Just Havin' Fun

Texture

Wind was offshore this morning, waves were inconsistent but fun. Air was remarkably cold, fall is definitely here. Here are a few black and whites that show the various textures of a Southern California autumn.

Trim

Small days with clean conditions lead to some smooth trimmin.

Paths

I just returned from a trip up north and scored some good waves. While returning from one of the better waves in the area, I noticed how beautiful the path back to the road was. I snapped a few pictures to share with you here. If you've been fortunate enough to lay sights on this trail after catching a few drainers, you'll recognize this trail immediately. Tread lightly.

Mysto

Sidewalk Surfing

Maiden Voyage

Great album by Herbie Hancock.

I also made my Maiden Voyage in the "Blue Dream" Baja mobile to Punta XXX with 3 friends. The drive was long and at times scary. The vibe was very hostile, and for parts of the trip safety was the primary concern for the group. Fluent spanish skills and a calm temperament eased us through one particularly sticky situation. Nevertheless, we were rewarded with some great waves in a very remote part of Baja California.

Fences everywhere.


Guns everywhere. This shot below almost got me in big trouble. That guy is wielding an RPG mounted on top of a Humvee. I then got to feel an M16 up against my scapula.


Sunset perfection.


Mysto left on fire.


Glass on fins work the best.


Livin' the Blue Dream.


Setting up for the barrel section.


Got fish?

Mi hijo

Das Adventurewagen ist wunderbar

I don't know exactly why but the idea of cruising up the highway, bumping an old Black Uhuru cassette tape in this VW van seems very appealing to me.

Sugar on the Asphalt

A few pics from the mayhem that was a well broadcast weekend south swell in sunny Southern California.


-Sunday Afternoon at Chumash Creek-





-Friday Evening at Roseville Reefs-

Hype

Summer Love

Normally I hate summer. Since I was about 16 I've been under the impression that summer sucks for surf (and I grew up in Oceanside!) Sure the water was warm and there were some epic days of combo swells, but most of summer was walled or flat and always crowded. I would prefer a good day in fall or winter every day of the week. As I've grown older and moved further south, I've only become more sour on the madness that is summer. Living in Point Loma their is a paucity of quality summer breaks around and their is no shortage of surfers. Last summer was the worst in years and I was ready to call it quits during August. I was determined to surf only in the months of Oct-May give or take a few swells.

But this April was an amazing time to surf in South San Diego and the it seems like we had nonstop windswell waves well into May. Since then we've been graced with an extremely consistent run of south swells which have kept me in the water at least 5 days a weeks. More importantly it seems as if the crowds haven't been quite as bad as they have during the last few summers. I surfed fun chest high waves today with offshore winds in North County with 12 guys out. I got about 15 waves in just under an hour and several head-ducks/tuberides. It's real tough to argue with that in early July ( it's easy to argue with the water temp right now, brr.)

So I've decided to show summer some love because of all the love it's shown for me in the recent weeks. BTW, summer nights have always been good to me :)

Anxiety Control pt 2

Finished this recycled egg/funboard thing in time for the recent run of south swell. It looks kinda funny, but paddles like crazy. And it actually surfs pretty well, but forces you to draw a pretty long lines, swoop and carve mood for sure. Got some good ones at several reefs, beaches and points across multiple area codes during the last few weeks.

7'2ish x 20ish x 2 & 1/2ish, give or take a few. Click here to see how it used to look.

Bucket

I'm trying to post something every Tuesday in order to satisfy the neverending demand of my enourmous readership.

This is the definition of a bucket.

Threading it down the line

Wes Montgomery keeps it real

Radical Aliens

Lineups in Black and White

Uber-consistent wind swell and light winds??? meant some good waves went unridden during the last few weeks.  

My answer to summer flat spells...

Very mellow way to spend the arvo.

North

I was fortunate to go on an extended roadtrip to Northern California with my wife and son. People always try to scare you about NorCal, especially when you get north of the bridge. They say "It's Cold, It's Sharky, It's Heavy, It's Windy, It's Localized, etc." While all these things are true ( especially the cold part), you can still score up north if you know the rules of the game and are willing to excercise patience. I scored lot's of barrels, and lot's of wide open space. Here are a fewer of the choice images from the trip. 

W.O.R.

I don't know I how I stumbled upon this site but I did. It's good to see people commited to the cause of all things  rad. These people surf (quite well) too.

www.warriorsofradness.com

I think I'm going to pick up a sweatshirt to sport around town.

The Van Gods Approve

I see this car in the lot everyonce in awhile and I find myself humming songs by Heart. 

Good Waves and Light Crowds

Happy Birthday to me. I'm embarrassed to mention how good I got some waves this week with less than 5 people out. Everyone must of quit surfing during February and forgotten to check the beach. The powers that be had listed these days as small and windy, when in fact they were head high and glassy. I knew there was a reason I live less than a mile from the beach...

Simmons Inspired, Skip Approved

I haven't been surfing much in the last month and a half. I scored some great waves north of Point Conception during the second and third week of January, but had my camera (and CD's) jacked at our campsite. That sucked. Since I've been back in SD, the waves have been crap but I've managed to keep busy doing other random stuff.

