life, most surfers are just regular people who happen to surf. Very few that I've met are really out to get anyone or prove anything.
And, common courtesy typically prevails. I don't know if you've ever read the so-called rules of surfing etiquette http://www.surfline.com/surfology/surfology_borl_index.cfm (this is just one. you could do all kinds of google's on surfing right of way, etiquette, etc.), but they are pretty simple and intuitive niceness and courtesy that I've generally stayed within the bounds of and stayed out of most trouble. The first and most horrendous offence is "dropping in" on a claimed wave (more on this later), which should simply never be done, regardless of skill level. But, in the same breath, it happens all the time. And, most people don't get too mad about it.
A friend of mine once said "You know, Travis. Now that I'm getting to know you better, I don't feel so bad about dropping' in on ya." And he did, too, about two sets later.
The worst places I've been, in terms of jerkish attitudes in the water, are the very good reef breaks where line up crowding can be a problem. The guys who surf there a lot know exactly where to be to catch the wave and can get there faster than the visitors, effectively locking them out. But, even then, I've recently surfed Topanga Point in Malibu on a few weekday mornings and found that in a light crowd, there are waves to be had for all.
Now, as for the shortboarding. I would advise a bit of temperance in that department. This advise is coming from a guy who rode shortboards for, like, 6 or 7 years and wasn't making a whole lot of progress. Surfing has a horribly extended learning curve, especially if you aren't starting at some age before you have pubic hair. What you want to do is learn to ride on waves. But, in order to do that, you have to stand up on waves, and in order to do that you have to catch waves, and in order to do that you have to find waves with nobody on them.
Think about it this way: If the waves are coming in at 14 seconds to 18 second period (typical wave period for fun surf), that's 200 - 250 waves per hour. Assuming that you are a great paddler from all those years of water polo, you'll be able to get in position for at best about a quarter of those, 50 or 60 waves. But, most of them will have other people on them, or you won't be lined up right, or you'll think it's better to wait for the next one. So, you might paddle after 15 waves. Of those 15, you might catch one in three - 5 waves. Now, hopefully, you'll get to your feet every time and surf off beautifully. But, as a beginner, that's just not true. On 2 of those, you'll fall right off. On 2 more, you'll get to the bottom, try to make a turn, and fall off, and the last one you'll go over the falls.
What you really want to do is maximize the time you spend actually riding waves. The best way to do that is with a board that is easiest to catch waves, easiest to stand up, and easiest to move around on.
With a shortboard, your wave count goes down significantly. First off, the longboarders at the spot will be catching most of the waves. Padddeling is harder, standing up is harder, and getting a good angle on the take off is harder.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love my shortboard. Its super fast, gets flying on the mid size or bigger waves, and turns like a sonofabitch. I bring it whenever I think the conditions are right and I'll have a good time with it. But, on any day less than that, I bring the board that I think I'll have the most fun on. Most days, I like my mid-sized board. It's 7'6", so it's not "officially" a longboard (8'0" is the limit in my mind). it turns a whole lot faster than a 9'0" or a 9'6", but it catches a lot more waves than my shortboard does in just about any size surf.
Besides, this is the era or the hybrid board. The longboard/shortboard decision that was so polarizing in the 1980s is gone. There are fishes, eggs, hybrids, semi fish shortboards, surftec boards, big-guy tris, the whole pug nose family (that's what I want next, about 7'0" or 7'2"), and whenever else you can imagine.
Sure, the "jocks" of surfing will always ride that "high performance" shortboard, and, yes, they'll get all the press, all the chicks, all the movie roles, and we'll always be jealous and feel inferior (which is what they want). But at the end of the day - fuck 'em - we had a good time, and the so-called "recreational" surfer (a step down from the so-called "hardcore" surfer) is the unspoken majority of the sport of surfing. You'll never see that in the magazines, by the way. Unfortunatly, those 'pro/local' guys that you are afraid of, write for, photograph for, subscribe to, run advertisments in, and surf in those magazines. The whole of the surfing media grosly misrepresents the sport it covers.
My advise is this: When you are starting out, catch as many waves as you can. Spend as much time on your feet as possible. Use the board that will most help you do that. As you become more confident, you'll gain some insight into how you want your next board to be different (like that pug nose 7'0" I'm looking for) and let that be your guide.
--------------------
Hey man,
Long story short, I found your blog from 10 or so clicks off a google search. Anyways, I'm a new surfer looking to surf without making the 'pros/locals' mad. I've longboarded before, but I'd really like to short board. Everyone has told me it's really hard, but being a waterpolo player for 6 or so years, I find that when people tell me something in the water is hard, it's just their inexperiece in the water. So with that said, you seem to be a surfer who just likes to surf, and not be worried about the 'surf-scene' and I thought you'd be a good person to get advice from.
If you have the time, I'd love to hear what you have to say.
Xxxx
---------------------------------
Hey, bro.. Sorry it took me a while to get to your email.
I've never really had probelms with "pros/locals" as you say. Contrary to the popular image that surfing has to completely dominate every aspect of the surfer's life, most surfers are just regular people who happen to surf. Very few that I've met are really out to get anyone or prove anything.
And, common courtesy typically prevails. I don't know if you've ever read the so-called rules of surfing etiquette http://www.surfline.com/surfology/surfology_borl_index.cfm (this is just one. you could do all kinds of google's on surfing right of way, etiquette, etc.), but they are pretty simple and intuitive niceness and courtesy that I've generally stayed within the bounds of and stayed out of most trouble. The first and most horrendous offence is "dropping in" on a claimed wave (more on this later), which should simply never be done, regardless of skill level. But, in the same breath, it happens all the time. And, most people don't get too mad about it.
A friend of mine once said "You know, Travis. Now that I'm getting to know you better, I don't feel so bad about dropping' in on ya." And he did, too, about two sets later.
The worst places I've been, in terms of jerkish attitudes in the water, are the very good reef breaks where line up crowding can be a problem. The guys who surf there a lot know exactly where to be to catch the wave and can get there faster than the visitors, effectively locking them out. But, even then, I've recently surfed Topanga Point in Malibu on a few weekday mornings and found that in a light crowd, there are waves to be had for all.
Now, as for the shortboarding. I would advise a bit of temperance in that department. This advise is coming from a guy who rode shortboards for, like, 6 or 7 years and wasn't making a whole lot of progress. Surfing has a horribly extended learning curve, especially if you aren't starting at some age before you have pubic hair. What you want to do is learn to ride on waves. But, in order to do that, you have to stand up on waves, and in order to do that you have to catch waves, and in order to do that you have to find waves with nobody on them.
Think about it this way: If the waves are coming in at 14 seconds to 18 second period (typical wave period for fun surf), that's 200 - 250 waves per hour. Assuming that you are a great paddler from all those years of water polo, you'll be able to get in position for at best about a quarter of those, 50 or 60 waves. But, most of them will have other people on them, or you won't be lined up right, or you'll think it's better to wait for the next one. So, you might paddle after 15 waves. Of those 15, you might catch one in three - 5 waves. Now, hopefully, you'll get to your feet every time and surf off beautifully. But, as a beginner, that's just not true. On 2 of those, you'll fall right off. On 2 more, you'll get to the bottom, try to make a turn, and fall off, and the last one you'll go over the falls.
What you really want to do is maximize the time you spend actually riding waves. The best way to do that is with a board that is easiest to catch waves, easiest to stand up, and easiest to move around on.
With a shortboard, your wave count goes down significantly. First off, the longboarders at the spot will be catching most of the waves. Padddeling is harder, standing up is harder, and getting a good angle on the take off is harder.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love my shortboard. Its super fast, gets flying on the mid size or bigger waves, and turns like a sonofabitch. I bring it whenever I think the conditions are right and I'll have a good time with it. But, on any day less than that, I bring the board that I think I'll have the most fun on. Most days, I like my mid-sized board. It's 7'6", so it's not "officially" a longboard (8'0" is the limit in my mind). it turns a whole lot faster than a 9'0" or a 9'6", but it catches a lot more waves than my shortboard does in just about any size surf.
