Dong Patrol

Dawn patrol on Saturday morning was almost perfect. The bouys were reading 6 feet at 10 seconds with a light offshore breeze. The sun was shining and the air was warm. Was it too early for an Indian summer? After checking a few spots that seemed to progressively get smaller as we drove south, we finally decided on Indian beach, the fickle break that provided me with my last classic session. The only thing that marred a legendary go-out was the fact that the waves weren't nearly as perfect as the other conditions. Oh yeah, and that this sad rendition of a penis (drawn with wax) ended up on our car. But even that didn't rain on our parade.

The Dictators - Warm California Sun

Are We Ready for the Next Wave?

As if the rising popularity of surfing hasn't brought enough company into the line-up over the last five years (myself being one) Hollywood is doing it's part to publicize the sport with several films in the works. So far, the list includes:

In Search of Captain Zero - Sean Penn/Brad Pitt
Surf's Up - Animated Penguin Surf Movie
Big Wave - Ben Stiller
John Fron Cincinatti - Deadwood-meets-Kem Nunn
Bored! - Ben Marcus Tidal Bore Film/TV Show?


The Birthday Party - Nick the Stripper

Required Reading

Woke up yesterday to a steady downpour and a chill in the air. Outside my window, kids lugged their backpacks to the local high school, another year having just begun. It's funny how my own reaction to the climate change and leaves scattered on my lawn, the dark mornings and football on TV, is one of slight nervousness, as if I'm also starting a new scholastic year. Or maybe the stomach butterflies swarm in anticpation of the big, cold, fall swell that comes with offshore storms.

This particular morning, I looked over the books I've been reading lately and noticed a recurring theme: surf. How cool would it be if there was a class on surf literature taught by Matt Warshaw or Dave Parmenter? Right now I'm working my way through "The Dogs of Winter," by Kem Nunn. His story about a mysto wave near the Oregon border that's only accessible through an Indian Reservation is a perfect reading for this time and place.

I also need to find out who borrowed my favorite surf novel, "In Search of Captain Zero." Rumor has it Sean Penn was going to play the author, Alan Weisbecker, but had a falling out with the writer when he refused to read the book.

Mazzy Star - On the Low

Magic Weekend

Surfing slated for both days of the weekend.
Clearance to camp Saturday night.
When we got to the beach, we found this rock
with a drawing of the previous evening's full moon.
The artist must have used various pieces of dirt for color (like pastel)
and scratched the stone to make white.

Joined by my original surf chum, Ebb,
who I hadn't surfed with in almost 20 years,
our gang charged shoulder to head high waves
until the rising tide, wind chop, and sore shoulders
told us to end the morning session and grab icy beers
and food at a Cannon Beach bar with Pabst for a buck.

The sun was shining and we drank it in on the patio.
It was supposed to rain, but it was unseasonably hot.
After lunch we did a leisurely check of the surrounding breaks
until we settled on Indian Head where peaks were groomed by gentle offshores.

The waves were even bigger now.
I edged my way to the middle of the break,
where I had seen a perfect left.
I watched Ebb immediately paddle into an overhead right
and bottom turn easily before he disappeared.

A few minutes later, I had my chance.

A large smooth wedge approached
and I paddled hard and thrust into it.
The board flew.
It was a slingshot.
I watched sections fold in front of me
and I passed them by,
finding the next green wall.

Returning to my line-up
(a white, branchless pine on shore)
I did it again and again.
"Session of the season!"
I yelled as the sun began to set.
And September had only just begun.


The next morning was more of the same.
Three different spots in three days.
Not a bad welcome to Oregon surfing again
for my oldest surf friend.




Love and Rockets "No New Tale to Tell"

Skate, Don't Hate

This is my new skateboard.

I bought it in Santa Cruz.

Is 33 too old to start skating again?

That's like asking if 30 is too old to pick up surfing.



I say no.





