One California Year

Going through some old boxes in my basement, I found a notebook with papers from my freshman year of college. I went to LMU film school for a year and a half, fulfilling the California dream I'd formulated in middle and high school. I brought a surfboard, but only surfed once or twice at windblown El Porto. I didn't have many friends down there. None who surfed. So I did the typical freshman thing: drinking, studying and walking around Hollywood.

I took my film classes pretty seriously, discovering Wim Wenders, David Lynch, Jarmusch, vintage Coppola, Scorsese, Truffaut. I made a short movie in my Film Production 101 class that was selected to be shown on the campus big screen. It was a super-8 vignette about an epileptic painter named Rabo.

But film seemed too production-oriented and formulated for me. Too much organization and delegation to others between the initial creative impulse and the final work. And Hollywood freaked me out. The next year, I quit film school and moved back to Oregon to study painting.

In the basement notebook I found some critiques of my first films from fellow students. One name in particular stood out: Jason Baffa. I remember him well--we hung out on occasion, as a matter of fact. I borrowed his film splicer/viewer to edit one of my films. He was one of the more motivated and articulate guys in the class. He was also a surfer. Now, he's making some of the most artistic surf films out there, including One California Day and Singlefin Yellow.

Thinking back now, I'm pretty sure he offered to take me surfing. I wonder what would have happened if I had gone to some better breaks with him and gotten obsessed with surfing back then... totally obsessed like I am now. Would I have stayed in California, surfing my way through film school?

The making of One California Day.

The Byrds - My Back Pages

Tree Talk

I have these two tall trees out in front of my house that are the same species, but one always keeps its leaves about three months later than the other. So while the first litters the sidewalk early in the fall, the more hesitant one stays green late into the winter. I imagined what the leaves might say to each other if they could talk and wrote it in a marker pen. Several weeks later, I noticed the "death" one face up on the sidewalk about halfway down the block.

Neil Young - Old Man

PRESENTING... THE SISSY QUIVER 2007

Left to right:

1. Red Shred Sled (22x22)
2. KG Quad Fish (5.8)
3. Mandala Winged-D 2+1 (5.11)
4. Aleutian Juice Occ-ster (6.1)
5. McCoy/Pautsch Nugget (6.2)
6. North Pacific Rounded Pin (6.4)
7. Hammer Evo (6.6)
8. Plastic Banana (8.?)

(The McCoy and Hammer are for sale...)

Band of Horses - Is There a Ghost?

Gimme Shelter

For some reason, I felt a bit desperate on Sunday. I keep thinking that every session could be my last for a while. The baby could come any day (we're 3 weeks away now) and because many of the breaks I surf are out of phone range, I worry that I'll miss a call saying the water's broken.

So Sunday felt a little strange; the water was choppier than I would have liked and I couldn't seem to position myself on the shifty peaks. Every once in a while a speedy left would roll through way outside to the south, so that's where we ended up, away from the crowd that battled for a more consistent (but poorly shaped) right. After more than an hour, I'd only snagged a couple sloppy waves and was starting to get frustrated. My internal clock was ticking.

Finally, OS, Rye and I decided to paddle far outside and wait for the next big left that would roll through. Bobbing around out there, we commented that getting on one of those rifling set waves would make the session. So we waited. We thought we were too far out, then we got caught inside. Closeouts shut down across the cove. The tide went out. Rye grabbed one that looked pretty good. More time passed.

Then, finally, a set wave approached that showed potential. I paddled hard for it, made a late (and somewhat sketchy) drop, set my left rail, then burned along, taking a high line. It felt good. About halfway though the ride, I saw a guy paddle onto the shoulder and drop in. "Hey!" I yelled, "Douche!" The obvious tunnel vision of a newbie. He jumped off and I avoided his board, pumping back up the face.

I ended up about halfway across the beach, so I hoofed it back down to the rip on the south side to see if I could grab another. You know what? I did.

The photo above is kind of weird. I was on my way in after my last wave of the day, just bellying on some whitewater, and the wave just smoothed out and reformed. So I popped up, did a quick little turn, and noticed that it was going to pitch a bit so I tucked into the little closeout. I guess I'm trying to extract as much nectar from the session as possible. Rye had gone in and was playing with my camera on the beach. OS is on the left with a new Black Beauty under his arm.

