shack float carve

Scoured the coast with Ramin yesterday in search of some clean waves, since OB was maxed out and looking unsurfable without jet-ski assist. Ended up on the west side of SC, and scored some really good waves at low tide north of the Lane. Waves were head high with some + sets, fast and hollow with a good barrel section and lots of room to carve turns. My wave of the day was a head high set wave, I faded out the bottom turn anticipating hitting the lip, but pulled up, stalled, and got a clean little shack, even looked up as it was cascading over me. Came out of the barrel, pumped, hit a floater past a section, then grabbed my rail into a big cutback and worked the rest of the wave through to the inside. Was uber stoked, paddled back out with a ridiculous grin on my face, just in time to see Ramin drop into a sick one on his new Las Olas board, absolutely flying down the line. Was a great session, made me hungry for more point break waves. So much easier to surf them well compared the the chaos at OB. I'm getting really pumped for my Indo trip in January, although I'll be with family, so will have to restrain myself from surfing the entire day away.
 
 

oh bee ur sooo smooth

Gotta take a ride, just recline in the faraway
Got to take some time to realize
That my friends they come
And the lines they go by

...to avoid having Puff the Magic Dragon playing on infinite loop in my head today, i listened to some Interpol while suiting up this morning.

solitary bombs, broken semi-gun

i paddled out at Judah around 7:30 this morning. didn't see anyone else out. to be honest, i was scared. paddle out took ~20 minutes, got worked hard a few times and almost ran out of breath. just barely ducked under a couple of mean looking back to back 2x OH set waves breaking top to bottom. I drifted north quickly, snagged one massive right and rode it pretty far before kicking out to avoid the closeout section, and then got sucked too far out and spent the majority of my time trying to paddle into better position. ended up getting caught inside at Kelly's Cove, got smashed a few times, and broke the tail off of my board. Oddly I had the 'Puff the Magic Dragon' song stuck in my head the whole session. That one bomb was worth it, probably one of the largest and most powerful waves I've ever caught. Nothing like some survival surfing to start the work day...
 
 
 

shred the gnar

 
 
 
 

Ramin's goin away

Rainy and dreary, but some punchy little waves to be had. Ramin and I paddle out around 9:15 at Kirkham and got a few good ones. Ran into Joel walking back to the car, and then headed to the house for some gourmet frozen pizza and watched the Pipemasters competition. Good times, and happy for Ramin, doing good things with Blue Energy in Nicaragua. I'm sure I'll get to sneak a few more sessions with Ramin before he leaves. Tuesday looks like it will be offshore again...
 
 

friday 10 am OB

took the day off, picked up some glassing supplies in Paifica, then paddled out at K St with Ramin. Pretty heavy, lots of water moving around, and 1.5x overhead sets, occasionally some bigger ones. we each snagged a good amount of fun waves, i got a realllly long right, and a handful of great drops. now we're headed up to Pt Reyes for some backpacking with Jon. Life is tough, aint it?
 
 
 
 

k st paparazzi

shot from the dunes this morning for 10 minutes before heading to work. some really clean waves, looked fun. ramin had to rub it in by pulling into some deep barrels and busting some floaters...get to work slacker!
 
 
 

small but fun judah

was a lot more fun than it looked initially from the beach. paddled out with ramin and ryan v just before 7. rights holding up nicely, and some glassy ones on the north end of the beach. my best ride was a super long walled up right, hit a few cutbacks, a snap and then my lame attempt at a layback into the closeout. got some funky pics, the one of ramin at the bottom looks like maybe his soul is already in Nicaragua...spooky

 
 
 

overgunned and underfed

 
k street not doing it this AM, too fat and weak. waxed up the semi-gun expecting a challenging paddle and offshore 8-10 footers, but i was waaaaay off. would've been a better day for a fishy. caught a few rides that actually connected through, but nothing exciting, mostly peaky drops and fat mushy shoulders. i imagine it was working better elsewhere, but wrong time wrong place for me this morning. ran into Nic after i got out of the water, hopefully he fares better than i.

leo carillo & c-street

camped at leo carillo north of malibu on saturday night. pretty beach, and nice campsites. will definitely go back. waves were pretty small, so i decided to venture further up the coast, ending up at c-street in ventura. some long rides, but it was pretty gutless. place must be really fun when it's big and powerful, reminded me a bit of trestles with all of the cobblestones. looking forward to an OB dawn patrol tomorrow, which will be far from gutless, offshore 10 footers and a bitch of a paddleout.
 