Destroyer - Streethawk I

Four Mile

Our first surf in Santa Cruz was at Pleasure Point, where we dragged some borrowed longboards to the cliffs, descended the wooden stairs (with dents worn into them from generations of bare feet heading down to the water), and made our way through the kelp to the lineup. There were at least forty other log riders sitting on the second peak, which made catching any of the decent waist-high waves a challenge. But OS, Gee, and I were happy to at least get wet and grab a couple waves that swung wide around the crowded takeoff spot or broke a little closer in than the locals were ready for. After all, our friend who lived on the point (who lent us his yellowed boards) told us that there hadn't been any swell for two weeks and that this accounted for the hungry crowd.

We escaped the local hordes by driving only four miles outside of town. I spent my last two nights at a bohemian compound in the hills above Bonny Dune, so proximity to the break (two miles north of it) was another reason we chose this spot. To tackle the new break, we rented two boards from Freeline, a six-foot epoxy performance board and a six-foot quad. Not travelling with your own boards always offers an opportunity to test different equipment.

The dirt parking area along Hwy 101 told us something. There was one old truck with surf racks on it parked on the north side of the turnout. Another car bottomed out in the rocky ruts as it edged back to the roadway. Spaced at car-length intervals in the lot were piles of broken glass, sparkling like uncut diamonds on the earth. Were these broken windows simply left over from petty thefts of car stereos, or was this an indication that the locals north of town didn't appreciate rental cars with surf racks. To be safe we pulled ours off the roof and stashed them in the trunk.

The walk down the trail immediately reminded me of the first surf novel I read, almost two years ago. Daniel Duane's "Caught Inside" described a very similar hike to this one, through a Steinbeck-like setting: There were the railroad tracks, the farms with their patchwork crops blowing in the afternoon breeze, the worn path through the field that dipped toward a marshy estuary. To the north was a deteriorating rocky cliff that protected the little bay containing the break. Along the beach were scores of seagulls, going and coming, but always blanketing the sand between the brackish water and the sea.

And there were only two surfers out.

The setup had two right-breaking peaks: one was smaller, steeper, closer to the inside, the other was bigger, mushier and originated against the outside edge of the rock. Though there were whitecaps beyond the wind shadow of the wall, inside the surface of the water was relatively calm. The swell was only waist to shoulder high, but you could see how this place would go off on a fat fall swell.

Gee and I paddled out from the beach, through the kelp, where we took our place respectfully inside the other two surfers. When they would grab the first wave of a set, we would grab the second or third. I was on the blue potato chip board and I bogged down on my first few backhand drops. Adding to the challenge of making waves was the kelp, which would grab your board as you paddled, then during your ride as you planed into the trough, where it would send you flying headfirst like a skateboarder hitting a rock on the pavement.

The setting was as beautiful as the scenes we had grown accustomed to in Oregon. Wildlife was everywhere. During the next two days I surfed Four Mile, I saw otters cracking shells on their stomachs, baby seals, pelicans, sea lions, and a dorsal fin that had me in a panic, until a friendly local assured me that it was a dolphin. He explained that sharks couldn't get in through the summer kelp beds. From that point on, I stopped cursing the sea vegetation.

When I returned home from the "red triangle," where I had been revisiting the Discovery Channel's "Shark Week" during my time in the water, I found out that Oregon had its second shark attack. Would that be considered irony or coincidence?


The Cure "Killing an Arab"

(We bought the Cure's greatest hits for our rental car and it served as the soundtrack to the weekend.)

Gone Surfing

I'm lucky
Found ticket to San Jose
100 bucks round trip
South swell on the way

The Hook
Pleasure Point
Cowells
Indicators
Steamers

Be back Wednesday.




