Good news for people who like bad news.

In the meantime, the 5 other spots within spitting distance of the Point are working.

Early Alaia Shredders: Oregon, 1915

The wooden plank's making a comeback, but we should all take a moment to honor those hardcore pioneers of the Oregon surf scene who appreciated the natural trim of a pine slat almost 100 years ago. Alaias weren't so spendy back then. All you had to do was stop by the local coffin maker's and buy a lid for a few bucks. Then you could customize it with a few pseudo-Native American words (blow up photo) and even add a little lip to the nose if you had issues with pearling. And as you can see, these guys were way ahead of Patagonia in understanding the importance of wool in their choice of short-john material.

What are you all standing around for? It's low tide and Gas Chambers is pumping!

Attitude

This goes out to all the haters out there: If you're actually lucky enough to surf, then why are you so surly?

Since the '80s I've wondered why so many surfers are afflicted with that permanent stink-eye/chip-on-the-shoulder syndrome that seems to be the complete antithesis of the amazing activity they're involved in. And lately that attitude as trickled onto the comments of my blog, which I created almost four years ago as a celebration of the pure joy of surfing.

Oh well, maybe "The 'Tude Adjuster" will sort 'em out.

Drawing by Andrew Jeffrey Wright.

A Poem with Teeth

It's not the toothy monsters in the water
Or the rocks near the shore
That I worry about.

It's the toothless monsters
Throwing rocks on the shore
That really freak me out.



(Original drawing is a Foulweather 'Zine outtake...)

Mexican Board Breaking Party

Hola from Baja Sur! We're two days into our first vacation to Mexico as a family: seven days at an all-inclusive resort in San Jose del Cabo. The accommodations are a bit cheesy, but the food is decent and the beers are cold and there's a punchy beachbreak right outside the hotel that has been very good since we arrived.

Above are some pictures I took yesterday morning, before the wind came up. A handful of local surfers charge this spot with almost suicidal enthusiasm. The beach is steep, which causes a pretty dramatic shorepound that has the potential to take its toll on body and board. Here's a story:

Yesterday while I was taking pictures, I met to a local guy who had been body surfing. He explained that he normally rides a surfboard, but that he'd snapped his and was waiting to get it fixed. He proceeded to point out that the left to the north was better for tubes, and that he surfed a "new style" that wasn't about doing too many tricks, but just flowing with the wave. Size wasn't important to him, shape was everything. "No cords," he said. No leashes. You can see the little left in my second photo. By the time I returned my camera to the hotel, fed the baby, taped up a ding (thanks to airline baggage) and waxed my board with warm water Zog's, the wind came up and blew the surf out. I caught a few, but it wasn't great.

This morning I was determined to do better, so I woke up early and headed up the beach. The south swell bump that was predicted (6 ft at 18 seconds) had finally hit and it looked more like 10-12 foot faces that held up in threatening walls until they finally exploded in the shallows. There were three guys charging on step-ups and I watched them with my trusty 5'8 under my arm. They were riding all the way inside and pulling out at the last second before things got hairy. I'll admit that I was a little gunshy, especially after one of the guys snapped the nose off his board on a somewhat benign cover-up.

Then, trotting down the beach in a black t-shirt with a skateboard under one arm, a sepia-toned, crusty old Rusty under the other, and a joint hanging out of his mouth was the guy I met yesterday. He was hooting and pointing up the beach at the same left he had been so enthusiastic about before. It didn't look that great to me, but every once in a while the wave would peel perfectly in a teardrop-shaped shoulder high barrel toward us. The guy asked me for wax and I asked him where he got the board. He said he got it for $30 bucks. Looking at the yellowed foam and patchwork of ding repairs, I thought he may have gotten ripped off, but I handed him my wax and watched him quickly lay it on the old deck. We stood there a minute longer and he re-lit his mota, asking, "You wanna try?" I said I was good, to which he said, "No, try the waves!" I said I'd watch a few more minutes and then join him. Next thing I knew he was running down the sandy slope to the waterline and yelling as he launched past the first wall of whitewater, no leash to tangle his feet.