Besides, this is the era or the hybrid board. The longboard/shortboard decision that was so polarizing in the 1980s is gone. There are fishes, eggs, hybrids, semi fish shortboards, surftec boards, big-guy tris, the whole pug nose family (that's what I want next, about 7'0" or 7'2"), and whenever else you can imagine.
Sure, the "jocks" of surfing will always ride that "high performance" shortboard, and, yes, they'll get all the press, all the chicks, all the movie roles, and we'll always be jealous and feel inferior (which is what they want). But at the end of the day - fuck 'em - we had a good time, and the so-called "recreational" surfer (a step down from the so-called "hardcore" surfer) is the unspoken majority of the sport of surfing. You'll never see that in the magazines, by the way. Unfortunatly, those 'pro/local' guys that you are afraid of, write for, photograph for, subscribe to, run advertisments in, and surf in those magazines. The whole of the surfing media grosly misrepresents the sport it covers.
My advise is this: When you are starting out, catch as many waves as you can. Spend as much time on your feet as possible. Use the board that will most help you do that. As you become more confident, you'll gain some insight into how you want your next board to be different (like that pug nose 7'0" I'm looking for) and let that be your guide.
posted by travinator @ 10:48 PM
0 comments
Red Tide Blues 7-13-05
This red tide is killing me. I think i'm alergic. I went out last Friday and have been sniffing and stuffy ever since. Nasty. Now, I just keep looking at the photo of the day here and as long as the water is brown, I'm staying on shore - that is, unless there is some legitimate summer swell.
I guess I don't have enough experience to know, but isn't the red tide condition supposed to only last a few days? This has been weeks, now. Some of the veterens I know told me that this is highly unusual. Perhaps it's an indicator of the War of the Worlds.
My friend Steve said that the water was actually glowing in South Carlsbad two weekends ago. "Every wave that came in just glowed." Apparently, it has also produced quite a stench.
I guess I don't have enough experience to know, but isn't the red tide condition supposed to only last a few days? This has been weeks, now. Some of the veterens I know told me that this is highly unusual. Perhaps it's an indicator of the War of the Worlds.
My friend Steve said that the water was actually glowing in South Carlsbad two weekends ago. "Every wave that came in just glowed." Apparently, it has also produced quite a stench.
posted by travinator @ 10:23 AM
0 comments
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Acusurf Reporting 7-5-5
"You know," Brett told me. "for someone who resisted the cell phone for so long, you sure are a cell phone maniac."
"Well. I figure if you are going to practice hypocrisy, why beat around the bush? You might as well just dive right in and be the biggest hypocrite you can be."
"You're doing very well."
"Thank you. now, I gotta go. I'm pulling into my street."
He was completely correct. for most of my adult life, I've dodged the cell phone trend. Cell phones first surfaces on a huge scale about the time I was 25 years old. For over 5 years, I swore that I would never have one. I mocked the swarming, ignorant, overly-connected masses as they sacrificed the freedom to sing loudly in their cars for the so-called freedom to be called by somebody and told something that just as easily could have waited. I tormented my wife for her unceasing use of the accursed thing, as she strode from room to room wearing an earpiece and speaking to the walls.
Then, one fateful day, she called. She had gotten me a phone. It was "free", she'd said. I accepted it with reservation, knowing to my core that this was a wife leash tied to my ankle. For the first few weeks, I left the phone off much of the time. I left it in my car while I was at work, and turned it on only while driving home.
Then I discovered that surfers, like the remainder of our conditioned consumer society, carry cell phones. I figured out that I could call people and wake them up at 5:30 in the morning, to get them to go surfing. I exchanged cell phone numbers with a couple of surfers that I had only ever met at the beach, and found I could call them up in the afternoons to get surf reports, or in the moorings to give surf reports.
Brett and I had always suspected that this phenominon existed. When perfect conditions show up on a Tuesday morning, and you paddel out alone, only to have a crowd of twenty surfer come running down to the water at 6:30 in the morning, you begin to suspect that there is a network of communications working somewhere.
My friend, Chris, gave me the phrase that I now use to describe this practice. On my way home one Saturday morning, I called his cell phone and gave him a less than optimistic report of how the waves had been at Newport Beach at dawn. based on my reporting, he decided to wait a few hours for the tide to come in, and maybe head north.
"Alright, bro" he said. "Thanks for the Acu-surf."
"Well. I figure if you are going to practice hypocrisy, why beat around the bush? You might as well just dive right in and be the biggest hypocrite you can be."
"You're doing very well."
"Thank you. now, I gotta go. I'm pulling into my street."
He was completely correct. for most of my adult life, I've dodged the cell phone trend. Cell phones first surfaces on a huge scale about the time I was 25 years old. For over 5 years, I swore that I would never have one. I mocked the swarming, ignorant, overly-connected masses as they sacrificed the freedom to sing loudly in their cars for the so-called freedom to be called by somebody and told something that just as easily could have waited. I tormented my wife for her unceasing use of the accursed thing, as she strode from room to room wearing an earpiece and speaking to the walls.
Then, one fateful day, she called. She had gotten me a phone. It was "free", she'd said. I accepted it with reservation, knowing to my core that this was a wife leash tied to my ankle. For the first few weeks, I left the phone off much of the time. I left it in my car while I was at work, and turned it on only while driving home.
Then I discovered that surfers, like the remainder of our conditioned consumer society, carry cell phones. I figured out that I could call people and wake them up at 5:30 in the morning, to get them to go surfing. I exchanged cell phone numbers with a couple of surfers that I had only ever met at the beach, and found I could call them up in the afternoons to get surf reports, or in the moorings to give surf reports.
Brett and I had always suspected that this phenominon existed. When perfect conditions show up on a Tuesday morning, and you paddel out alone, only to have a crowd of twenty surfer come running down to the water at 6:30 in the morning, you begin to suspect that there is a network of communications working somewhere.
My friend, Chris, gave me the phrase that I now use to describe this practice. On my way home one Saturday morning, I called his cell phone and gave him a less than optimistic report of how the waves had been at Newport Beach at dawn. based on my reporting, he decided to wait a few hours for the tide to come in, and maybe head north.
"Alright, bro" he said. "Thanks for the Acu-surf."
posted by travinator @ 11:49 AM
0 comments
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Newport with Travis 6-26-05
When I got up in the early morning, my back ached. I'd spent nine hours walking at SeaWorld with my wife and kid the day before. We got home late in the evening and hitting the pillow at 10:30. my alarm went off at 4:45 a.m. I ate a bowl of cereal while looking at the Internet reports, and left the house at 5:00 sharp with my short board and cell phone.
Driving in the twilight before the sun rose remided me of winter. I drove with a blank mind, in that early awake state where there is no need for thoughts. by luck, I'd found some salsa jazz fusion on the public radio station.
Chase called at 5:30 a.m. he was at 17th street, looking at the waves.
"It looks a little walled" he said. I told him I was blocks away, and would be there in five minutes.
The low tide had been a problem for the dawn patrol for the last week. Morning low tides at 6 to 7 a.m. had been as low as -1.7 ft. At Huntington Beach, Brett and I surfed Saturday during a very low tide, where the entire near shore community of shells and sea life, whom we'd never seen before, was exposed to the air. Apparently, it had been for several hours, as it was generating a rather unpleasant smell.
I pulled up to Chase 10 min later. He was sitting on a concrete city bench near the grass and the walking path looking out over ocean at 17th street. We watched a set of waves come in, a nearly unsurfable wall of brown water. In addition to exposed sea floor, the very low tide condition causes waves to break on sand that isn't normally exposed to such impacts. This stirs up loose dirt, and the water at the shoreline takes on a brown color.