Fire Theft - Summertime

Needless to Say

This spot was pretty great Sunday. Shoulder high with occassional head high sets. And glassy! The coconut wireless must've been in full effect, because many of the regional surf heroes were there: Point regulators, surf shop employees, a gal I ran into in Mexico, and even the legendary Slim and Foul Pete. If you were there, you knew that you scored the first hints of the fall season. There was some good surfing going on. I caught quite a few, but really felt limited by my inability to make the most of the a-frame peaks. I got down the line, made some sad backside turns. But OS, who incidentally got the best ride of his life, laid a nice compliment on me: "I saw somebody tucking, trying to get a tube, and I thought he might actually make it. When he got closer, I realized it was you!" I guess I have a one-track mind since the bowls in the bowels of Baja.

Wolf Parade - Shine a Light

What Kind of Fins Should I Get?

Anybody who knows me knows I tend to fixate on the details of a surfboard: rocker, concaves, tail shapes, rails, thickness, bonzers, fish, nuggets, fin setups, and so on.

Then I run into a video like this on 70percent.org--Jamie O'Brien riding a finless thrift store junker with more style than the "hottest" surfers in the mags.

So next time you're contemplating whether it's worth it to drop a grip on a balsa-edged Firewire or carbonfiber Aviso board, watch this clip and get out there on your tried-and-true stick.

Oh yeah, and GET LOW!

Hot Chip - Boy From School

Slacker

Not much to report on the surfing front last weekend. The wind was blowing like hell again and the swell was prepubescent in size. Not only that, but the Saturday crowd at Short Sands was insane. We had to wait 15 minutes to get down the steps to the beach as a parade of 50 soft-top surfboards filed up the stairs. Did I mention that there were no waves?

This reminded me of a flat-spell alternative I just tried for the first time: slacklining. I'd seen Rob Machado messing around with it in a surf mag before, but my friend Utah, a seasoned climber, taught me the basics a few months ago. Essentially, you stretch a strap between two trees and give it enough slack so that when you step onto it, it stretches down a few feet. The effect is similar to walking on a tight rope, but with trampoline-like spring in the line. The trick to being able to walk along the strap is to concentrate intensely on the end, where it meets the tree. Looking at your feet will mess you up. It took me awhile, but I finally was able to walk the line by myself. Seasoned slackliners like Utah can walk the line, turn around on one foot, and walk back with acrobatic ease. Experts can do flips on the line and all kinds of other mind-boggling (read insane) tricks.

In the top picture above, believe it or not, I'm off the ground and officially slacklining. Look easy? In the second shot you can see how far I'm launched by the strap and how high it snaps when you fall. The first time I tried it, Utah warned me in her German accent, "Be careful not to straddle the strap when you fall. Not good."

Johnny Cash - I Walk the Line
(I couldn't resist...)

Hike... Psyche!

For our first session back in Oregon, we made the trek to our state's quintessential mysto break. The report gave us a shred hope, and when we made it to the first lookout point (above), we were psyched by what we saw: clean lines rolling in and peeling on the inside. We ran the rest of the way down the hill, taking slippery shortcuts between switchbacks to save time.

When we made it to the beach ten minutes later, the wind had already started blowing. By the time we got our wetsuits on and reached the water, it was whipping from the north. Despite the gale forces, we managed to snag a few, but after an hour of abuse, we were laughing hysterically at the ridiculousness of it all. The wind was pushing us south a clip that would bring a tear to an old sailor's eye. When we fought it and battled back north, we got slapped in the faces by the whitecaps. And it was icy cold. Astonishingly, the waves continued to break down-the-line despite the chaos. We finally gave up the fight and drifted down the coast.

In the end, when we climbed back up the winding path, we looked back down at the break again and couldn't help but notice that the whitecaps had disappeared again from the surface of the sea. My legs were sore for two days, making me think, "I hiked all the way down to XXXX and all I got was this aching thigh."

Yesterday was better. Somehow. Shorties looked pretty sad from the shore, but we paddled out and I must've gotten about 20 small waves and 2 decent ones. Good exercise, good fun!

