Surfbird
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I’ve come to realize that some of my favorite people are other’s black sheep…conformity is far from a necessity and it is often those that fall furthest from the familial or societal tree that are the most interesting. Not much in the way of surf today, but still got in this evening. The small glassy peelers were supplemented by good company and new friends. Was invited a little while back on a trip to JBay in June. At first I put it off as too expensive, but I am in serious need of some quality surf and, as of late, have been daydreaming about Africa…maybe it’s time to go back. Check out the smile on that guy!
Just a quick post to say that if you haven’t tried yoga yet, you should, your surfboard will thank you (for all the dope new tricks and aerials you’ll be able to do). I started doing yoga this past summer and was told to give it 4 to 6 weeks (assuming you go at least once a week) and I’d be a different person. Sure enough I am hooked and now practice yoga about 4 times a week…so give it a shot!
Went down the road this afternoon for some waves. Got there right as the after-work crowd was showing up and by the looks of the way-more-full-than-it-should-be parking lot, it looked like everybody’s favorite break was really going off…ran down to the beach to check it and take some photos and actually laughed out loud…only about waist high and lots of heads bobbing in the water. Sat on the sand, watched and took some mediocre shots. After taking this photo and talking some friends into getting in, I decided it was time to get wet and kook it up with the rest of the crowd. Within 30minutes of getting in, however, the crowd thinned right out and the evening glass off helped pick things up. A surprisingly fun session full of smiles and fun little rides. Got a text message while I was in the water that read along the lines of “you reaaaallly misssed it, you should have been here yesterday”…in other words, those of you who were lucky enough to dawn patrol it this morning really got it good.
Here’s a shot to match the echoeing memories of a great weekend spent in pursuit of surf and adventure.
Swell picked up overnight with the wind…the bay messy and closed out at way overhead. Spent some time on the cliffs watching the surf, then packed up the Number Two and headed back south towards home. Really enjoyed the drive, we live in a pretty incredibly pretty state.
Woke up early this morning with a long walk to the cove for a surf check. A bay full of head-high+ peaks, nobody out and a morning full of hopes. Excited to spend some time going left! Suited up and jumped in with Mr. SkeetSkeet, Mrs. Turbo and El’Spencito. A half-mile paddle out through crystal clear water full of ice cream headaches and we were in the money. Super steep drops and some of the fastest waves I’ve seen in a long time…I had a great session. Spent the rest of the day celebrating life with beer, food, games and laughter.
Surfed rincon this morning…nice and glassy, waist high and super fun…then went home and met up with the SD folk, we loaded up the Number Two (of Siestas y Olas fame) and headed north to find surf. They left SD yesterday but were slowed by a flat tire…and sure enough, an hour up the road, blow-out number two. Having no spare tire we were stuck, called AAA and hung out on this country road for a while just shootin’ the shit. The adventure was off to a splendid start.
Make sure to scroll down for today’s other two photos…This particular shot is a self-portrait of yours truly and the Teahupo’o Tree in downtown SB. Ever since I first walked by this bush/tree I have pretended to surf it. It is the perfect, albeit very dry, “green room”. It walls right up and you can see all the way down the line, imagining your ride, and as you can see the barrel is big enough to fit a van… It’s almost always a stand-up barrel (unless the owners forget to trim it) and rarely is there anyone else in the line-up…quite rare around these parts. I walk past it often on my way into the mountains for a hike and I surf it every time, sometimes stalling in the barrel, shacked for an eternity, at other times running through before the close out. You can’t take yourself too seriously or you’ll wipe out and walk right by without chancing the ride, possibly without ever knowing you were so close to an epic barrel. Like in life, it is clearly good to be able to laugh at yourself and enjoy the ride.
No surf today, so I went hiking into the fire lands and happened upon this scene. Dead black trees surrounded by lively yellow spring flowers…nature taking its course.
Am off to Big Sur this weekend and will not be posting anything for the next few days…but will post stuff retroactively when I get back…going north to find some surf!
Funny how you can go to the same break and shoot it a million different ways, every time seeing it differently, noticing something new. Maybe a little like going to that same break and surfing a million different waves, each session uniquely new and different…been going to this spot a lot lately, each time seeing it and surfing it as if for the first time.
“Make your move, reach out, bridge the chasm…we all have to jump sometime”–anonymous, heard at a local SB watering hole this evening and thought it fitting in light of yesterday’s post…so, yeah, jump!
“I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life, and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.” -Georgia O’Keefe
Up early and checked a number of spots before I found just the right one…kinda felt a little like goldilocks. Here’s a shot from my back yard break, not really anything there this morning on account of the highhhhh tide, but be on the look out for some fun ones here early this pm if the wind stays off it. Ended up a ways south of this spot and had a short and sweet session on chest high wind slop. Any morning spent in the ocean is a good one…
Didn’t really break out the camera today…but did take a shot at watercolors. Not necessarily ready for the Louvre yet, but fun to play with color and thought. No surf today, wind was all over it, not even a shot at the evening glass off. So I played in the mountains, complete with hail and, depending on who you ask, snow. Spent part of my day planting a garden and realized, again, that life without a little dirt under your fingernails is a life not truly lived…hoping for a morning session.