I ran into Chris from Surf Indian today and he had this board on his roof. I asked him if I could take a couple pictures. 9 footish and shaped by Steve Mast, it was really different looking with a huge single concave, quasi-step deck and beautifully foiled Geppys. He said it went great and wasn't as wierd as he had anticipated. He also mentioned that he let Skip have a few on it and it was given the official stamp of approval.

I'd like to try this board at a long lined up point, with predominate side/offshore winds and a concave pocket. I could see it beeing really fast.

Anxiety Control

I haven't surfed for about a week. It's been cold, small and windy. So I started a project I've been hyped on for awhile to help calm the nerves.

This board was magic, but it's time in the water was over. Two/thirds of the board was delaminated and the fins weren't even connected to the foam anymore. 

So I stripped the entire board, salvaged the logos and fins. 

Then scraped off all the moldy wet foam to clean things up.

I'm going to have to trim a little length, width and thickness but the result should be a 7'2"ish "very" funboard.

Backpaddlers Beware!

I consider myself to be a relatively positive person. There isn't much that really upsets me. Every once in awhile however, something manages to get under my skin enough that I feel the need to rant on for hours on end. Recently the poor etiquette in the lineup has been of particular concern.

The back paddlers were out by the dozens that day. You know those guys who are sitting wide of the peak and a little further out than you. Then a perfect peak comes in and you're in the takeoff position. You turn around and begin to paddle to shore. Over your shoulder you see that guy who was sitting wide of you start to paddle behind you. You think nothing of it and assume he's lining up the next wave. You pop up and start to drop in. All of the sudden that same guy is taking off behind you and he whistles to call you off it !!! What the F*#$! You have to be kidding. The only move more blatant that that would have been to paddle directly underneath you and then turnaround to take the wave.

Growing up here I've seen may fair share of this sneaky tactic. It was usually employed by one of my "sponsored" friends who thought he deserved every wave or a crusty old guy who claims his localism on a daily basis. But this year everyone has been doing it. College kids just learning to surf, brazilian tourists on holiday, middle aged goons on softops and everyone in between.

On the day in question I decided enough is enough and started dropping in/tackling anyone who employed the technique. I had been surfing for an hour or two and was getting a decent amount of waves including several gems. Another peak was headed right towards me, I asked the guy to my left what way he wanted to go and he said "left". Perfect, as a saw a beautiful right wall unfold ahead of me. Then I could feel some one paddle behind me and get elbow to elbow with me. I told the guy to watch himself but he took off anyway. I snapped, dropped in right on top of him and tackled him into the surf. Underwater I grabbed his board and yanked the leash as hard as I could. I emerged from the water and waited for the perpetrator to surface. The lifeguard in me asked the guy if he was ok. When he replied yes, I yanked his leash and gave him a quick lecture. He tried to swim away but I had his leash and board in my hand and would not let him go. We sat in the impact zone taking sets on the head until I felt he had learned his lesson. I gave him his board back, he said sorry and paddled down the beach. I think the intervention was successful. No one got hurt and this guy understands the importance of waiting in line, respecting the order and not paddling behind people to snake waves.

Afterwards I was a little upset. Several people saw what I did and were giving me dirty looks. Several other people were laughing because the perpetrator had back paddled them as well. I wondered to myself if this was what to need to be done to ensure a respectful lineup? I hope not, but I will employ the technique again if provoked. I've told several other members of my posse as well and the word is out. Backpaddlers, underpaddlers, guys who take off in the foam behind people and all other manners of oceanic serpents.........Beware!

December Sunset

Gotta love those pinstripes

If you don't like this van, then I probably don't like you. My buddy picked this thing up for some deep Mex missions this winter. Right hand points await...

Rain, Fog and Swell

Ocotber was cooking

Literally, I trunked it for 3 hours on Halloween and didn't approach getting cold. I spent so much time in the water during this month I seemed to have lost track of everything else. This isn't the first time this has happened, and I hope it won't be the last. I probably quadrupled my tube time for the year and I hope you did too. Here's a few images I managed to capture in between surfs.

Or is it an Indian Summer?

Finally fall

What a week! Pretty good waves around the county and everyone has gone back to wherever it is they came from. I surfed a peak by myself for the first time since April. The traffic has almost disappeared. The hotel sign down the street says it all.


This outer reef was real fun during the south swell last week. More waves than people in the lineup. Very refreshing.

Fly By

Tree

This movie spoke to me

Rent it. Basqiuat (1996)

Jim

This guy asked me to take his picture, so I did.

Continental

Raddest Board I've Seen in Awhile

Would love to ride this board in overhead hollow surf. The tail is really pulled in and foiled nicely. The custom Gephardt fins are just icing on the cake, Marine Ply Double Foil. There isn't too much this board's not ready for.

South Swell Weekend

Great day at the local reefs
This bodyboarder kept pulling into the most mutant pits

This wave below was firing with no one on it.