Ah, precious moments.

Rolling Stones - Gimme Shelter

TEN/ONE/ZEROSEVEN

ELEVEN GALLONS OF SOY BEAN OIL
TEN FOOT SWELLS
THIRTEEN SECOND INTERVAL
TWENTY-SEVEN DUCKDIVES
FOUR GUYS IN THE WATER
THREE BIG WAVES
TWO COLD BEERS
ONE GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP.

Guided by Voices - Official Ironmen Rally Song

The Luckiest Surfboard in the World

When we were in Nicaragua, we made friends with a guy from SF named Walker who we surfed with daily for a week. He must've felt sorry for me because after two of my boards were knocked out of commission, he gave me his 6'6 and said that I could either keep it (and give it back to him next time I was in the Bay Area) or give it away, if I found somebody who might need it.

The last couple days of our trip we surfed with a local kid who charged every wave, no matter how unmakable, and seemed to be having much more fun than anybody else. He wore tattered boardshorts and a saggy rashguard, with curly black hair and a bright smile that seemed to pop from his dark complexion after every wave.

On our last day, after watching him get a nice little cover-up, I asked him in broken Spanish how long he'd been surfing. "Seis meses," he said, six months. The kid was already much better than me and I could tell that he was on his way to becoming a local hero, like the other older guys who shared the barreling beachbreak with me for the previous three weeks.

His board was an absolute disaster. It was old and yellow, with open dings and big delams. It had tiny sparkly star stickers that he'd applied to the deck, probably to emulate the pros that rolled through town. I knew that he was the right person for the stick that I'd just inherited, so I told him to stay there and that I'd be right back. I paddled in, ran back to the condo, grabbed the board and a couple bars of wax and headed back to the break. When I got back, the kid was standing on the shore with his old board laying it the sand. It was broken in half.

"What happened?" I asked. He gestured by arcing his arm over his head, smiling, "Grande!" At that, I handed him the new board and he looked it over proudly, running hands over the white deck.

As we paddled back out to the lineup together, I wondered how this coincidence could have occured . Had he been nursing his old board through waves, knowing that it was at the end of its life? Did he finally just put it in a more critical spot when he knew something better was on the way?

It didn't matter really. It took him two rides and he was back up to speed again, slotting himself under lips and doing celebratory flyaway kickouts after good waves. The boy was lucky, but maybe the board was luckier--having been given a chance at a second life where it could be ridden all the way into the ground.

The Sea and Cake - Crossing Line

Walker, if you're still reading this blog, this is where your board ended up. Sorry it took so long to give you the story.

RISK//////////V//////////REWARD

Yesterday I was the first guy out and I'll be damned if it wasn't double overhead again on the set waves. This is going to sound even wilder, but there were also an a bunch of beachcombers watching from the rocks and when I took off on my first one and they cheered as I made the drop. No pressure there...

My first three or four waves went really well, although I felt sort of immobilized by the speed and gravity of the situation as I skipped along on my 5'11. After a knee-buckling bottom turn, I'd go up and down the face of the wave, but wasn't too keen on trying anything more radical than that.

Then, spurred by some kind of lapse in judgement brought on by the "audience" I decided to scratch a little later and deeper into a set wave. I heard that initial "whoooooo!" as I went for it, then "ewwwwww!" as I felt myself free-falling with the lip, my hands still on the rails.

As intense as my first couple rides were, the payback was just as extreme. "Ragdolled" doesn't even begin to describe the tumble I took, arms and legs being twisted behind my torso, complete darkness surrounding me. I was dragged and dragged, at first in the lighter whitewater, then quickly sucked downward into the heavier turbine below. My mind just said "Relax. Don't fight it." I thought about fantasy football. Then the spinning lessened and I could see light behind my eyelids. A couple more strokes and I could finally suck wind.

My next few attempts were the same. I'd just get pitched and gobbled up. I thought I'd experienced heavy wipeouts in Nicaragua, but these were way worse. The good rides from earlier were already losing their crispness in my mind, replaced by the thumping darkness. I commented to OS that I seemed to be logging more time underwater than on waves.