"We gotta go to Newport" I said confidently.
"Yea?"
"Absolutely. The jetties will break up these walls. It'll be good there."
"You know," Chase said "I'd never surfed there before. But, I went a couple weeks ago. It was pretty good. But, the parking is a bitch, isn't it?"
"It's early still. We can find parking if we go there right now."
Chase seemed to agree with the advise. He nodded.
"Well. Let's do it, then. I'll follow you."
It was a quick drive down PCH and to the crowded housing and narrow streets surrounding the Newport Jetties. We found street parking spots in the 52st street block. My parking spot was big, and easy to park in. I got out and gave eyes for guiding Chase into a much tighter parking spot.
"You got plenty of room" I told him.
"Easy for you to say. It's not your insurance that goes up."
We walked to the sand and looked at the waves. They were breaking with Newport power. They looked
bigger, and faster. Some pitched into barrels, even though there was no offshore wind. Some waves were walls, but there were clearly a few shoulders mixed in. We could see a few places where catching the waves looked plausible. The jetties were breaking up the long walls of water, just enough to make it look like we could surf it.
Even from the shore, Chase was impressed by the wave. Compared to Huntington, the wave is much faster. The waves were picking up and pitching over very quickly. We saw one surfer paddle into a wave. It looked like he was paddling after a two foot mound of water. But, the wave too shape in a fraction of a second, and pitched up to form a five foot face.
We went back to the cars and suited up in superhero outfits. The water temperate had dropped from a cozy warm 67 the week before to a winter-esq 57. My feet felt the chill as we waded into the brown water. The waves were breaking in knee to waist deep standing water.
It took some time to figure out our positioning. Commitment and timing were the necessary components. One had to time the wave right, paddle after it, and then keep the nerve steady and keep paddling as the bottom dropped out in front of them like an elevator falling. I took off into one, but missed a good footing, being my first wave back on a short board. I was able to balance enough to ride a short line to the left before getting crushed by the brown foam. I found myself churning in a washing machine which was surprisingly powerful for the size of the wave. My body banged against the soft shallow sand.
Chase and I volleyed for waves for the next forty minutes, catching one or two here and there, but missing just as many, and taking some heavy beatings in the aftermath.
I took one too late, and had to dive off my board mid-face only to be walloped by the break of the wave. Chase caught a good shoulder, for what would be the best ride either of us got. I got an odd drop, missing my good footing again, but clearing the face before falling into the foam bath. Chase got a late drop of sheer straight falling, but maintained his footing and made it.
What must be remembered about Newport is that some of people who surf there are really great surfers. Any time I surf there, I see great surfing. Brett hates the place, because there are inevitably a handful of 10 year old kids who surf better than us old farts ever will, and have no shame in telling us so. So, the whole time Chase and I were out there, we saw barrel riders pulling into the most impossibly tight curls. Very few made it out, of course, but many tried. They whole beach looked like an ugly brown version of a magazine wave.
I looked towards shore and saw rocks. The current had dragged me northward to the next jettie. I was in a spot where, had I taken a wave, I would be thrashed into the rocks for sure. I started paddling down shore to a group of surfers gathered at a constant section. Chase figured out the same thing a minute or two later, and paddled up.
A nice set of waves came in, and I saw one kid catch a five second barrel ride. It was beautiful.
I lined up for the next wave, on the left shoulder of a good sized peak. To my right, a surfer on a white short board was paddling, and called me off. I backed off. As I did, I thought he was crazy. He was setting up on the wrong side of the peak, and was sure to get crushed by it.
Apparently, he made it. I heard Chase holler from inside. In cutting across the peak, the guy had pulled through a barrel. By Chase's reporting, it was a fairly incredible feat. I believe it, too.
On the next wave, a surfer on a red funboard was to my right, so i backed off again. The funboard got a good drop, taking advantage of the extra time to set up a good line into the wave. Unfortunately, the good line passed right through were the white shortboard rider was paddling. I heard a second barrage of hollers, and looked to see the two boards on top of each other in the backwash of the wave. The two heads surfaced shortly thereafter. There were apologies and condolences. Nobody was hurt.
The bulk of the set had passed. A mid-sized after shock wave came through. Chase, who was waiting a bit inside, paddled after it. "You know" he told me later. "it looked like I was a little bit late, but that guy yelled to 'go', you know. so I committed to it." He was, in fact, way too late. Chase never reached his feet, and realized it soon enough. He pulled his arms over his head in fetal position and prepared for impact. The wave violently pitched out and forward. In the crashing, Chase's right knee landed in the center of his surfboard, immediately snapping the board in half.
"I could feel it snap" he told me.
I hadn't seen the action at all. One of the surfers in the water next to me was looking back and watching, and made a sour face. "Ooh, damn..." when I turned around, I saw Chase with a face of pain, holding the back half of a surfboard.
"Oh, shit." I said. "that's my bro." I tuned to shore, and started paddling in towards him.
"Yup." the other surfer said, shaking his head. "that'll do it."
Chase's knee was hurt, but not to disability. He paddled in by himself and could walk on it. He later told me that it swelled up a good bit, and that he had recently had surgery on it.
"See if you can find the other half of my board." he said.
I paddled in and spotted where the front half of the board had washed up on shore. I picked it up and carried it to him.
"You can keep surfing if you want." Chase told me, nodding towards the waves. He looked down at his foot, which was bleeding.
I chuckled. "What, are you kidding? Now i got the fear of Jesus in me. No, I'm already beaten this morning. I've taken enough. And, look what this place did to you!"
"No kidding! What kind of beach did you take me to, man?"
Once we were back at the cars and changed, traffic demanded that we leave in an expedient manner. There was a truck waiting for Chase's parking spot. So, we didn't talk too much. We did, however, make plans to surf on the upcoming Wednesday - at a different beach, of course.
Chase called me later in the morning. He had stopped in Huntington to wash off his bloody foot and look at surfboards.
"Hey, so what happened?" He hollered "I thought we were friends, here. I'm just getting to know you, we hook up to go surfing together, and you take me to some crazy pipeline beach that breaks my board, and now my knee's all swollen up! damn!" Chase laughed.
"No." he said, in a more serious tone. "You know what? I was lucky. That wave was going over, and for some reason I put my hands over my head and rolled back a little bit. If I hadn't, I could have taken that hit to the head and the teeth and been really hurt. I'll take a swollen knee over that any day. And, now, I'll always remember: The first time I broke a board was surfing Newport with Travis."
Driving in the twilight before the sun rose remided me of winter. I drove with a blank mind, in that early awake state where there is no need for thoughts. by luck, I'd found some salsa jazz fusion on the public radio station.
Chase called at 5:30 a.m. he was at 17th street, looking at the waves.
"It looks a little walled" he said. I told him I was blocks away, and would be there in five minutes.
The low tide had been a problem for the dawn patrol for the last week. Morning low tides at 6 to 7 a.m. had been as low as -1.7 ft. At Huntington Beach, Brett and I surfed Saturday during a very low tide, where the entire near shore community of shells and sea life, whom we'd never seen before, was exposed to the air. Apparently, it had been for several hours, as it was generating a rather unpleasant smell.
I pulled up to Chase 10 min later. He was sitting on a concrete city bench near the grass and the walking path looking out over ocean at 17th street. We watched a set of waves come in, a nearly unsurfable wall of brown water. In addition to exposed sea floor, the very low tide condition causes waves to break on sand that isn't normally exposed to such impacts. This stirs up loose dirt, and the water at the shoreline takes on a brown color.
"We gotta go to Newport" I said confidently.
"Yea?"
"Absolutely. The jetties will break up these walls. It'll be good there."
"You know," Chase said "I'd never surfed there before. But, I went a couple weeks ago. It was pretty good. But, the parking is a bitch, isn't it?"
"It's early still. We can find parking if we go there right now."