 
 

OB earlier this week

thanks Ramin for taking pics...
 
 
 
 

works in progress

hope to finish and glass my first 2 boards by the end of the year. 2010 will be the year of bogging MY OWN hand shaped rails!
 
 
 

black friday Huntington pier

goddamn it's been a long time since i've posted to my blog. and it's not because i haven't been surfing, if anything it's because i've scored so many good sessions and have just had so little time to post anything. i've resorted to quickly uploading and emailing out picasa pics, but i'm gonna try and revive the blog. to catch up i'll probably be posting some real short posts just to share my favorite pics from my last month of epic surf trips, everything from humboldt to hanalei bay, including some recent epic sessions at home.

for now, here are some pics that Joanie snapped from the beach at Huntington. I awoke from my Thanksgiving food coma around 6:30 this AM, but didn't hit the road till 8:30. Paddled out at the south side of the pier around 9ish, and got my fair share of waves despite the crowds. My first wave out there was really fun actually, I busted a super long floater but came unstuck on the landing. I don't think Joanie even had the camera out yet though. After battling the current for a while, I decided to get out and run back up the the pier. These pics are screen grabs from my 2nd wave off of the pier, and nice walled up right that I pulled into before it closed out on me. The waves this AM were steep little things, and after pearling a couple of times I was wishing I had brought a shorter board.
 
 
 

norcal backpacking surf trip

a few weeks behind on blogging and i've scored lots of waves in lots of places since my last post. on october 22nd Jon and I headed up north for an epic hiking and surfing adventure. my pack was loaded with camping gear, clothes, a bear can with enough grub for 4 nights in the backcountry, and my 6'5" and wetsuit strapped to the back of my stuffed 85L pack. damn thing was heavy. the trip didn't quite go as planned, as just minutes into starting our hike the freaklishly high tide and 18ft swell flooded the beach trailhead, soaking our boots and sending us running back to the parking lot with our tails between our legs. I'll never forget screaming like a little girl as i turned and ran back towards the parking lot, tromping through ankle deep water in the moonlight.

since the beach was flooded we decided to car camp a few miles east, and figure out what to do in the AM. We found a trail map and decided to take the mountain trail that winded down to the spot. more miles and 4000 feet of elevation to deal with, but no freak tides or flooding to worry about. the hike was brutal, lots of sketchy log crossings and rock hopping, not to mention countless branches and rocks that i had to duck under or climb over with my surfboard on my back (and Jon with his pole). we finally made it to the beach as the sun was setting, and had just enough light left to pick a spot to setup and head to the creek to wash off and filter some water. saw lots of wildlife, including a few big bucks, a curious fox, skunks, and even stumbled across the scattered remains of a recently devoured buck. we mounted the antlers up on our driftwood shelter to ward off evil spirits or something like that...

the next few days I scored solid surf with minimal crowds. got really comfortable weaving through the exposed rocks on the inside, and on certain tides was even doing floaters and cutbacks right over one of the big flat rocks. i heard my fins scrape a few times though, which seemed like a good time to end the session and chill with jon on the beach. we feasted on freshly picked mussels with some instant noodles, peanut butter and apples, and some decent dehydrated Mountain House dinners.

since we had to climb back up 4000 ft back to the car, we decided to split it into two days. however, once we got going, it was hard to stop. had a few sketchy moments on top of the ridge while the wind was whipping and i had to crawl on all fours to avoid getting blown off the cliff. a few miles of really steep and narrow switchbacks in the dark also had me second guessing our decision to forge on, but ultimately we made it back to the car by 10:30ish. by that point we were starving, but nothing was open, and we ended up eating at some sketchy diner in Ukiah, where the waitress was paying off some bail bond people in between serving us. It was nice to finally make it home after that and take a long hot shower and snuggle up next to my wife and dog in my cozy bed. Nothing makes you appreciate the comforts of home like a few days in rugged, cold wilderness. That being said, I'm already looking forward to my next backpacking/surfing trip up there, it never fails to be epic.