After about 30 minutes, I finally locked into one a little earlier and made a drop, milking it to the end where the shoulder rounded off into the channel. Back outside, I talked to a guy who I'd surfed with before at that location, and he said he didn't trust anything under 7'0 on that wave. His normal board out there was a 7' x 3" thick Black Beauty.

It got me thinking that I might want something a little bigger for days like that. I started envisioning a 7' x 2.75" rounded pintail quad that would get me in earlier and have more edge in the wave as I dropped down the face.

It looks like I may have found a target for the next birthday board fund...

Danielson - Did I Step on Your Trumpet?

Myth and Surfing

I love myth. It's what our culture is built upon. So much of what we experience in life has parallels in mythology, one could say that those ancient stories have a direct impact on our very perception of "living." If you haven't read Joseph Campbell's "Power of Myth" or seen the PBS special that it was based on, I highly recommend it.

Campbell broke down myths that occur in culture into what he called "The Hero Cycle": a course of events that occur as a rite of initiation in every myth, pinpointing the need for mentors, villains, elixirs and jesters along the way.

I can't think of anywhere this cycle is illustrated better that surfing in Oregon. As a surfer here, you're always embarking on new quests and adventures, facing real and perceived obstacles and villains. Sharks, rips, sneaker sets, snakes, rocks, angry locals, freezing water. You hear about all of these potentially fateful entanglements prior to making the decision to go on your adventure, and they provide a barrier to entry that filters out the weak of heart. Without these, surfing wouldn't be the quest we all love.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that as much as I hate localism, it has it's place in the story of Oregon surfing. It can't be easy to be a regulator, always looking over your shoulder, harbouring a constant paranoia, walking with heaviness in your heart.

Last night I surfed until the moon and stars were the only light in the sky. I had a lot of time to think, to rinse away anger, to find the holy grail that isn't an actual object, but a simple, basic joy in that sacred place we call the soul.

Then, after paddling in, changing in the dark, marveling at the warm breeze that came through the pines, I enjoyed an elixir (or two) with a close friend and remembered what this is all about. I think Campbell would have smiled.

Horse Feathers - Falling Through the Roof

WAX MY RIDE

So this is what my car looks like. Old Toyota, low miles, runs good, white. It has a few issues. The driver's side window broke last winter, which was a real bitch when summer came and I couldn't roll it down for fear that I wouldn't be able to get it back up again. Hot. The A/C crapped out ages ago. The cost to fix it would have essentially totaled the car. I haven't washed her in probably a year, so the paintjob looks off-white from afar. It has a layer of mold on it. What's that they say about a rolling stone gathering no moss? Not true in this case.

The stereo and antenna seem to have a mind of their own. The radio goes on and off as it pleases. I have a technique that I learned from the Fonz where I punch the dashboard, the antenna goes up, and sometimes the radio works until I hit a bump or railroad tracks. Then the aerial goes back down again and it shuts off. It wears the old crusty roof racks that I bought off craigslist like a crown. What else? It gets awesome mileage.

I like this old car. I know it's going to last me a long time and that it'll get me back and forth from the beach as often as I like without breaking down.

Built to Spill - Car

Coloring Book

I've decided to forgo the t-shirt idea and make a coloring book for my baby instead. Thanks for your opinions on the drawing though.

Art is power.

The Clientele - Book Shop Cassanova

UNKNOWN PLEASURES

I missed the "epic" day Saturday and was stressed that Sunday would suck. Our setups in Oregon seem so fickle that if someone farts out of the south, things will get blown out for a week. Sure enough, despite heaps of good stoke karma being projected at our planned destination, the SW winds were flatulating when we arrived, making PC look like bumpy old road. Not to be deterred, Ebb, OS and yours flu-ly scoured the coastline until we found a wind shadow. I swear it was bigger than these pictures suggest, but our stealthy lensman snagged these snaps at the end of the day when the tide had changed, the swell had dropped, and the wind crept into our wee wave haven. Anyone who knows this spot knows how quickly it can change. Imagine it bigger and glassier and you'll have an inkling of our unknown pleasures.

Joy Division - Shadowplay

Don't Leave.