So good to share today with so many cool kids…we opened that skate park up in proper fashion. Good to give back to kids who don’t have much, fun to share in their stoke. On the flip side of things, I saw Thomas Campbell’s surf movie The Present last night and am still buzzing. The Africa, New Zealand and Alaia clips were completely awe inspiring, and I walked out of the theater ready to fly to distant lands…
So you can scroll down for today’s photo, but I want to use this space to invite you all to a huge party tomorrow to help launch the Fillmore Skate Park, in Ventura, California. I will be there representin’ the Land Of Plenty Skateboard Foundation (LOP) and chillin with some pretty cool folks, and most importantly will be having a great ol’time with all the Fillmore kids in their new skate park. The premise of the LOP is that we get skateboards to kids who can’t afford skateboards and we connect schools in California with schools in thirdworld countries through a 21st century version of penpals that we call BoardPals. We just connected a Venice Beach school with a school in Jamaica, and aim to connect these Fillmore middle school kids with a school in Haiti or Mexico. So come support us and all the cool peeps at the party tomorrow. Also would like to take this Public Service Announcement opportunity to point you to some pretty dope peoples…Kyle Lightner and Morgan Maassen are two of the more rad photographers/surfers/watermen around town that are laying it down in blogsurfdom–check em out. Also just got some blog lovin from Stephan in france and Osean in Germany. As a wise man has said…”surf is where you find it”.
Skateboards painted by the kids of Fillmore Middle School in Ventura, California. Check out The Land Of Plenty.
Drove south through the fog and parked right off the highway, hopeful, even though you could barely see the waves coming in through all the grey. Nobody out except for a pod of dolphin and three pelicans working in unison to attack a school of bait-fish simultaneously from above and below. We suited up and jumped in and scored big time, sorta. It was pure glass, not a ripple, and most of the waves were in the waist-high level and super fun, and every now and then a monster shoulder-high would materialize from the foggy horizon and we traded waves till past dark. This is a pretty below average photo taken after getting out of the water, but it paints the mood perfectly…this not so secret but very empty spot tonight was a beacon of light in an otherwise dark waveless wilderness, and we got it good (or at least a whole lot better than i expected). I had a great day, a wonderful lunch in the park, and beautiful evening session with a dear friend…wouldn’t mind putting today on repeat!
“Change your focus and you’ll find what you seek…” -Nelson Mandela
Been having a good time switching it up lately…with 13 boards to choose from there is never a dull moment. It’s been hard finding much surf, but somehow I managed to get a few this afernoon. Funny how despite this varied quiver I still dream of getting another two or three boards…
Got a call at 4pm…”Hey I’m at “local break” and it’s waist to chest and glassy–get your ass down here!” that’s all I needed to call it quits for the day, throw the Frye singlefin in the truck and head over the hill. Sure enough it was clean and fun. The water was summertime warm and the crowd non-existent. I guess I have technology to thank for that, nobody expected that spot to show today, and so very few checked it…we got some fun rides. One in particular has been stuck on repeat, playing over and over in my mind’s eye all evening. The wave jacked up to chest high on the takeoff, I dropped in and made a wide bottom turn left (I’m goofyfooted) and back up the face and the board just locked in place. The wave kept pitching forward as it dropped to waist high, but I was stuck in that pocket, crouched down, water coming over my left shoulder, left hand dragging through the face of the wave. This board was shaped by Skip Frye in 1968, when he was still shaping for Gordon&Smith, and must be the granddaddy of today’s hulls…the rails are knife sharp, the deck convex and the ride magical. It would be cool if I could move the fin up a bit more, but for a board that is older than everyone out in the lineup today, it feels surprisingly futuristic.
This 5’10 Frye Fish is out of this world!
Camped up north again last night with a bunch of folks…fun to get away and chill around a campfire, while the sounds of the ocean fill the night.
Today’s surf shot brought to you by the kind people of Spy Optics…I’m on my third pair and am loving my Spy Nolen sunglasses, they are polarized and now you all get to see what I see when I am wearing them. If any of you folks actually work for Spy or know somebody who does you should really think about sponsoring my blog and paying me millions to spread the Spy love…or at least send me another pair of these glasses. Surf has all but died, and though I did get in today I wouldn’t say it was epic.
Woke up this morning very hopeful…had rolled in last night to pounding surf and zero wind–if you’ve been to this spot you know how windy it can get. From the cliff, you could see lines to the horizon, perfectly spaced apart, a long period with about a 15 second interval…they just kept coming in, in beautiful mile-wide lines. This morning was a different story. The wind was back and the swell had backed down to chest high…Damn it, should have charged it at 1am when I took these three shots!
