Thursday, March 29, 2007

Local


Surf was mushy fun this morn. At least it was cleaned up and cold. And small. And weak. But fun. Funny how it works.

Found this site with these words on a local photographer. Cool picture, stylin'!

"My mother and stepfather raised me. Mom was a housekeeper; money was short most of the time. Sometimes, I had to skip school in order to help her out. My mom had a heart attack when I was thirteen, when I was sixteen she had a stroke then two more heart attacks. School and taking care of my mom was what I would do, I did not have time to dedicate to my photography.

Life brought me to Venice Beach, California. Life took my mom in 2003. I am glad she is gone because she no longer has to worry and no longer has to suffer. I am so sad she is gone because I don't see her daily in the person because her spirit has passed through this life.

For the past three years I have been shooting surf photography. Surfing is the most beautiful sport and is the only sport where I see that they cheer and help one another, that's how beautiful surfing is and it makes me want to share it. Enjoy!"
- Aliza
www.alizafotography.com


3.3 @ 10 secs from 315

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Different breaks, Same Results




8.1 @ 12 secs from 300

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Summatime


And the livin' is easy.

On windblown, crappy, white-capped, ugly, small days like these I find myself lookin' forward to summer.

The big souths.
The nice beach girls.
The warm points.
The cold beers.
And trunks.

2.1 @ 10 secs from 310 and wiiiindy

Monday, March 26, 2007

Snapper

Wondered whether to throw the mucus colored fish up here. Just want to go under the radar. Not call any attention to me. Up close you see the bumpy attempt at my first EPS resinatin'. Cured wierd. It's ugly. You can't tell by the pic, but believe me. The bottom has a ugly blue resin tint swirl try where I forgot to cut off the laps before they dried. No structural damage, just a feathered look. Days of sanding later it was semi-smooth. WHO CARES.. it is a blast to surf! Your own creation. Your own arms and brain made it. Glassed it thick and tough to make it through, hopefully, to this winter.

Last homemade board made it roughly 150 sessions for over 11 months. Thick beachbreak to rocky low tide points it survived. Hope this snapper makes it as long as my first.















Homemade Fish
Fat nose down to a skinnier tail.
Very old early fish style.
Wide point forward, too much?
5'11 X 21 1/2 X 2 3/8

Big super respect to the original fish shapers. You all were on to something good...

2.4 @ 9 secs from 300 and shitty today

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Windswell


Looked and felt...kinda....like this snap from Scotland.

Man it was hittin' this morning in the South Bay. Big peaks rollin'in. DP tide perfect for this bar. Consistent head high pluses. Only head at this bar.

After two points and 2 beachies sessions on the new fish, it all came together this morning. Found the speed and stall spots. Super fast hang on to yer earplugs beach break rides to the sand. Mushy take off to a speed wall to a closeout end barrel. Offshore groomed peaks. Warm air. Water and sunrise just right. And still no one around me. Glad everyone slept on it this morn. It was incredible.

FRIDAY UPDATE:
Same bar. Same time. Same swell. A little less. But still workin' well. Glassy. Semi-offshore groomyness. 2 more heads out. They paddled out after watching me for an hour drinking coffee and shooting the shit.

One said "well I guess the early bird gets the worm". Yup.

6.1 @ 11 secs from 310

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Kamogawa

The cliffs overlookin' the vast Akate Bay was a place where 7,000 heads voted for the waves to stay. A barrelin' point break that was wide as it was tall. Didn't matter, the "powers that be" threw up a jetty breakwall in the early nineties. Over half of Japan is concrete coastline. How fuckin' wretchedly unfortunate.


Christmas-time 1963:

We usually threw a shop party on the day of Christmas Eve. One winter, just before I was scheduled to leave for my annual trip to the Islands, people were getting out of their jobs early and stopping by the shop for a little Christmas cheer. Kit Horn came by to see if I would be available to go to Akate Point in the next couple of days. It's a big, steep wave with a fast takeoff. Under the right swell conditions, the place could become very hairy. In 1963, we got several days over fifteen feet. The bay was rock-rimmed and enclosed by a hundred-and-fifty-foot cliff from point to point, with only one small trail down to the water.