Fall is here and trees are exploding all around my neighborhood. I haven't gotten wet in a while because, so far, fall surf conditions have been pretty dismal. Currently the swell is starting to mellow out and it looks like there's going to be waves this weekend. As a matter of fact, a few lucky souls are scoring as I write this. All I can say is, I hope the good weather patterns are more regular in the coming weeks, before the winter (and the baby) drops in.

Goldie - Innercity Life (4Hero Remix)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ REMINDER

Sometimes things wash up on shore...

Old plastic bottles,
Broken pieces of styrofoam,
Wal-Mart bags,
Kelp bull-whips,
Half-burnt tree stumps,
Japanese glass buoys,
Piles of stinky jellyfish,
Dead seals.

...Things that put the Oregon surf experience in perspective.

Happy Mondays - Step On

One More

The boat captain is waving the sunburned surfer in, who's resolved to catch "one more" before ending his session. Of course, for the last half hour it's been completely flat.

Black Lips - Katrina

FREE BURMA!

Brocrastinating

Defined as the act of watching buoys, reading blogs, creating posts, mindsurfing magazine spreads, checking cams, searching craigslist for deals on boards you don't need, etc. Essentially, what you're doing right now.

Sorry I haven't had as much time to brocrastinate lately. I'm back in the 9-5 world for a minute.

Band of Horses - The Funeral

RIPPED!

The longshore rip was so strong yesterday,
We had to paddle constantly to stay on the peak.
And the peak was perfect for an hour.
Perfect rights peeling like a point break.
But if you went for one and missed it,
You were gone, swept away in the roguish current.
If you blew a wave, you got sucked to the south so rapidly
That you could actually see your line-up on shore
Fading away into the distance.

It was easier cash in your chips and belly in,
Walk back up the beach and start over.

Back at the peak there was a barnacled buoy
That marked perfectly where the wave started cresting.
I now have scratches all over my finger tips
from trying to hang onto it to stay in one place.

The things we do for a couple good waves...

The Wedding Present - Brassneck

He Walks on Water

I surfed with one of my heroes this weekend. Gerry Lopez, aka Mr. Pipeline, aka The Goofyfoot Guru, was out at PC on Saturday and Sunday on his stand-up board. Can I actually say "surfed with" if he was 300 yards outside of the line-up, paddling into bombs and making stand-up surfing look appealing? That's right. Gerry is the first stand-up surfer I've ever seen use etiquette on one of those things, grabbing big outside waves that only he could catch, then plowing down the faces of the overhead bombs and connecting them to the inside, kicking out just before the big close-out at Gas Chambers.

After the session Saturday, as the sun went down, I was taking a hot shower behind the Pelican and Gerry walked by. He gave me a nod and I said casually, "Hey." After he passed, I looked down at my hand which--completely on its own--was shaking a cheeky little shaka at the legendary surfer. It was like some weird subconscious reflex. I felt like a total kook.

Anyway, that evening over a glass of wine I lamented about not having a camera. I usually take pictures on all my overnight trips to the beach. The next morning when we woke up at the beach house and checked the cams, the shot of Pacific City captured a figure who appeared to be walking on water. It had to be Gerry again. When we got to the beach, he was still out there, stroking into the mysto peaks that crumbled on the outside bar.

It also was really cool to surf with Gaz today, who was riding his Mandala as well. He informed me that his son's health is improving, which made a sunny day even brighter. And shout out to Morgan, who lent me sunblock and told me he reads Sissyfish!

Roni Size - Heroes

Newsflash: I'm No Occy.

Tried out my new-fangled tri-fin thruster yesterday. Let's just say that it was a bit difficult to adapt to, considering that the conditions were fairly extreme (overhead-plus sets). The paddle out was interesting in that although it was easier to duck dive, paddle speed was so much slower. And I duck dove a lot on the first attempt to get outside. I think I lost track at around 30 walls of punishing whitewater.

Anyway, I didn't bring my Mandala to the beach because I wanted to force myself to try my new Parmenter-shaped "Occ-ster," a board based on the sticks Mark Occhilupo rode in the 1980s. After I made the paddle, I wished I had brought a surfboard I knew better. The set waves were really big. Some of them sort of started out breaking mushy, then they would fire on the inner bar, others came on steep and chunky, cranked and closed-out.