Chase seemed to agree with the advise. He nodded.
"Well. Let's do it, then. I'll follow you."
It was a quick drive down PCH and to the crowded housing and narrow streets surrounding the Newport Jetties. We found street parking spots in the 52st street block. My parking spot was big, and easy to park in. I got out and gave eyes for guiding Chase into a much tighter parking spot.
"You got plenty of room" I told him.
"Easy for you to say. It's not your insurance that goes up."
We walked to the sand and looked at the waves. They were breaking with Newport power. They looked
bigger, and faster. Some pitched into barrels, even though there was no offshore wind. Some waves were walls, but there were clearly a few shoulders mixed in. We could see a few places where catching the waves looked plausible. The jetties were breaking up the long walls of water, just enough to make it look like we could surf it.
Even from the shore, Chase was impressed by the wave. Compared to Huntington, the wave is much faster. The waves were picking up and pitching over very quickly. We saw one surfer paddle into a wave. It looked like he was paddling after a two foot mound of water. But, the wave too shape in a fraction of a second, and pitched up to form a five foot face.
We went back to the cars and suited up in superhero outfits. The water temperate had dropped from a cozy warm 67 the week before to a winter-esq 57. My feet felt the chill as we waded into the brown water. The waves were breaking in knee to waist deep standing water.
It took some time to figure out our positioning. Commitment and timing were the necessary components. One had to time the wave right, paddle after it, and then keep the nerve steady and keep paddling as the bottom dropped out in front of them like an elevator falling. I took off into one, but missed a good footing, being my first wave back on a short board. I was able to balance enough to ride a short line to the left before getting crushed by the brown foam. I found myself churning in a washing machine which was surprisingly powerful for the size of the wave. My body banged against the soft shallow sand.
Chase and I volleyed for waves for the next forty minutes, catching one or two here and there, but missing just as many, and taking some heavy beatings in the aftermath.
I took one too late, and had to dive off my board mid-face only to be walloped by the break of the wave. Chase caught a good shoulder, for what would be the best ride either of us got. I got an odd drop, missing my good footing again, but clearing the face before falling into the foam bath. Chase got a late drop of sheer straight falling, but maintained his footing and made it.
What must be remembered about Newport is that some of people who surf there are really great surfers. Any time I surf there, I see great surfing. Brett hates the place, because there are inevitably a handful of 10 year old kids who surf better than us old farts ever will, and have no shame in telling us so. So, the whole time Chase and I were out there, we saw barrel riders pulling into the most impossibly tight curls. Very few made it out, of course, but many tried. They whole beach looked like an ugly brown version of a magazine wave.
I looked towards shore and saw rocks. The current had dragged me northward to the next jettie. I was in a spot where, had I taken a wave, I would be thrashed into the rocks for sure. I started paddling down shore to a group of surfers gathered at a constant section. Chase figured out the same thing a minute or two later, and paddled up.
A nice set of waves came in, and I saw one kid catch a five second barrel ride. It was beautiful.
I lined up for the next wave, on the left shoulder of a good sized peak. To my right, a surfer on a white short board was paddling, and called me off. I backed off. As I did, I thought he was crazy. He was setting up on the wrong side of the peak, and was sure to get crushed by it.
Apparently, he made it. I heard Chase holler from inside. In cutting across the peak, the guy had pulled through a barrel. By Chase's reporting, it was a fairly incredible feat. I believe it, too.
On the next wave, a surfer on a red funboard was to my right, so i backed off again. The funboard got a good drop, taking advantage of the extra time to set up a good line into the wave. Unfortunately, the good line passed right through were the white shortboard rider was paddling. I heard a second barrage of hollers, and looked to see the two boards on top of each other in the backwash of the wave. The two heads surfaced shortly thereafter. There were apologies and condolences. Nobody was hurt.
The bulk of the set had passed. A mid-sized after shock wave came through. Chase, who was waiting a bit inside, paddled after it. "You know" he told me later. "it looked like I was a little bit late, but that guy yelled to 'go', you know. so I committed to it." He was, in fact, way too late. Chase never reached his feet, and realized it soon enough. He pulled his arms over his head in fetal position and prepared for impact. The wave violently pitched out and forward. In the crashing, Chase's right knee landed in the center of his surfboard, immediately snapping the board in half.
"I could feel it snap" he told me.
I hadn't seen the action at all. One of the surfers in the water next to me was looking back and watching, and made a sour face. "Ooh, damn..." when I turned around, I saw Chase with a face of pain, holding the back half of a surfboard.
"Oh, shit." I said. "that's my bro." I tuned to shore, and started paddling in towards him.
"Yup." the other surfer said, shaking his head. "that'll do it."
Chase's knee was hurt, but not to disability. He paddled in by himself and could walk on it. He later told me that it swelled up a good bit, and that he had recently had surgery on it.
"See if you can find the other half of my board." he said.
I paddled in and spotted where the front half of the board had washed up on shore. I picked it up and carried it to him.
"You can keep surfing if you want." Chase told me, nodding towards the waves. He looked down at his foot, which was bleeding.
I chuckled. "What, are you kidding? Now i got the fear of Jesus in me. No, I'm already beaten this morning. I've taken enough. And, look what this place did to you!"
"No kidding! What kind of beach did you take me to, man?"
Once we were back at the cars and changed, traffic demanded that we leave in an expedient manner. There was a truck waiting for Chase's parking spot. So, we didn't talk too much. We did, however, make plans to surf on the upcoming Wednesday - at a different beach, of course.
Chase called me later in the morning. He had stopped in Huntington to wash off his bloody foot and look at surfboards.
"Hey, so what happened?" He hollered "I thought we were friends, here. I'm just getting to know you, we hook up to go surfing together, and you take me to some crazy pipeline beach that breaks my board, and now my knee's all swollen up! damn!" Chase laughed.
"No." he said, in a more serious tone. "You know what? I was lucky. That wave was going over, and for some reason I put my hands over my head and rolled back a little bit. If I hadn't, I could have taken that hit to the head and the teeth and been really hurt. I'll take a swollen knee over that any day. And, now, I'll always remember: The first time I broke a board was surfing Newport with Travis."
posted by travinator @ 9:43 AM
0 comments
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Sunrise Hadj 06-10-05
Leaving my house in the dark felt like winter, but the temperature of the air was warm. I packed my mid-size funboard into the back of my truck and quietly drove past the sleeping houses of my apartment complex. It was 4:30 in the morning.
I had quit caffeine some two weeks earlier, the resolution based on my tendency to tiredness in the early afternoon. I had developed a habit of walking in zombie fashion to the coffee pot at two in the afternoon, and had finally decided to separate myself from caffeine once and for all.
So, for my morning drive at 4:30 in the darkness, I would have but water to help keep my eyelids sharp.
I was amazed how quickly I could drive across LA before the sun rose. Freeway after freeway, each that I'd never seen moving over snail speeds, passed by like quiet open country roads.
The idea for this trip had not even been mine. My boss deserved the credit.
"So, where are you at tomorrow?" he had asked me the afternoon prior.
"I have a 9:30 in Woodland Hills." I told him. "Which pretty much kills the whole day."
Our office only works until noon on Fridays, and the drive to Woodland Hills, to the north of LA, could take me well over two hours in morning traffic, and probably over an hour getting back.
"Are you even coming back here, then?" he asked.
"No. I'm leaving for Mexico at noon."
"What are you doing in Mexico?" he queried.
"Just a quick surfing trip. We're doing one night in a little campsite we know, and surfing there on Saturday morning."
He nodded.
"You know- " he offered "You should make it a whole surfing adventure day. You could go up early and surf at Zuma beach or somewhere up there, and then drive straight to Mexico afterwards..."
"Hmmm...."