Islands "Rough Gem"

Chocolate Milk

La Bocana again, our last day there. As you can see, the sandbars were working, as was the mud/poo factor. Gee paddled out first, solo, and freaked when a three-foot fish resembling a barracuda swam across his arms. We had to wait for a set to pass through before we could join him and I think it gave him just enough "alone time" to get psyched out. On my way to the lineup, another eel-like creature nibbled on my pinky. I squealed like a pig, which caused the two locals already out to laugh hysterically.

My first wave is the last one pictured here. By my guillotine impression, you can tell I need a tube-riding lesson. The session picked up from there as we got tons of lefts, rights, and even more thundering closeouts, but never the elusive barrel.

Here's a question: Would you paddle out in these dirty conditions (near a rivermouth in Mexico, right after a rainstorm), especially with scores of snakey fish slithering on the surface? Our amigo Markarita (in the top pic) compared the go-out to dirty sex. We expanded on the analogy with numerous metaphors... none of which I'll subject you to.

The Smiths - Big Bocana Strikes Again

Wave of the Day, the Trip, My Life

Three days ago, after the hurricane passed, we discovered La Bocana, a rivermouth break only 10 minutes from our house. We read in the Surfer's Guide to Baja that the beachbreak only works after summer hurricanes pass through, causing San Jose Del Cabo's estuary to overflow into the sea. The influx of water and dirt (mud) causes sandbars to form that catch the hurricane swell. The book described the break as beefy, peaky, and hollow.

When we parked at the Presidente Hotel and walked to the beach at around 8:30 AM, we passed some surfers who had just finished their dawn patrol. We asked how it was, and the first guy told us that it sucked. A second guy told us it was firing and that we'd "love it." In fifteen minutes, we'd find who was lying.

As we approached the break, sparkling like crumpled tin foil in the morning light, a set bowled in, as if on cue. There were four surfers silhouetted in against the bright water and one slipped right into the pocket, the offshore mist creating a backlight contrast for his black crouched form. This was a perfect A-frame peak, shoulder high, by far the most powerful and perfect we had seen on our adventure. We paddled out quickly and barely avoided a set wave that would have tested the depth of my duckdiving skills (or the strength of my thin "performance" leash). The second surfer had told the truth.

My first wave was The One. Two surfers exited the water as we got to the lineup, and I parked on the left side of the peak, wanting to go frontside on my first few. No sooner had I caught my breath than another big swell rose from the horizon line and approached quickly. I was right in the perfect place - maybe a little deep - but OS hooted at me and I spun and went. Two strokes and the bottom half of the wave was already dropping out. I was totally committed, starting my speedy descent, and there was no way to go but down. I popped up and turned left, seeing a big section of the wall already bending out in front of me. I instinctively faced the wave and set my line as high as I could, skeptical that I would make the section at all. It looked like a big closeout to me...

But then my board took off like a bullet and I just hung on, clearing the critical section. I had no idea a surfboard could fly that fast. When I reached the softer-sloping shoulder, I was high on the wave and I banked back down to the bottom, repeating the drop and bracing myself for another walled section inside. Again, my yellow fish bolted and I absorbed the chatter with my knees. By this time, I was dangerously close to the shorepound and I skipped off the back of the turbulent lip, my arms extended like a bird. I was dumbstruck as I finally slowed down and the surfboard sunk under me. I lowered myself to my belly and started paddling back out to where the guys were. Smiling, OS asked how the wave was. He had seen the first half of the ride.

"Oh. My. God," was all I could muster.

Having that much of nature's power under my feet was a new experience for me. I was buzzing from adrenaline and dizzy with a combination stoke and fear. I even considered leaving the water and calling it a session right there, but came to my senses and caught several more when I realized that I only had two more days left in paradise.