It goes without saying that confidence is important in decent/challenging waves. I didn't really have it on the Occster. But that's kind of the curse on any new surfboard: How do you dial it in on those good days, when you know that your tried-and-true boards would work better for you? When do you take it out the first time? How many sessions will you sacrifice in order to get comfortable?

After scratching like a madman and missing my first three or four waves (It seemed like I was dragging an anchor), I finally caught a right. I felt so late on the drop, but I made it and the board responded really well. Turned easily off the bottom, but the wave closed out. I did a hard turn to straighten out and it felt really loose. I can see potential there.

I caught a few more before my arms were completely shot. I noticed that the board is plenty stable on the take-off, so that's not a problem, but the speed I have grown accustomed to on my quad and 2+1 just isn't there. That effortless zero-to-lightspeed-in-two-seconds shift into fifth gear. I know that I need to immediately pump the Occster to generate velocity. Some people like the whole act of moving the board around to create speed on a wave. Occy was a master at that. For me, it's sort of the trade-off that allows you to have that agility to whip turns off your back foot. Give and take. Sacrifice.

I'm not there yet.

I surf twice a week at the most. Do I have enough time to spend floundering, feeling back at square one, like the first time I ever stood on a board? I'm not giving up on the Occster after one session, but at the same time, I'm not leaving home without my daily driver again.

Metric - Between the Bars (Elliott Smith Cover)

HOW TO STAY STOKED

The best part about buying this little package on the way to the beach last week was when I walked up to the gas station cashier and she asked, "Will that be all for you?"

"Yeah," I said. "I just need a little stoke."

Other ways to stay stoked include watching Hi-Shred (all 3 episodes!) on VBS.TV, directed by Tyler at Mollusk. Or by checking out the following video, which I also discovered on the VBS.TV site:

Bat for Lashes - What's a Girl to Do

>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Massive Air

The best way to rinse saltwater off yourself and your wetsuit after surfing is to find a river and jump in. In our case over labor day weekend, it was a stop at the Smith River on the way home from the beach. The same rope swing was there as when we were in high school, hanging from the same bridge that many of our friends (including old One Speed) have jumped off of. Crazy. And as proof that some things never change, there were even some classic river rednecks--complete with mullets, sunburns, and beer bellies--who had constructed a makeshift slip n' slide out of an old tarp and some Crisco. I've seen Deliverance, and I didn't want to hang around too close to dark with all that beer and lube around.

Gee's getting some nice air and style points in the photo above.

Squeeze - Up the Junction

Land O' Lefts

Back on my Manny again Thursday night. Bolted from work a little early to get some 8' at 10 seconds goodness. There's a spot where a stiff northwest wind blows offshore and 8 feet is more like 4-5. Shorties: A place people love to hate. For whatever reason. And the water is cold again. I hope I don't have start wearing gloves this month.

I'm loving my Manny more and more in these waves. Wedgey beachbreak seems to be the perfect playground for the 2+1. I have very little problem getting in early--you know the kinds of casual drop-ins where you have a few seconds to look down the line, get your bearings, and decide whether or not it's going to close out. The board has no problem riding really high on steep faces. One wave in particular I thought I'd get pitched, but I just kept flirting with the feathering lip and it stayed true and stable. So much speed, with spray blowing high into the air off my rail.

Confession: I unapologetically dropped in on someone on my first wave of the day. First time I'd ever done that, actually. This guy who'd just caught a wave paddled inside of me where I had been waiting for 15 minutes to catch my first. The peak was fickle, but I knew that if I waited it out, instead of chasing ghosts like the rest of the pack, it would pay off. Sure enough, the dude paddled up 10 feet to my left and was still on his stomach when the set I was waiting for arrived. He just turned around and started stroking for it and I thought, "Oh no he dii-in't!" and went for it. It was a stellar left that set the tone for the the rest of the session, which was a blast. I don't think he made the section anyway.

Does that make me a monster?