The nearest beach to my meeting, on a map, was Topanga State Beach, at the bottom of Topanga Canyon Road, the easternmost edge of the city of Malibu. To get there would be an hour's drive or more. To get from the beach to my meeting would be thirty to forty minutes, via Topanga Canyon Road. I checked out my plan with a co-worker who had lived in the area.
"Be careful of that road." He warned me. "If there's fog, it's really dangerous."
But dangerous curved roads wouldn't stop this plan, nor would the time planning stage, when I realized just how early I would be getting up to start this adventure.
Malibu. Just saying the name was exciting and frightening. It brought up images of Gidget, Malibu Barbie, Big Wednesday, the Surf Naztis, nasty locals, huge crowds, the Beach Boys, the coffee cup throwing cop from "The Big Lebowski" ("aw, you fuckin; fascist!"), and long, endless point right point breaks where beuatiful longboards showed classic style. This south facing streatch of coastline was something of a Mecca of California surfing. And, I was making my first trip to pilgramage.
I arrived at Topanga State Beach at 5:30 in the morning. A dim twilight showered the green Malibu hills. I parked in the "pay" parking lot, showing the attendant my State Park Pass. I would later confirm that Topanga State beach is not a part of the Spate Park system. But, neither of us knew that my pass was no good, so I showed it, and he let me use it. He also asked if I knew where he could get some pot. I didn't, but felt sure that he was in the right place.
Topanga is a right breaking point break. From the parking lot, there is a concrete stairway down to a small sand plateau, primarily occupied by a white restroom and lifeguard building with green wooden trim and a red tile roof. The sand ended before the shoreline, giving way to smooth moss covered rocks, exposed by the low tide. The floor of the spot is all rock, with some fairly healthy kelp stalks grown sporadically throughout.
I watched the wave for a while from my truck. The sets were inconsistent, but the biggest waves were shoulder high or slightly better. It was low tide. It was defiantly a point break. The wave pitched up in a defined spot every time, and peeled off in one direction ad infinitum. The swell wasn't big enough to produce really long rides, but it was clear that on a better day one could catch a wave and ride off for a good distance.
There was a crowd of eight or ten people in the water, huddled around the peak. I would later be told by one of the locals that this was a very light crowd, even for dawn patrol on a small weekday.
"Dawn patrol is usually civilized" he told me. "But, you come here on any weekend, and it's a zoo. Wall to wall boards, and lots of attitude."
I walked over the rocks to the water and paddled into the line up. I let a few waves go by and took a waist high breaker, just to prove to the watching eyes that I could surf in turn, and then eased into the morning.
At the peak, there were about sixteen people in the water, shortboards and longboards. The difference between shortboard and longboard take off position was not too much, so the waves were rationed out pretty well amongst the crowd. I dropped in on one guy, but had plenty of time to get out of his way before I did any harm to his ride. As karmic payback, one of the shortboarders jumped into my way on a set wave later in the morning.
The locals were amenable. Once a few of them figured out that I had a watch on, they asked me the time every third set. The one girl in the water was apparently in a time crunch, with a final exam happening later in the morning. She got driving route advise from one of the older locals, after which I asked him to estimate how long my drive would be.
"Over the hill?" he asked. "I'd allow 45 minutes, plus time for getting out of the water and changing and stuff."
The road advisor and the girl were the two best surfers in the water. Both rode high performance shortboards, and knew the power spots of the wave very well. Watching either get a ride was a pleasure, as they found their way into some really fast sections.
I tried to learn from their rides, modeling my take off after them, and finding that the key to the first section was to turn fast and sharp and stay high on the face like a tube rider before dropping down to do anything else.
There was also a guy on a huge green fish board. He was an older fellow, looked Latino, slightly balding and moved in quick, chunky, graceless motions. He caught lots of waves, though, and some good ones, too.
The surf was good up until the tide hit the low at 6:50 am. Within twenty minutes of the low, the waves had lost most of their power. The crowd had also thinned to about six people. I still had time to spare, so I paddled down the point to a second take off spot where two longboarders were riding an inside section of wave. I caught two waves there, and got out.
Fun morning, all told. The drive through the canyon was interesting. It was the kind of road that you'd expect to find on the way to a campsite, not in a heavily populated urban area.
Now, the really fun part of the story is that I did make it to Mex that evening, and surfed a small weak windswell at Salsipuedes as the sun went down.
Malibu in the morning, Salsipuedes at night. Not bad for a day's work. When the sun went Brett and I sat in camp chars at a small fire listening to the sound of small waves on the Mexican cliffs.
But, salsipuedes, as reliable as it's reputation is, let Brett and I down on Saturday morning, unable to break on the extreme low tide.
We searched the coast and finally paid $11 US to surf at Alistos, or La Fonda, or K58, or whatever you want to call that damn place with the hellish paddle that takes twenty minutes of every thing your arms have and then - well, that's another story entirely.
And, I do have another meeting in Woodland Hills this week - right around the time that south swell should be winding down.
I had quit caffeine some two weeks earlier, the resolution based on my tendency to tiredness in the early afternoon. I had developed a habit of walking in zombie fashion to the coffee pot at two in the afternoon, and had finally decided to separate myself from caffeine once and for all.
So, for my morning drive at 4:30 in the darkness, I would have but water to help keep my eyelids sharp.
I was amazed how quickly I could drive across LA before the sun rose. Freeway after freeway, each that I'd never seen moving over snail speeds, passed by like quiet open country roads.
The idea for this trip had not even been mine. My boss deserved the credit.
"So, where are you at tomorrow?" he had asked me the afternoon prior.
"I have a 9:30 in Woodland Hills." I told him. "Which pretty much kills the whole day."
Our office only works until noon on Fridays, and the drive to Woodland Hills, to the north of LA, could take me well over two hours in morning traffic, and probably over an hour getting back.
"Are you even coming back here, then?" he asked.
"No. I'm leaving for Mexico at noon."
"What are you doing in Mexico?" he queried.
"Just a quick surfing trip. We're doing one night in a little campsite we know, and surfing there on Saturday morning."
He nodded.
"You know- " he offered "You should make it a whole surfing adventure day. You could go up early and surf at Zuma beach or somewhere up there, and then drive straight to Mexico afterwards..."
"Hmmm...."
The nearest beach to my meeting, on a map, was Topanga State Beach, at the bottom of Topanga Canyon Road, the easternmost edge of the city of Malibu. To get there would be an hour's drive or more. To get from the beach to my meeting would be thirty to forty minutes, via Topanga Canyon Road. I checked out my plan with a co-worker who had lived in the area.
"Be careful of that road." He warned me. "If there's fog, it's really dangerous."
But dangerous curved roads wouldn't stop this plan, nor would the time planning stage, when I realized just how early I would be getting up to start this adventure.
Malibu. Just saying the name was exciting and frightening. It brought up images of Gidget, Malibu Barbie, Big Wednesday, the Surf Naztis, nasty locals, huge crowds, the Beach Boys, the coffee cup throwing cop from "The Big Lebowski" ("aw, you fuckin; fascist!"), and long, endless point right point breaks where beuatiful longboards showed classic style. This south facing streatch of coastline was something of a Mecca of California surfing. And, I was making my first trip to pilgramage.
I arrived at Topanga State Beach at 5:30 in the morning. A dim twilight showered the green Malibu hills. I parked in the "pay" parking lot, showing the attendant my State Park Pass. I would later confirm that Topanga State beach is not a part of the Spate Park system. But, neither of us knew that my pass was no good, so I showed it, and he let me use it. He also asked if I knew where he could get some pot. I didn't, but felt sure that he was in the right place.
Topanga is a right breaking point break. From the parking lot, there is a concrete stairway down to a small sand plateau, primarily occupied by a white restroom and lifeguard building with green wooden trim and a red tile roof. The sand ended before the shoreline, giving way to smooth moss covered rocks, exposed by the low tide. The floor of the spot is all rock, with some fairly healthy kelp stalks grown sporadically throughout.