Rolled up to JB a little past midnight last night and the thunderous lines of rollers coming in from the moonlit horizon were literally shaking the ground…Stood on the cliff and took some shots then down the road to find a camping spot. Here is a shot from the beach looking west taken a 1am. Funny how the long exposure erases any proof of a swell.
Went south this mornin’ to find some surf…got in but it wasn’t much…waist high at best. Just had dinner, packed up the truck and am headed in the other direction, find a place to camp and surf the mornin’ session at T’s…see you there? Took this photo as the sun was rising over LA County.
I like this photo cause it’s so clean. Simplicity is the goal. A small but fun evening session this pm, should have waited and done a full-moon surf, might still go out and make it a double sesh. day. I read this today and wanted to share… “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” — John Muir
We try not to sweat the small stuff, and concentrate on those big life-changing events, but truth be told life is a collection of small stuff. It is the sum of all those tiny events, meeting someone new and saying hi, waxing that new board for the first time, an evening session in less than perfect surf, butterflies in your stomach, your 1000th breakfast burrito, looking up at the sun and sneezing…all singularly non-consequential but be sure to toss them in your suitcase cause you’re taking them with you wherever you go. Sometimes those small things throw us for a loop and all of the sudden they are all grown up seriously BIG things, they are the forks in the road, the chance encounters, fate, providence, luck. This evening’s session was a bit like that–none of the waves I caught were singularly life-changing, but I am somehow changed, different than the person I was just hours before…and better for it.
Went for a long long hike up into the Gaviota hills today and could see the surf rolling in at the ranch in the distance…it’s flat everywhere but somehow it seemed like there were lines of peelers coming in, going unridden. I feel a little like a goose waiting for its flock to fly south while watching all the other birds take off for Baja. It seems like every surf rig on the road today was chock full of camping gear and piled high with boards, and I’m sure they were all headed staight to my favorite secret spot. Damn, I can’t wait any longer, come on flock, let’s go! Here is a shot of Leadbetter after dark taken tonight, 3 minute exposure at F8…now if only there were corduroy to the horizon.
I ‘ve been fortunate enough to travel the world, 32 countries last I counted, I’ve been to 6 out of the 7 continents and have surfed some pretty amazing places…and yet i choose, as do some of you reading this, to live in Santa Barbara, and why not when we have the queen of the coast in our own backyard. She is truly a gem.
It’s all about the little things…
Got a call from El Marinero in SD, seems he will soon be off to sea until spring, plying the waters between LA and Seattle…the reason I bring this up is that our conversation drifted from sea to surf to boards to photographs of sea and surf and boards and finally to the topic of photoshop- My response to his query of “so do you use Photoshop” was that I do not use photoshop, that in fact I don’t even own photoshop but instead do all of the work “in-camera”…tweaking the light meter this way or that, or changing the white balance to match the availability of light, I use filters as well (graduated, polarizing and UV) and lots of tripod work to stabilize the shot (and many a rock or piece of driftwood have been used in a tripod’s stead)…while I believe that Photoshop has its place, that space does not overlap with my own and rather I choose to use the camera to capture the moment. I shoot film and digital, but the digi has taken over as of late-mostly because I’m broke and have not been spending loot on developing. It is true that you can now do quite a lot with digital cameras that one could not do with film, but that -within certain self-imposed limits- is part of the art, in the same way that you can choose to use or not use filters with film, or tweak your light meter or use certain types of film…as my father would say “to each their own”, and for me it’s all about the camera and the moment…see you in June Marinero!
Should have gone out this morning but didn’t, kicked myself in the ass all day as I watched the wind build and the swell die..Damn…by 4pm I had worked myself into a stupor but decided that it might glass off with the setting sun. Loaded two longboards into the truck, picked up Kitz and went down the road to check it. Looked pretty bad as we drove south, whitecap city. Got to the cove and sure enough the inside was sheltered and glassy, sort of. Nobody out on account of all the wind and we jumped in…still enough of the swell to push through the chop and each had a handful of pleasantly surprising really fun rides. Here is a shot of the cove after sunset. Today’s lesson: When in doubt, get in!
One of my projects of late has been the photo-documentation of surf-rigs and surf-mobiles…and today’s shot, taken at a well-known local break, is proof that some of those little green groms boosting those ridiculous airs and landing impossible aerials may not actually be your nextdoor kid neighbor johnny, but more likely pro-surfers from outer space.
Jumped in here this afternoon and surfed some of my best waves of the winter. Only a couple guys out, glass glass glass and great, fast super fun walls…the bigger sets were coming in overhead and barreling right up…a great evening! Excited for tomorrow’s sunrise sesh.
“How’s rincon look?” seems to be the question whenever you call your peeps for a surf report…and based on what the voice has to say on the other end of the phone, you know whether to go north, south, or stay home and watch Siestas y Olas…
