chop slop drop hop pop

the clean conditions from earlier today decided not to wait for me to get home from work. hopefully tomorrow AM will be glassy. still, a few fun head highish pitching mushbangers, and a pretty sunset. lots of sea lions jumping around too.
 
 
 

nice clean day at OB, board cam test run

The non-fisheye board cam actually captured more than i thought it would mounted to the front of my 6'5" JC. I anticipated having pictures of just my knees and below, but with the right angle and crouch I can get most of my body in the frame, and a little bit of the wave in the margins. I still prefer the wrist cam setup, because I'd rather have pictures of waves than my ugly mug paddling, but I'll have to try this again on an overhead hollow day this fall.

Pleasure Pt & Sharks summer south swell, crappy BoBo

South swell mania. 2nd peak Pleasure Point, population: Thrashtown. Later hit up the Hook & Sharks with Karl as the tide filled in. Crowds, aggression, snaking, but still plently of memorable rides. Found a little cover on my 2nd wave at 38th, popped a teeny little air on my last wave in at Sharks, fun stuff. Took the family to BoBo on Sunday, but it was disappointingly small and gutless. My left arm has been feeling wonky too, carpal tunnel? Hope not. OB looked fun this AM but I had to get to work. Maybe tomorrow...

thursday evening and friday AM dawn patrol

south swell hype = too many people at the hook despite the tepid conditions thursday night. i hit the water around 6:20 and watched people snake each other left and right, resulting in a few heated verbal exchanges over waist high waves. however, it was slowly building and the sets, while still few and far between, were pretty fun. it was walled up so you had to race down the line, not too much room for cutting back on the larger set waves. a lot of fun floater sections though, i landed what was perhaps the longest, cleanest floater in recent memory, which made my session.

went to see a Entrance show at the Crepe Place on Soquel, and then crashed at Ryan's buddy Cory's place. coffee and a blueberry muffin at Emily's, then headed to west cliff around 6:30. Cowell's was a mob scene already, foam boards as far as the eye can see. the Lane looked fickle and had a small crowd, and we drove further up and paddled out at a little cove with 3 guys on it. Some good fast waves, but sectioning and closing out quick, so I only had a few longer rides. Fun drops and pumping down the line though. Paddling back out after one I caught a lip to the back of the head, and smashed my face into my board in a lame attempt to duckdive a pitching set wave. No blood though ;) It was fun but didn't live up to the hype, I'm not sure exactly where to paddle out tomorrow now...

Some pics of Ryan charging in the slideshow, unfortunately one of the better barrel shots I would've had didn't come out clearly. Damn GoPro camera!

Sunday dp @ Kirkham

Hit the water at 9:15 after checking Stokereport.com and hearing it was 'fair'. It was - a bit of paddling to get through the messy inside section, but once you're out there it was pretty clean, and the waves had plenty of juice. Only one other guy out on the north end of the beach, I guess everyone else was sleeping or headed south for sunnier skies. In any case, I caught a few seriously fast rides, hitting the lip pretty hard and keeping my speed. One solid backside hack off the top that felt great, and one closeout barrel that I got super deep into before getting smashed into the sandbar. I'm getting more consistent with pulling off rail-grab cutbacks too without burying my board, the peaky fast drops gave me ample opportunity to practice. I wiped out plenty too, the waves were steep and if I take off too deep the inside rail of my quad seems to lose its grip pretty easily. I'd love to try a thruster setup on a board with similar dimensions, I bet it would rip in more powerful conditions. If I ever get around to finishing the shaping bay I'll have to experiment with that idea...
 
 
 
 

Saturday @ WC

Checking out of the hostel took longer than I anticipated, so I was late meeting up with Nic, Josh and Ramin, but Joanie spotted their cars on the side of the road. As I suited up I watched the crew catch a good amount of little crumblers, and saw Ramin piggydoggy a little closeout. Good stuff. By the time I made it down to the water the peak they were sitting on wasn't working well, so they had moved south. However, the peak just north of where I was looked good, and only 1 guy on it, so I opted for a few waves to myself. Joanie found a nice little ledge to perch herself on and busted out the Jetboil to make some hot breakfast and coffee. Waves were pretty poor, as the onshore winds were beating it up, but I still managed a few decent rides. When I got out of the water Joanie welcomed me with a cup of hot chocolate, which was a real treat. I'm a pretty lucky surfer, having a wonderful wife shooting pics and making me cocoa!
 
 
 
 

Friday @ the Lane

After playing some volleyball and watching the seals breach at Manresa, we headed to Santa Cruz to stroll downtown and catch some waves. While we were checking Steamers some guy lost his hat in the water, and I rescued it for him. That was my good deed of the day, and I was rewarded later on with some fun waves wrapping all the way from the Slot down through Indicators. The lulls were really long, so I sat and chatted with an older guy who ripped, and we took turns picking off the best set waves, which were shoulder high and fast. Joanie caught some decent rides on the inside as well, but eventually the creeping tide washed it out and we called it a day. We drove north and stayed at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse Hostel, which has an awesome jacuzzi overlooking the ocean.