I watched the wave for a while from my truck. The sets were inconsistent, but the biggest waves were shoulder high or slightly better. It was low tide. It was defiantly a point break. The wave pitched up in a defined spot every time, and peeled off in one direction ad infinitum. The swell wasn't big enough to produce really long rides, but it was clear that on a better day one could catch a wave and ride off for a good distance.
There was a crowd of eight or ten people in the water, huddled around the peak. I would later be told by one of the locals that this was a very light crowd, even for dawn patrol on a small weekday.
"Dawn patrol is usually civilized" he told me. "But, you come here on any weekend, and it's a zoo. Wall to wall boards, and lots of attitude."
I walked over the rocks to the water and paddled into the line up. I let a few waves go by and took a waist high breaker, just to prove to the watching eyes that I could surf in turn, and then eased into the morning.
At the peak, there were about sixteen people in the water, shortboards and longboards. The difference between shortboard and longboard take off position was not too much, so the waves were rationed out pretty well amongst the crowd. I dropped in on one guy, but had plenty of time to get out of his way before I did any harm to his ride. As karmic payback, one of the shortboarders jumped into my way on a set wave later in the morning.
The locals were amenable. Once a few of them figured out that I had a watch on, they asked me the time every third set. The one girl in the water was apparently in a time crunch, with a final exam happening later in the morning. She got driving route advise from one of the older locals, after which I asked him to estimate how long my drive would be.
"Over the hill?" he asked. "I'd allow 45 minutes, plus time for getting out of the water and changing and stuff."
The road advisor and the girl were the two best surfers in the water. Both rode high performance shortboards, and knew the power spots of the wave very well. Watching either get a ride was a pleasure, as they found their way into some really fast sections.
I tried to learn from their rides, modeling my take off after them, and finding that the key to the first section was to turn fast and sharp and stay high on the face like a tube rider before dropping down to do anything else.
There was also a guy on a huge green fish board. He was an older fellow, looked Latino, slightly balding and moved in quick, chunky, graceless motions. He caught lots of waves, though, and some good ones, too.
The surf was good up until the tide hit the low at 6:50 am. Within twenty minutes of the low, the waves had lost most of their power. The crowd had also thinned to about six people. I still had time to spare, so I paddled down the point to a second take off spot where two longboarders were riding an inside section of wave. I caught two waves there, and got out.
Fun morning, all told. The drive through the canyon was interesting. It was the kind of road that you'd expect to find on the way to a campsite, not in a heavily populated urban area.
Now, the really fun part of the story is that I did make it to Mex that evening, and surfed a small weak windswell at Salsipuedes as the sun went down.
Malibu in the morning, Salsipuedes at night. Not bad for a day's work. When the sun went Brett and I sat in camp chars at a small fire listening to the sound of small waves on the Mexican cliffs.
But, salsipuedes, as reliable as it's reputation is, let Brett and I down on Saturday morning, unable to break on the extreme low tide.
We searched the coast and finally paid $11 US to surf at Alistos, or La Fonda, or K58, or whatever you want to call that damn place with the hellish paddle that takes twenty minutes of every thing your arms have and then - well, that's another story entirely.
And, I do have another meeting in Woodland Hills this week - right around the time that south swell should be winding down.
posted by travinator @ 6:56 PM
1 comments
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Flippers at Magnolia - 5/22/05
I met Larry at the State Beach, just north of Magnolia Street at seven. My wife had decided that this year, she was going to take our daughter to the beach a bunch of times. As such, she had determined that she needed a state park annual pass, an expense I'd never incurred before. But, since it was her idea and not mine, I readily agreed. I knew that I stood to benefit from the purchase, as I could use the thing a couple times a week.
In my excitement, I called a few known beach pass carrying folks that I knew. Larry was the one who answered the call.
I'd brought the longboard, knowing that Larry didn't own a surfboard less than 8' 6". We paddled out into a pretty crowded line up of surfers. Water was warm, inland temperatures would hit the 90s later in the day, the surf was up, and had been for two days, so the word was out. Everyone who owned a surfboard would probably be at the beach this day. I could only imagine the crowd at Seventeenth Street or the pier.
Inconsistent set waves were shoulder high to just overhead. The lefts, I learned, looked promising but always closed out quickly. The rights were fun. Larry is a smooth and experienced rider, and pulled into a lot the better waves. I messed around with a few lefts, and finally found a right or two to be proud of.
When the clock struck 8, Larry called last wave and went in. I decided to stick around a while, and let myself drift out to the edge of the break. I figured I could be patient and picky, waiting for the big stuff.
The dolphins had been out while Larry was there. A few had surfaced right near him, scaring us both. But, for some reason, tide or swell or both, dolphins converged on the spot right around 8:30.
There were dozens of them. I was sitting on my board, looking to my left at a group of five or six dolphins, blowing steam, swirling water, and doing small jumps, when suddenly I heard the blow hole noise to my left. I looked to see four or five more. It was hard to count them, as they moved so much and the water was pretty dark. But, there were all sizes, from young dolphins only three or four feet long, to some big guys, too. Normally, sighting a few dolphins twenty yards outside of the break is just a standard morning sight. But, these guys were in towards shore, right where all the surfers were. Neither the surfers nor the dolphins seemed to have any fear of each other. It was as if we both knew that the other exists, and plays in the same pool. It was just that for one day, we had to share the same water more than usual.
A wave swelled up that looked like it had my name on it. I turned my board to shore and started to paddle. It was bigger than I had estimated, and I realized I was too late. At the last moment, I pulled back. My board kept going, getting sucked into the break. I gripped my leash with both hands and pulled it back to me, then climbed on, and turned to paddle back out a bit.
There were three guys, all looking at me like I was a ghost. Their eyes were wide and their mouths were open.
"Dude!" one of them exclaimed. "Did you SEE those guys?"
"No."
"There were three dolphins on that wave with you." he laughed, still disbelieving what he'd seen. "You were paddeling, and there was a big one right here -" he motioned down to his left "- and two more over here." he motioned to his right.
I was shocked. I hadn't seen any of them. I had no idea I was sharing the wave with a family of dolphins.
"Good thing you didn't take off." one of the other guys chimed in. "That would have been pretty wild."
"Well. I've always heard that you should let the dolphins have the wave..." I shrugged.
Actually, I envied the guys. I was the player, but they were the audience that got the show. It seemed to me that they got the better deal.
A few sets later, I saw a dolphin moment that I'll remember as well as those guys remembered mine.
I had dismounted a wave, and was paddeling out through a set of good sized breakers. In front of me, a surfer was paddeling as hard as he could. He was right in the impact zone of a rising wave of water, but looked like he could make it over if he paddled hard enough. He was working hard,and was up the face of the wave when the tip started to break. He kept up, and the nose of his board got the an unbroken bit of the top. He was going to make it.
But, right before he flopped over to the back of the wave, from just under his board came two lightening fast gray shapes in perfect arcs. From my point of view, they looked like they could have easily brushed the bottom of his board. There was a big dolphin, riding high on the wave, and a little dolphin riding low. Both dorsal fins were out of the water, streaking across the face as the surfer pushed over the top.
When I made it out, I had to ask him about it. I repeated the other's words. "Dude!! Did you SEE those guys?"
"Yea" he replied. His eyes were as wide as mine.
"Yea. I did."
In my excitement, I called a few known beach pass carrying folks that I knew. Larry was the one who answered the call.
I'd brought the longboard, knowing that Larry didn't own a surfboard less than 8' 6". We paddled out into a pretty crowded line up of surfers. Water was warm, inland temperatures would hit the 90s later in the day, the surf was up, and had been for two days, so the word was out. Everyone who owned a surfboard would probably be at the beach this day. I could only imagine the crowd at Seventeenth Street or the pier.
Inconsistent set waves were shoulder high to just overhead. The lefts, I learned, looked promising but always closed out quickly. The rights were fun. Larry is a smooth and experienced rider, and pulled into a lot the better waves. I messed around with a few lefts, and finally found a right or two to be proud of.