Horn was a bitchin' guy, but he worked at some terrible goddamn engineering job at Yamaha -- wore a suit and tie and large-rimmed glasses. High school friends with Buzzy Trent. A tough guy, he spent all his free time running, pumping weights and getting in shape for the day that he would find himself in the Islands surfing big waves. He never made it, though. He never really had enough time. The couple of times he did go over there he would miss the big surf and come home totally frustrated by the whole deal. He wanted it so badly.

So, at the shop, we got to drinking wine -- Horn wasn't a big drinker -- and talking about Akate Point. It was breaking at about fifteen feet. By this time it was about three in the afternoon and we were getting pretty shit-faced. I told Kit that I had a special workout for getting in shape for big waves. What you did, I said, was tie yourself into a big truck tire innertube, paddle out at Akate Point, get yourself right in the impact zone, then try to catch a wave backwards. There, with your wine bottle and your innertube, you drink and wait for a wave to break on you. If you lose your bottle of wine or if you quit drinking, you're automatically disqualified.

Kit had drunk enough to believe me. And I was far enough along to be stoked on the idea. So we did it. We got two big truck tire innertubes and two fresh gallons of Red Mountain wine and went to Akate Point. It was near dusk as we ran down the trail. We were fired up and the whole situation turned competitive.

We paddled out in our tubes and sat right in the impact zone. A fifteen-foot set comes through and pounds the living shit out of both of us. We're laughing anyway, having a great time. Kit loses his inner tube, but holds onto his wine bottle. I'm getting a little concerned about him, but he just laughs. He had drunk about half his wine. I think the only thing keeping him afloat was the half-empty bottle.


By the time we decided to go in, the sun had gone down and I couldn't find Kit on shore. I'm walking along the beach, and it's pitch dark. I finally find him in a tide pool. He'd drug himself there and was still lying face-down, his head pointing towards the ocean. He was real screwed up, his face and body were a mass of bloody cuts. The tide was coming in and he was barfing as his head bobbed up and down in the tide pool.

Kit was a big man, weighed a couple hundred pounds. I tried to roll him out of the tidepool but couldn't. The best I could do was grab him by the ankles and drag him up the rocks, just to get his head out of the water so he wouldn't drown. I carried over a couple of big rocks, rolled one under each of his armpits and told him I was going for help.
I climbed up the path to the road and hitchhiked to a phone. I called Horn's house and somehow the message got through that Kit was lying face-down in a tide pool at Akate Point. His wife just went beserk. She thought he'd drowned. At this point, the cops were called in.

In the meantime, Kit comes to and starts walking up the trail. In the process of doing this, he slips and falls in some dog crap. So now he has blood and crap all over him, and he remembers that a friend of his lives at the Point at Akate. All he can think of is looking up this lifelong friend. After all, it's Christmas Eve. He stumbles into the guy's house and collapses on the couch, looking -- and smelling -- like shit. They call his wife, and she comes to pick him up.

For years afterwards, if the name of Greg Noll was spoken in Kit Horn's house, the woman would go into a total rage. I haven't seen the man since, and that happened in the early '60s.

- Greg Noll



This morning was just there. Nothing good. Nothing bad. Beautifully gray morn'.
2.7 @ 17secs from 295

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Quirky Shape



Fun again.
Very fun again. But.

Catching front rail.
Certain spots on the board make it squirt.
Certain other ones make it bog.
Is it my shitty rail shapin' knowledge?
Is it my shitty fish surfin' knowledge?

Still got 30 waves over 3 hours to get it wired.
Flashes of brillance.
Flashes of super speed.
Flashes of barrel time.
Flashes of kooky time.

Good. Cold. Dark. Gloomy. Foggy. Dirty. Gray. Cloudy. Weekend. Surf.

3.2 @ 8secs from 290

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Clover


"Here's Céad Míle Fáilte to friend and to rover
That's a greeting that's Irish as Irish can be
It means you are welcome
A thousand times over
Wherever you come from, Whosoever you be"

Man what a good St. Paddy's day. Always go out on every holiday. Thanksgiving, St. Paddy's, Christmas, shit even Valentines Day. Have a good streak going and I swear the waves have always come through. And even the top breaks are mostly empty.

This afternoon there was a little bump on it but close to OH peaks rollin' thru with no one out. Everyone shitfaced already in the South Bay while I was enjoying the goods. A couple heads enjoyin' em too. Fun, consistent 3 hour coldish foggy Erin Go Baugh sesh.

Makes these several Guinness' now go down more smooooth with salty eyes and tired arms.