It took him about five seconds to get his first wave and he did it with complete fluidity. Backlit by the sun, he carved a few turns, the trailing wake from his tail curling up behind him into the throwing lip, but kept things pretty compact and in the pocket until he got nearly to the dry sand, where he hopped of and grabbed the board in ankle-deep water. As he paddled back out, I watched the other three surfers who were still attacking the bigger bombs to the south. One attempted a 360 bunny hop on the open face and landed it. I turned back to watch my new friend and he had already latched himself into another picturesque left, doing graceful turns off the top, inside, the wave hit some backwash and it doubled up, causing the lip to throw out higher and farther than expected. The guy pulled in really deep with tons of speed but the lip came down ahead of him. I could see his dark figure sliding along behind the curtain for a few seconds before it turned into a big foamball. When he popped up, he was in waist-deep water and he made a funny gesture at me, pulling his two hands apart. I looked for his board and instantly knew what he was telling me: it was broken in half. That was two boards in about 10 minutes. I ran south to grab the fin side and he chased the nose. When we met back up, he was smiling. He looked at my shiny board and joked: "Maybe we should use yours now!" His name was Jose.

I did paddle out about 20 minutes later, after things settled down a little, and caught three really solid waves. They were exactly where Jose had been telling me to go the whole time. Then the cleanup sets came and washed me up the beach, dangerously close to the inside section (pictured in the last photo). I decided to call it a day. The wind was coming up anyway.

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.

Crusty Characters

Recognize any of these dudes?


Neil Young - Old Man

What's Wrong With This Picture?

About an hour of yesterday's surf was decent, then the place just turned to junk in the blink of an eye, the flap of a seagull's wing in Chile, the swirl of a digital blob on a satellite radar. M was on the rocks moments later, mumbling something about a latte. Disrubbered, I pointed my lens at the cove, careful not to aim too close to you-know-where. I'm a journalist, dammit, but I also have a certain respect for that place - and my own front teeth - that keeps my camera away like two magnets denying the other contact. They want to get close, but they just can't.

So we drove home, talking about "Project Caveman"...

At around 5pm, I found myself stuck in gridlock on the 84 interchange. I exited immediately and turned left at the railroad tracks. Driving through the industrial district, I noticed how the yellow light was bouncing off the brick walls, tattooed with graffiti. It was The Golden Hour and I was a block from Burnside.

I have a new enthusiasm for skating, that's no secret, but I also have an old enthusiasm for taking pictures when the light is warm. Pulling up to this underground landmark, I noticed that the sun was angling perfectly under the bridge, casting long shadows across the hills of cement as skaters flew gracefully across its surface. A few hours earlier I watched a surfer land 360 air at the cove and now a skater executed the same trick on a concrete swell.

I pulled out my camera and snapped a couple pictures, then walked by a crow's nest of skaters who were hanging out on the elevated platform drinking beers. Nobody paid me any mind, except a ramshackle kid who hit me up for a smoke, which I didn't have. Admiring the once-illegitimate terrain, it crossed my mind that this place was sacred in a punk way. But was it also protected by its residents, the people whose lives revolved around being locals there, in the same way as the spot I had been so close to on the coast?

As I took another picture, I felt something strike my leg. Looking down, I noticed a plastic bottle still bouncing at my feet. Did somebody just throw Gatorade at me? I looked up. I was underneath the bridge. Maybe a passing pedestrian chucked it over the rail above...

I took a couple more pics, then headed back to my car. Along the way, I thought I heard someone at the other end of the park yell, "No photos!"

Paranoid?

As I made my way back to the sidewalk, a skater with scabs on his cheeks leaned over the chain link fence and said, "Hey! You got a couple bucks?" I told him I didn't. With that, I hopped back into my car, surfboards on the roof, and drove home.

I know there are a few Portland skaters who read this blog. If they (or anyone else) can explain why photos of Burnside aren't allowed, I'd be happy to take down this post.

Daniel Johnson - I'm Nervous