Picture me rollin

Surf Movies Kinda Suck Right Now

No offense to any filmmakers or the surfers who are starring in these films but enough is enough. I can only listen to the SAME people wax poetic about the SAME topics riding the SAME boards at the SAME breaks with soundtracks that sound the........SAME.

The retro revival, find your soul in surfing, let's play slow mood music and watch surfers in slow motion type of movie has officially bored me to death.

I realized this the other day when I popped in a copy of one of these "new" flicks and was like WTF, didn't I just see a movie with these 3 brothers traveling around the world surfing some far out places, didn't I just see a movie with this chick cross stepping all sexy like at The Pass, didn't I just see another movie with some "stoked on the glide guy" riding a behemoth board at some musher and didn't I see this same cat spray painting the bottom of his board, ripping a log at another musher. These people should know better. What are they hard up for? Cash? Exposure? Who knows. I saw this movie five years ago, It was called...

I challenge the filmmakers out there to come up with some new shit. This hull thing seems interesting but the surfers riding them can look pretty awkward. The Simmons movie should be cool when it's done, if it ever gets finished. Maybe all the finless, paipo, alaia hype will produce a good movie as well.

I'm going back into the vault to watch the Innnermost Limits of Pure Fun or 5 Summer Stories.

Out

Where were you?

Obviously too many people are going on-line to check the surf rather than drive to the beach and give it a look. Lot's of little square ones went completely un-ridden on this day. Better for me I guess...

Slash!

Where the streets have no name

I don't know what it is but sometimes I like taking pictures of really mundane shit sometimes. This was one of those days where the simple seemed a little special.

A pure little south

Got to love south swells like this one, no hype from the forecasters, just kinda snuck under the radar and if you were lucky enough to go check it early today you would have had it alone for 45 minutes, until I paddled out. We scored for another hour or so. Then came the hoard...

For Real?

Summer Travel Quiver

Monday Morning

This is what I woke up to early Monday morning, this wave went for another 150 yards until I lost the guy. We surfed for 4 hours straight. Even at the queen of the coast, crowds aren't an issue when it 's this consistent and this big.

Quick Sunday

Never seen a swell fill in that fast in California. Reminded me of when I lived on Maui. Good waves for sure, had to get ready to hit the road for points north in the morning.

This wave isn't as good as the picture makes it look.


Neither is this one. Or is it?

OBSF Road Trip

Scored a few little pits on a recent trip to OBSF. Had a lot of fun on this trip, warm water, just overhead, easy paddles and no crowd.


.Also saw an amazing van. How would you like to hit the road on this thing?

Pimpin aint Easy

I'm not sure what's going right here, but it's seems suspect.

An amazing weekend

How blessed were those in San Diego this weekend? This guy was having a good time for sure, although on the cliff we were contemplating throwing a penalty flag for tube avoidance.

Fish and Chips

I don't know why but I've been obsessed with this place since I was 12 years old. I tend to gravitate to anything that looks like it belongs on a movie set or comes from a specific era in time. This day in age , the abundance of big box retailers and restaurant chains makes a place like this seem more real.

Epic Frontside Turn

Found this T-shirt at thrift store in OBSD. Way too small , but I figured it was worth a picture. Ocean Pacific really had some rad design back in the 80's.

What a View

This is one of my favorite stretches of coast in the entire world. Imagine my delight as I rounded the corner to see this right hander doing it's thing. Look closely and you'll see a guy getting shacked on the inside.

Vintage Noseride

Gotta love small days sometimes, wouldn't you like to be where this guy is right now?

Biggest Wednesday.

I sacked up, made the drive and surfed Rincon, El Cap and Cat Canyon on this swell, whereas on the swell two years ago I surfed Church all day, so it's tough to compare. I wish I had some pictures but I was too busy surfing. However, when comparing the buoys from this swell to the last "Big Wedenesday", I'd definitely agree.



A local semi-secret spot in rare form on the day after "Biggest Wednesday". Only 2 guys on it, stand up barrels all the way through the inside when the sets hit.

Macrocystis radicalis

Tom Killion is a very Talented artist who works in traditional style of Japanese woodblock printing.  His work will be featured in the next Surfer's Journal.

www.tomkillion.com

Rad!

One of the inspirations for the title of this blog.
Lori Laughlin is so hot. How can you deny this movie?
Do yourself a favor and rent it next time your bored.

See also Gleaming the Cube, North Shore and Ski Patrol

Bunker Spreckels is my hero

Face it. You want to be Bunker Spreckels. Minus the early death, this guy did it right. My uncle was friends with him out on Maui and used to tell me about him. Bunker charged 20 ft outside reefs on 7'6" guns and 5'8" fishes. As if that wasn't cool enough he had loads of hot chicks following him around the world while he searched for waves. Yeah. You want to be this guy.

Indo Electrical

The raddest electrical box I've ever seen.

Padang, Sumatra, Indonesia

Baja Norte

Hearing of a epic combo swell we loaded up the ponies and headed to Northern Baja. It was damn windy but there were some mean barrels to be had by those who possessed the scrotum necessary to paddle into such beasts. Full speed pits, not for the faint of heart.

Baja Norte, Mexico