Grooverider - Rainbows of Colour

Chubasco Sauce

Down in Baja Sur in the summer, surfers rely on southern hurricane action, called chubascos for the best swells. Sunday night we noticed that Hurricane Emilia was starting to reveal herself a little early, so we headed down to Acapulquito for an evening sesh. At first, the waves seemed pretty tame, maybe shoulder high sets rolling through every 15 minutes. But as the orange sun dropped toward the Baja range the waves began to increase in size. Coincidentally, the lineup cleared around the same time, as if the weekend crowd was all surfed out. No sooner did our Oregon crew notice that we were the only four guys in the water, than a set of three head high waves rolled in. Gee snagged a long right on a 7'10" spoon-nose board we rented. I grabbed a left on my fish that walled up and shot me across the inside boils known as "Mike's Hole." Our buddy, Markarita, as goofy as me, snagged a left as well. As soon as the next set rolled in - another triplet of head high bombs - a guy paddled out to join us on a board with a Billabong logo on it. He ripped a long right immediately.

We stayed out until the sun was gone and it became difficult to see the sets on the horizon. Two other guys on long boards paddled out when they noticed the hurricane swell had arrived. At last, when it was almost pitch black save for the lights of the hotel and cars leaving the parking lot, I turned to catch a wave in. That final wave seemed to take forever coming, so I began to paddle inside, to a channel I knew didn't break as hard on the sand. Glancing back over my shoulder, I noticed a dark shadow closing, and on its peak, some white resembling a snowcap on a faraway mountain. On the left side of that peak there was a streak like the exhaust from a jet. It was OS, who I had lost sight of in the darkness, dropping in on the biggest wave of the night. The memory I have reminds me of old surf photos: The stocky OS (in stark contrast to the whispy pro who joined us earlier), muscling his way into the wave despite his bum shoulder. His standing up with rigid legs and almost facing straight forward, wearing plaid boardshorts and a five-o-clock shadow. I watched him until he passed me by and then noticed him break through the roiling whitewater behind the wave. He may have only been up for five seconds, but it's an image I'll never forget. I'm sure it's a drop he'll remember for a long time as well.







The next day, we woke up with the wind whipping and the sea angry. Gee got a morning session in, but he noted that it was large and sloppier that the previous night - and that there were 25 guys out, hoping to catch some of the chubasco juice. OS and I drove to the turnout that overlooks three breaks (Zippers, The Rock, and Acapulcuito) and watched the storm roll in. Already, strong winds were pushing us around on that cliff. There were only 4 guys left out in the ocean now. Then, right in front of our eyes, the hurricane charged in from the Southeast. Massive swells marched toward the cliffs, reminding me of elementry school, when we would shake a parachute and send patterns of waves to the other side. The rain hit at the same time, diagonal, in our face like a persistant wet machine gun fire. We jumped in the car and very carefully drove back home through the rivers of rainwater that were now traversing Highway 1.

The brutal storm kept us indoors for two days of our vacation. The sea resembled Oregon in the dead of winter - worse, actually. The natural phenomenon that gave us surf bliss left us surf-starved, but gave me time to finish my book, Tijuana Straits.

The Clash - Armagideon Time

Fishing in Cerritos

Friday we took a field trip to Todos Santos, a quaint little town forty miles up the Pacific coast from Cabo San Lucas. We had some amazing tacos and tortas (sandwiches) in the artsy village and paid the open-air chef a few bucks to watch our cars and boards as we strolled through town. I found a set of dried shark teeth at a souvenir shop that I wanted, but realized it might be difficult to pack the fragile jaws on our flight back home.

On our way back to Los Cabos we checked a few surf spots, including a beach break with a rocky point called Cerritos. It actually looked pretty good - the waves appeared to have more power than Old Man's - so we quickly paddled out in the rip next to the point. The sets were overhead, with rights and lefts typical of a more open beachie. The first wave I caught was a right that caught me by surprise. I did a bottom turn and skipped down the line, trying to keep my fish from bouncing too much or sliding out. There were some really good surfers out, smacking lips and doing extended floaters over sections that were five feet tall. I grabbed a couple lefts, a few rights, got pitched and tweaked my neck, and decided to paddle in, sparing the non-surfers in our party the agony of sitting in the heat any longer.