Nick Lowe - So It Goes

((((((((((HULLABALOO))))))))))

At long last, I had the chance to meet the legendary Festus Porkmeyer last Sunday in a little beach town nestled on the CA/OR border. He's a writer, beard-grower, and wheelbarrow specialist recently transplanted from San Diego to McKinleyville. I pledged to buy a Parmenter-shaped "Occster" surfboard from him nearly a year ago, and finally made good on the purchase.

But more on the Occster later.

Porky packed (along with his lovely wife and child) a nice stack of wave riding objects for my road-weary crew to test out in those southern waters: namely a Pavel Speed Dialer, a Pavel log, a surf mat, and a Liddle Hull. The waves were only waist high at best, and I soon found myself trying out the Hull.

I had read an article on the Hull a couple years before and remembered being intrigued by the shape. Porky swapped the the board with me in the water and just said: "Your first wave will be interesting," or something to that effect. Knowing that Hulls are supposed to be surfed closer to the middle of the board, I figured that I'd have very little problem getting used to this one. I've always ridden off my front foot, with my back foot in front of my fins on traditional shortboards.

So when a little left came my way and I paddled in and hopped to my feet, I was pretty surprised at the relative instability of the craft. I leaned to turn down the line and the board just kept rolling downward until I fell flat on my face. Splat. My second wave, backside, was even worse.

But, at Porky's insistance, I stuck with it. When another, larger left came my way I paddled in and jumped up a little quicker than my previous attempts, gently angling down the line and correcting slightly when the board seemed to lose stability. As soon as I realized that I'd made the turn and was slotted in trim, I did very little else but crouch low and "feel" the wave.

From my limited experience that day, the Hull actually felt more "in tune" with the waves than other boards I've ridden. It felt like the curved bottom and tapered rails conformed to the wave's concaved face when riding in trim in the same way that rocker fits into the curve of the wave when descending from top to bottom. As a rider, I felt more sensitive to the nuances of the little peelers that I slid along the faces of. Just by gently tweaking my ankles, I could climb to the top or drop to the flats. It almost felt like I was pumping by simply moving from rail to rail. It was all very subtle.

Riding several long lefts in a row, I found myself wishing that the waves were bigger and more consistent so that I could really feel how the wafer-thin fin flexes on turns. I wanted more.

Some of you who know me will say that I'm like Mikey from the Life Cereal commercials when it comes to surfboards: I'll try anything, and usually like it. But the Hull had me genuinely intrigued because it simplified my goals on the waves I was riding. I was completely focused on the act of plugging the 7'0 stick into trim and then just tripping on the feeling.

When I got back to the blogosphere after the long weekend, I noticed that the Cabinessence blog featured a long excerpt from the Liddle website where Greg Liddle addressed surfers who were interested in Hulls after the publicity from the TSJ article. I was surprised at how many of the observations I had made in one session with the board were exactly what he intended by building them:

"...These boards are not for the onlooker. It is not meant to be a visual experience, it is for the "feel" of these boards. Not that visual observation of the ride cannot be enjoyed. To me it is quite beautiful the way they "fit" to the wave and become part of it."

For me, riding the Hull was one of the most vivid surf experiences I've had. By that, I mean that I can remember little nuances of every wave I caught on the board. I felt attuned to almost every ripple on the surface. But, then again, I never did get a chance to try out the surf mat...

Marianne Faithfull - As Tears Go By (Hullabaloo London 1965)

Finding Oneself

All kinds of philosophical thoughts come up during the experience of surfing. One of my favorites occurred on a day in Nicaragua when the sea was finally showing swell again after a week-long flat spell. A guy who I'd gotten to know, who worked at a nearby surf camp, explained the lumpy, disorganized conditions by saying, "It's trying to find itself."

Since then I've always enjoyed thinking of the ocean as a conscious being with its own personality.

Sometimes moody: "It's angry."
Sometimes scattered: "It's confused."
Sometimes sick: "It's hung over."
Sometimes benevolent: "It's generous."

I wonder how it'll be feeling tomorrow, when I head to Crescent City for the day?