3.8 @ 12 secs from 310

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Still hangin' on











Dawn light, thick fog and loud loud music

Is the only kind of life i'll ever understand

Dawn light, thick fog and loud loud music

You'll never paddle out before this wave lovin' man

Dim light, thick swell and loud loud music

Is the only kind of life i'll ever understand

Dim light, thick swell and loud loud music

You'll never paddle out before this wave lovin' man


With respect to Marty Stuart, who I believe did the original version of this song which is covered by everyone from The Flying Burrito Brothers to every bluegrass band to the Dead. On my tape this morn, as I pulled up to the break, was the '72 version by The New Riders of the Purple Sage. I found myself sitting out the lulls in the thick foggy high tide and changin' the lyrics. Still some nice hooks came in and was nice to say a farewell to this pleasingly early first Southy of the season.

2.9 @ 14secs from 170
1st out!

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Bleary


Familiar cars at the pitch black spot. Hmm, summer must be on her way. Still got out first as I know the occupants of those cars wait until light for their go outs.

Paddled out at 6am and sat in the dark trying to judge and dodge the black waves comin' at me. Damn fog!! The dawn light shoulda been out by now. Caught my first a little after 6:20. Surfin' on feelin' and memory. Still couldn't really see. But it was FUN, a screamer, well in the dim light, every wave feels ten times as fast. Thick fog allowing some light finally. Caught three more long ones all by my lonesome. Some other heads join. Great vibes out in the ocean.

Takin' turns.
Givin' nods.
Smackin' lips.
Talkin' talk.
Smilin' smiles.
Stokin' stoke.

Felt strange and wonderful to be on my new twin after riding a single for the last 4 months. Felt stiff to turn which is odd but that probably just my skills and feet thinkin' they are still turnin' a single fin. FUN, glassy, consistent, bigger, gray mornin' out in the drink.

3.1 @ 14secs from 190
1st out

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

McLame




Alarm at 4:30. Stoked! South showin' on the buoys as I slapped together a bagel. Flyin' down the highway groovin' to the sticky sounds of an old Wailing Souls tape. And 80MPH to 0MPH. Stopped. All four lanes stationary. Helicopters overhead. What the fuck! Feel the dawn creepin' in while I am creepin' along on the freeway. Turns out a big rig named McLane plowed into the divider and we all lose. Hope the driver and others are okay.

Finally get to the spot, 6:45, dawn light well showing, fuck, suit up quick style and rush down to the ocean, no one out! and lines are cruisin' in. Stoked again but still pissed that I have missed the last 45 minutes. Oh well. Paddle out, snag a couple long ones, another joins and another. Yep, the fresh Souths bring all the locals out. Good to see the old faces but the greedy part of me wishes it was only me like usual.

Sadly thrown off all mornin', I can blame it on the freeway if I want to. Always not making the closeout section, always in front of the curl just enough to not get the speed. Waterlogged fat nasty board not cuttin' it. Small backup fin just not stickin' to the face like my bigger fin, that snapped off at this break on low tide a month back, would have. Nothing was balanced. Lucked into a reeler of a last wave that stoked me to the sand but didn't totally satiate my soul. Felt good to play with my liquid friend again. Lookin' forward to more!!!

2.7 @ 14 secs from 170
1st out

Friday, March 09, 2007

Peaky


Fuck, dawn light is coming on and I am still driving. Antsy for the waves I am missin'. Late start semi on purpose and regretted it. Already 6am. Damn. Hate not making it to the sand before light.

Pull up to peaky goodness a plenty. Never park in a parking lot. Don't need to see the surfer tough guy stares, the fat old coffee drinkers yappin', the trucker hat set, the 4 kooky friends suiting up. Just find one on the street and walk down the hill. For some reason it feels more right.

Perfect Manhattan Beach mornin'. Up and down the coast. Decent windswell. Consistent wedgies. Cloudy fogginess. Sheet glass lumps. Cool damp sand. Just enough chill in the air. 3 hours of consistent chesties. Some jacking super fast but rewarded only with a short shoulder. More than enough flow to spread out the crowd. Never saw the sun and that is alright. Get on with it.

5.1 @ 14 secs from 305

Friday, March 02, 2007

Loadin' Up



Travel. By car. Far. To find waves. For the next several. If you're lucky.

2.5 @ 10 secs from 315