When the clock struck 8, Larry called last wave and went in. I decided to stick around a while, and let myself drift out to the edge of the break. I figured I could be patient and picky, waiting for the big stuff.
The dolphins had been out while Larry was there. A few had surfaced right near him, scaring us both. But, for some reason, tide or swell or both, dolphins converged on the spot right around 8:30.
There were dozens of them. I was sitting on my board, looking to my left at a group of five or six dolphins, blowing steam, swirling water, and doing small jumps, when suddenly I heard the blow hole noise to my left. I looked to see four or five more. It was hard to count them, as they moved so much and the water was pretty dark. But, there were all sizes, from young dolphins only three or four feet long, to some big guys, too. Normally, sighting a few dolphins twenty yards outside of the break is just a standard morning sight. But, these guys were in towards shore, right where all the surfers were. Neither the surfers nor the dolphins seemed to have any fear of each other. It was as if we both knew that the other exists, and plays in the same pool. It was just that for one day, we had to share the same water more than usual.
A wave swelled up that looked like it had my name on it. I turned my board to shore and started to paddle. It was bigger than I had estimated, and I realized I was too late. At the last moment, I pulled back. My board kept going, getting sucked into the break. I gripped my leash with both hands and pulled it back to me, then climbed on, and turned to paddle back out a bit.
There were three guys, all looking at me like I was a ghost. Their eyes were wide and their mouths were open.
"Dude!" one of them exclaimed. "Did you SEE those guys?"
"No."
"There were three dolphins on that wave with you." he laughed, still disbelieving what he'd seen. "You were paddeling, and there was a big one right here -" he motioned down to his left "- and two more over here." he motioned to his right.
I was shocked. I hadn't seen any of them. I had no idea I was sharing the wave with a family of dolphins.
"Good thing you didn't take off." one of the other guys chimed in. "That would have been pretty wild."
"Well. I've always heard that you should let the dolphins have the wave..." I shrugged.
Actually, I envied the guys. I was the player, but they were the audience that got the show. It seemed to me that they got the better deal.
A few sets later, I saw a dolphin moment that I'll remember as well as those guys remembered mine.
I had dismounted a wave, and was paddeling out through a set of good sized breakers. In front of me, a surfer was paddeling as hard as he could. He was right in the impact zone of a rising wave of water, but looked like he could make it over if he paddled hard enough. He was working hard,and was up the face of the wave when the tip started to break. He kept up, and the nose of his board got the an unbroken bit of the top. He was going to make it.
But, right before he flopped over to the back of the wave, from just under his board came two lightening fast gray shapes in perfect arcs. From my point of view, they looked like they could have easily brushed the bottom of his board. There was a big dolphin, riding high on the wave, and a little dolphin riding low. Both dorsal fins were out of the water, streaking across the face as the surfer pushed over the top.
When I made it out, I had to ask him about it. I repeated the other's words. "Dude!! Did you SEE those guys?"
"Yea" he replied. His eyes were as wide as mine.
"Yea. I did."
posted by travinator @ 9:13 PM
0 comments
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Some Baja Surfing, May 2005
"This must be it." I told Brett, looking off to the side of the road and comparing the vista to my 44-peso map.
There was a small dirt road and a few buildings: a shipping center, a school, a few houses and a church. Brett pulled off the main road, and slowed to a crawl. We'd crossed the federali checkpoint, left behind the last Pemex station about thirty miles ago and crossed into "real Baja", a land undeveloped and populated more by grazing livestock than by permanently settled people.
After the small village, the road climbed a small hill and we could see the next hour and a half of our lives. There was a narrow, rocky, unpaved road winding endlessly through a tight valley between two walls of sprawling natural hills.
Brett switched the vehicle into four-wheel drive. "After seven years," he said, "this car will finally be broken in." He explained later that most SUVs are sold with the suspension adjusted for urban usage. So, while the car was perfectly equipped for the terrain, we were going to feel each and every gully, rut, rock, bump, lump and crevice in our tailbones.
As we drove into the valley, a river ran alongside the road. At one point, the river crossed the road. We stopped to look at the depth of the water and judge whether the car could make it through or if we could clear a path around. While we were discussing this, a small truck with three Mexicans in the cab drove up and splashed into the river without ever breaking speed. The driver flashed me a smile and the two fingered peace sign.
Further down the valley, the floor expanded and we passed agricultural fields with vast rows of planted crops. On the side of the road, we read signs marking the border between rancho and rancho. We passed cattle, free roaming horses, and finally, a group of burros.
"It just wouldn't be a trip to Mexico without running into a couple of burros, would it?" Brett joked.
We passed a road that looked to be a turn off to get out of the valley. A local, standing at the corner, told us that the road went to "punto china", whatever that was.
Finally, we rounded a turn where there were no new mountain to see. The valley opened to the ocean. At the end of the road was a built up damn of sand preventing the river from emptying into the ocean, holding water back to the fields. There were a few houses, an abandoned food stand, and a small beach with a slow breaking, close out wave in very shallow water.
"I didn't come all this way to surf that." Brett said.
We turned around, and went back to the turn off for punta china. After crossing the river, the road hugged the cliffs until it opened onto a waterfront plateau about 50 feet above the water.
We drove slowly, looking at the various outlets and coves, looking for a good looking wave. The best place we found was at the end of the road. There was a cluster of several buildings behind a guarded Iron Gate and concrete wall marked "CEMEX". After a brief discussion with the guard, it was decided that we couldn't bring our car through the gate, but we could park there while we surfed. He opened the gate for us to walk through, carrying our board bags and wetsuits.
Navigating to the water was a mild challenge. There was a road that appeared to have led to the water at one point, but clearly hadn't been used in a good many years. At the bottom of the road was a beach of smooth gray and blue pebbles where we changed into superhero outfits.
I paddled out into the water, past the breaking waves, sat up on my board and looked around. The spot was a crescent shaped ridge of sheer cliff. To the south, a natural rock jetty extended into the ocean, causing a consistent left breaking wave. To the north, a pile of rocks under the water caused a second wave. The second wave looked dangerous. Every swell of water that rolled over the rocks boiled ominously. I decided that the left was good enough.
Brett got the first wave, and rode it more than fifty yards uninterrupted. I paddled around a bit, until he explained his positional triangulation. He had noticed a series of trees, rock, cliffs, and mountain features to determine a constant position in the water where the wave was breaking.
In gratitude for this information, I dropped in on him.
We had both brought long boards, and the wave was perfect for them. It was soft but powerful, with sections of slow crumbles and faster pitches. The wave was forgiving on the drop, but then fast in the second turn. It was a fun ride.
The water was crystal clear blue, miles from any source of pollutant, and warmer than I'd been told to expect from Baja. The spotting of a few dolphins convinced me that there were no sharks anywhere near. (Not true, probably. But since sharkiness is a state of mind, it's the thought that counts.)
There was a nice channel for paddling out, and the waves were consistent. Some of the mid sized sets were chest to shoulder high. When the bigger sets came, they were shoulder to head high. Even the biggest waves were soft enough not to be menacing, and were even a bit tricky to paddle into. Once up and riding, the waves were a wide canvas of possibilities, pushing, releasing, pitching and changing towards the rocky beach.
We surfed the spot for about an hour (in which time I think I dropped in on Brett at least one or two more times), and then got out. The clock was not in our favor. We'd left two wives and three kids in a house in Ensenada some two hours away (including a stop for fish tacos), and were sure to be in some trouble upon our return. The whole trek was a seven hour expedition from Ensenada, and for every hour of that over one - I was gonna get it.
"Well," Brett said, standing on the pebble beach and looking out into the picturesque scene. "After all these years you finally dragged me down here to go surfing in Mex."