Spoon - The Underdog

GAINSBARRE + PARIS

I found myself bored in a meeting the other day and my mind and pencil started to wander. I wondered what would happen if Serge Gainsbourg were alive today and he had the chance to meet Paris Hilton. The notion was probably spawned by an article I read in Vanity Fair that described a certain breed of guy in Hollywood who makes a name for himself by dating famous blonds. Gainbourg, or his drunken alter-ego Gainsbarre, would have surely gone out of his way to kick those losers in the balls and ridicule the shallowness of the chicks who seem to dominate the media these days.

If you don't believe me, check out this video, when Serge, having actually become the drunken Gainsbarre he invented, meets Whitney Houston.

Serge Gainsbourg - Requiem por un Con

What is this post doing on my surf blog? Not sure, really...

That Fall Feeling

The report said 62 degrees. Tried to surf sans booties and was denied; the water gave my feet an instant ice cream toe-ache. I guess there was an arctic upwelling of some kind. I grabbed booties, but was stuck with my hole-riddled 4/3 wetsuit. Had to duck maybe 10 waves on the paddle out and yelled at the top of my lungs after the third dive, my eyes bugging out of my head. But that didn't bother anybody. OS and I were the only two guys out.

Astonishingly, the next beach up had a gaggle of people flailing around. When I checked it half hour before, I stopped counting after tallying 60 soft toppers, spongers and kayakers all seeming to get in each other's way, despite the size of the beach and the variety of peaks. I got back to the ranger's gate quick enough to grab a refund and headed south, to where I was currently, ducking waves and marveling at the size and frigidity of the a-frames.

It was tiring to get to the outside. It reminded me of the paddles when fall starts to turn to winter and one wonders if he'll ever make it (and even considers turning around after that ninth wave over the head that turns you sideways, making you feel like you've made no ground). But I made it.

Waves were steep and wedgey and surprisingly easy to catch on my 2+1. The board seemed to be made for these waves. I started to figure out that if I crouched low on the drop, I would stick in the pocket and trim high and tight for the duration of the ride. I wouldn't outrun the curl and I wouldn't get swallowed up. I'd just stay tucked in. Like I'm about to do tonight, in an attempt to get rid of this sore throat I picked up from the freezing sea.

The Fall - Totally Wired

Closer to Perfect

Hints of fall
Push behind the swell
Summer still gives Gifts
Warm water
Smooth surfaces
Sunsets and smiles
Peaks here
And there
Pitching ahead
Ducking in
Feel the vacuum
Hear the echo
Go weightless

Then tumble...

Ride - Leave Them All Behind

Laid Back

I've been a little laid back on the blog.
Going surfing again tomorrow, though.
Until then enjoy this drawing from my travels...

Snoop Dogg - Gin and Juice

The Second Coming

The timing couldn't be better. Around the New Year I rented Stylemasters from Netflix and all my friends who came to town for the holidays (surfers and land-lovers alike) were addicted to it after a few late night screenings. Phrases like "Just you and your bros, getting tubed," and "Perfect V-land," were being thrown around with abandon at inappropriate times - like shortly before OS was escorted out of Sassy's in a headlock...

Now, on the eve before the very same crew of revelers from NY and LA land in the Pacific Northwest again, I find out that Stylemasters 2 is available on DVD. Shoots, brah, I need to pick up a copy...

Style Council - Shout to the Top

Note to Self...

New goal: Surf better. Of course I still want to get a legitimate tube, but after watching really good surfers in person last month, I realized that I still have tons to learn about what parts of the wave I should be riding on. I have this habit of being so stoked when I'm on a green face that I just fly down the line as fast as I can go, until I run out of speed. Only then do I think, "Shit, I need to do a cutback." The resulting turn, as you can imagine, is pretty anti-climactic. Seven inches of spray squirts off the outside rail as I struggle to get back to the steep part of the wave.

And I've also noticed that really good surfers spend most of their time in the critical part of the wave, either right next to the curl, under the curl, or even slightly behind the foam ball. The first image that comes to mind is Tom Wegener in full trim on a waist-high Noosa right where the lip is actually breaking on his legs but the board is zipping along the inner wall of the wave. His knees are actually getting tubed and he never gets knocked off!

So that's my simple goal for the rest of summer: to surf better and harness as much speed from the small stuff as possible by turning back toward the breaking lip.

And maybe boosting a totally sick air, or something...

Wire - The 15th