On my way in I grabbed a perfectly formed left inside and Gee managed to capture it from the rocky point. The wave rolled forever and planted me right on the beach in front of our group, who cheered me on from under their umbrellas. They encouraged me to go back out and I caught a couple more. It was a really great day - the first great session of our trip.









The Doors - Light My Fire

Everybody Up!

We spent our first several sessions at Acapulquito, aka "Old Man's," getting our sea legs. It is a really soft-breaking right on most swells, making it a perfect place to warm up for two weeks of surfing. The only drawback is that it may be the most crowded break in Baja, if not all of Mexico. Also, there are some big, bony rocks that rear their urchin-infested heads when the tide drops. Best time to surf here is in the morning and at dusk, when there is less wind and there are less beginners taking classes inside.

Speaking of classes, my wife and OS's gal took some surf lessons and got some rides on their first day! We have all made up new surf nicknames for eachother... and here they are:

"Chino," aka "Chingaro," aka "Release," (as in Catch & Release).

Gee, aka "Croucho Marx," aka "Mangostein," aka "Roach."

She, aka "Catch," (as in Catch & Release).

OS, aka "Out Sider," aka "Injured Reserve."

Yours Truly, aka "Chum," aka "The Sandy Dego," aka "Chook Norris."

Donavan "Colours"

Trunkin' It

There's nothing like trunking it for the first time after a season surfing in thick neoprene. The sensation starts as you walk down the beach, as I did tonight in Baja Sur, toward your first session at a tropical break. The grains of sand bounce off your calves, catpulted by your flip flops. There's the breeze against your exposed skin as you sit at the water's edge scoping the swells and deciding where to paddle out. You attach the leash around your bare ankle, stretch a little (but not too much since it gets dark sooner so far south), and take your first steps into th aqua sea. The water is warmer than you remember. You propel yourself forward in land on your stomach and as you start to paddle, you notice immediately how light you are. There's no rubber to weigh you down, or to make you float too much when you duckdive. You can see your arm muscles working as you scratch for the outside. And when you catch your first wave, the one that will set the tone for the rest of your vacation, you can actually feel the beads of newly applied tropical wax under the soles of your feet. Sex without latex comes to mind...

Fischerspooner - Emerge (DFA Remix)

Mexico Otra Vez

I finally developed my water camera pictures from Mexico a year ago, just in time to get my stoke up to a full inferno for this year's trip. In a little over a week, we're heading back to San Jose Del Cabo again. This time we are going with a group of friends and renting a house near Zippers. I just peeked at the surf report for Costa Azul next week and it looks promising: 5 feet at 14 seconds!

Looking at these pictures from last year, I'm flooded with emotion. My wife the smiling Buddha, warm waters, Mike Doyle (barely in the shot), Donavan F., tacos at Hangman's, sore ribs, sunburns, micheladas, sand in my ears. I can't wait to do it all over again with my best friends. This time we'll explore a little. I'll stick to my new fish (and eat more fish too).

I'm bringing a stack of surf literature, including Doyle's "Morning Glass" which is just perfect for falling to sleep to by the pool after sessions. Here are my original posts from the last vacation down south: 8 at 16, Smiley Smile, Surfyland, Hola Olas

Kings of Convenience "Gold in the Air of Summer'

Pop-outs vs. Poop-outs

I am not a militant pop-out surfboard hater, but I was amused the other day when I was taking a leak and noticed the logo below written on a toilet.


At first, I couldn't think of what it reminded me of, but by the time I finished peeing I remembered where I had seen it before...


I rode a few of the epoxy sandwiches in the picture below and had a great time, but next time I go to Cabo, I'm bringing a hand-shaped board.



Swearing at Motorists "Cuando Nos Veramos"