I laughed, and looked one more time. I hadn't brought a camera, of course. That would have required foresight and common sense, both of which I were decidedly short of. But, camera or no, I'd never forget the place. It was a small postcard piece of private heaven for an hour of time.
Only the good Lord and the CEMEX guard know if the place breaks 300 days a year, or just that day. But, who cares. I was there.
The next day we Ensenada left earlier and ventured north to the more accessible and better known spot, salsipuedes.
Translated to English, salsipuedes means "leave if you can." The indispensable Surfers Guide to Baja postulates that the name can be attributed to any number of reasons, not the least of which is an excellent wave that we found hard to leave after two hours of surfing in the "heavy" crowd of six people.
Salsipuedes could also refer to the inhospitable foot path from the beach up to the campsite, a treacherous climb up the cliff face over rocks and mud. Or, salsipuedes may refer to the road up to the highway, a lumpy dirt road with series of jagged switchbacks, sporadically populated by sheep and rooster.
In any case, the name seems to be a curse of sorts. As we were packing up to leave, a group of Mexican girls tried to start their car, and found the battery dead. The proprietors of the campsite, in a large American truck, set up to give a jump-start, crowding both vehicles into the small campsite on the cliff. However, when they tried to perform the jumpstart, the truck died.
"Salsipuedes." I mumbled to Brett.
Fortunately, nobody asked us to get involved. I could foresee the curse of salsipuedes claiming vehicle after vehicle as the day progressed and the late morning wind picked up into a blast of air against the steep cliff. Instead, one of the guys asked us for a ride halfway up the hill to his house, where he could get "the other truck" to bring down into the mix. We obliged.
-Travis
5-10-05
There was a small dirt road and a few buildings: a shipping center, a school, a few houses and a church. Brett pulled off the main road, and slowed to a crawl. We'd crossed the federali checkpoint, left behind the last Pemex station about thirty miles ago and crossed into "real Baja", a land undeveloped and populated more by grazing livestock than by permanently settled people.
After the small village, the road climbed a small hill and we could see the next hour and a half of our lives. There was a narrow, rocky, unpaved road winding endlessly through a tight valley between two walls of sprawling natural hills.
Brett switched the vehicle into four-wheel drive. "After seven years," he said, "this car will finally be broken in." He explained later that most SUVs are sold with the suspension adjusted for urban usage. So, while the car was perfectly equipped for the terrain, we were going to feel each and every gully, rut, rock, bump, lump and crevice in our tailbones.
As we drove into the valley, a river ran alongside the road. At one point, the river crossed the road. We stopped to look at the depth of the water and judge whether the car could make it through or if we could clear a path around. While we were discussing this, a small truck with three Mexicans in the cab drove up and splashed into the river without ever breaking speed. The driver flashed me a smile and the two fingered peace sign.
Further down the valley, the floor expanded and we passed agricultural fields with vast rows of planted crops. On the side of the road, we read signs marking the border between rancho and rancho. We passed cattle, free roaming horses, and finally, a group of burros.
"It just wouldn't be a trip to Mexico without running into a couple of burros, would it?" Brett joked.
We passed a road that looked to be a turn off to get out of the valley. A local, standing at the corner, told us that the road went to "punto china", whatever that was.
Finally, we rounded a turn where there were no new mountain to see. The valley opened to the ocean. At the end of the road was a built up damn of sand preventing the river from emptying into the ocean, holding water back to the fields. There were a few houses, an abandoned food stand, and a small beach with a slow breaking, close out wave in very shallow water.
"I didn't come all this way to surf that." Brett said.
We turned around, and went back to the turn off for punta china. After crossing the river, the road hugged the cliffs until it opened onto a waterfront plateau about 50 feet above the water.
We drove slowly, looking at the various outlets and coves, looking for a good looking wave. The best place we found was at the end of the road. There was a cluster of several buildings behind a guarded Iron Gate and concrete wall marked "CEMEX". After a brief discussion with the guard, it was decided that we couldn't bring our car through the gate, but we could park there while we surfed. He opened the gate for us to walk through, carrying our board bags and wetsuits.
Navigating to the water was a mild challenge. There was a road that appeared to have led to the water at one point, but clearly hadn't been used in a good many years. At the bottom of the road was a beach of smooth gray and blue pebbles where we changed into superhero outfits.
I paddled out into the water, past the breaking waves, sat up on my board and looked around. The spot was a crescent shaped ridge of sheer cliff. To the south, a natural rock jetty extended into the ocean, causing a consistent left breaking wave. To the north, a pile of rocks under the water caused a second wave. The second wave looked dangerous. Every swell of water that rolled over the rocks boiled ominously. I decided that the left was good enough.
Brett got the first wave, and rode it more than fifty yards uninterrupted. I paddled around a bit, until he explained his positional triangulation. He had noticed a series of trees, rock, cliffs, and mountain features to determine a constant position in the water where the wave was breaking.
In gratitude for this information, I dropped in on him.
We had both brought long boards, and the wave was perfect for them. It was soft but powerful, with sections of slow crumbles and faster pitches. The wave was forgiving on the drop, but then fast in the second turn. It was a fun ride.
The water was crystal clear blue, miles from any source of pollutant, and warmer than I'd been told to expect from Baja. The spotting of a few dolphins convinced me that there were no sharks anywhere near. (Not true, probably. But since sharkiness is a state of mind, it's the thought that counts.)
There was a nice channel for paddling out, and the waves were consistent. Some of the mid sized sets were chest to shoulder high. When the bigger sets came, they were shoulder to head high. Even the biggest waves were soft enough not to be menacing, and were even a bit tricky to paddle into. Once up and riding, the waves were a wide canvas of possibilities, pushing, releasing, pitching and changing towards the rocky beach.
We surfed the spot for about an hour (in which time I think I dropped in on Brett at least one or two more times), and then got out. The clock was not in our favor. We'd left two wives and three kids in a house in Ensenada some two hours away (including a stop for fish tacos), and were sure to be in some trouble upon our return. The whole trek was a seven hour expedition from Ensenada, and for every hour of that over one - I was gonna get it.
"Well," Brett said, standing on the pebble beach and looking out into the picturesque scene. "After all these years you finally dragged me down here to go surfing in Mex."
I laughed, and looked one more time. I hadn't brought a camera, of course. That would have required foresight and common sense, both of which I were decidedly short of. But, camera or no, I'd never forget the place. It was a small postcard piece of private heaven for an hour of time.
Only the good Lord and the CEMEX guard know if the place breaks 300 days a year, or just that day. But, who cares. I was there.
The next day we Ensenada left earlier and ventured north to the more accessible and better known spot, salsipuedes.
Translated to English, salsipuedes means "leave if you can." The indispensable Surfers Guide to Baja postulates that the name can be attributed to any number of reasons, not the least of which is an excellent wave that we found hard to leave after two hours of surfing in the "heavy" crowd of six people.
Salsipuedes could also refer to the inhospitable foot path from the beach up to the campsite, a treacherous climb up the cliff face over rocks and mud. Or, salsipuedes may refer to the road up to the highway, a lumpy dirt road with series of jagged switchbacks, sporadically populated by sheep and rooster.
In any case, the name seems to be a curse of sorts. As we were packing up to leave, a group of Mexican girls tried to start their car, and found the battery dead. The proprietors of the campsite, in a large American truck, set up to give a jump-start, crowding both vehicles into the small campsite on the cliff. However, when they tried to perform the jumpstart, the truck died.
"Salsipuedes." I mumbled to Brett.
Fortunately, nobody asked us to get involved. I could foresee the curse of salsipuedes claiming vehicle after vehicle as the day progressed and the late morning wind picked up into a blast of air against the steep cliff. Instead, one of the guys asked us for a ride halfway up the hill to his house, where he could get "the other truck" to bring down into the mix. We obliged.
-Travis
5-10-05
posted by travinator @ 12:58 PM
2 comments
