One Perfect Ride

Three weeks ago I had surgery on my shoulder. Doc cleaned off bone spurs and cleaned up the area around the various tendons, rotator cuff, and labrum. There are tears that will heal with time and nothing else he let me know. No sports (surfing) for 6 weeks! But I am doing Physical Therapy and they are pretty aggressive with the shoulder. I do pull downs and reverse flys until it really burns. So, if my arm can handle that, it couldn't hurt to throw a longboard in the water and just paddle around a little, right?

I have not been following the swell. Normally, I check bouys, tides, winds, etc daily and often several times a day. A week and a half after the surgery I checked the swell, saw that a nice South was coming in and got depressed. So I was surprised to find hurricane swell pumping in. It was clean, good sized, and short period from a nice 190 degrees. With over 3 feet of tide and rising I headed for one of the most beautiful surf spots I know. It is a secret spot (yeah, right!) with a large rock marking the peak cleverly hidden just off the PCH, North of Malibu.

Paddling didn't hurt my shoulder any worse than PT, so out I went. I was on my 10' longboard because I did not want to get too tempted. I figured that I would be OK as long as I didn't get after anything too hard, forget about my shoulder, and tear something up in there. There was a good sized pack sitting on the main rock. Some of the guys were getting really nice rides. Shortboarders also scattered through the inside. I paddled out to second rock. The first reason was to get that saltwater therapy while staying out of the way. But there was another reason. As I was walking down I saw a set break well outside the main rock. Most everybody was out of position, but it looked like sitting to the left of second rock just might work for one of those.

As my shoulder loosened up I poked at a few. Not quite steep enough to catch sitting just left of second rock. So I slid 20yds farther left, a third of the way to the main rock with the kelp bed keeping me quite seperate from the crowd. My wave came and I stood up as a farmer would walk out into a drought ending rain storm. I let my feet come to a narrow stance and put my hands behind my arched back as I weaved up and down the green face and through the other surfers. The wave kept going for longer than I expected, and when it started to double up, I stepped to the nose to race the section. I easily got out in front of the section and perched on the cresting lip all the way in. With the beach and rocks approaching I bailed out the back.

That's it. Drought is over. One perfect little ride goes a long way. I can't wait until I can surf again!

Book Signing in Ventura

One of my wishlist books that I had not gotten to yet was Saltwater Buddha by Jaimal Yogis. In the Sunday Ventura County Star they had an article about Jaimal and his book signing in Venura last night. I asked my buddy Con if he wanted to go and off we went.

The first thing that struck me was the crowd. It was a small crowd, but I recognized many of the faces from the lineups around the county. This is not the sort of book that would grab just anyone's attention and this seemed to be a gathering of the faithful.

The second thing that really stood out was what a cool, down to earth guy Jaimal is. I did not know what to expect from the author of a book about zen and surfing. The guy is well spoken and funny. He talked about how Buddism had affected his life and his surfing without laying it on thick.

We enjoyed the book signing more than we expected and I am looking forward to reading the book.

Global Warming?

This article talks about the warming of the oceans. Serious stuff even if the warm water trend is not apparent on the California coast.

In hot water: World sets ocean temperature record

Save the Planet, Save your Money, Call Jack

Want to do something good for the ocean and your wallet? Grab that favorite old board that you love, but is one step from the dumpster. If you live near Ventura, you are in luck! Jack Lester can give that old board a new life for a very good price. I have asked Jack to revive three of my boards, and after that big swell, one of them twice (broke a glassed in fin). Two of those boards were in really bad shape after years of my own repairs, but they have a new life now! He is an old school craftsman who takes pride in turning out the nicest repairs you'll see. He also builds custom boards! He showed me a beautiful paddleboard/longboard that he shaped and glassed for his wife. It is a really fun looking big board. Jack puts a custom carry nook next to the stringer on his big boards (if the customer wants one), so they are a breeze to get the beach. So do yourself a favor and have Jack Lester fix your boards if you are in the Ventura area. If you are not, find your local craftsman. For any that have trouble reading the scan of Jack's card, you can reach him at jacklester7770@sbcglobal.net

Occy In my Head

I have a little voice that gives me guidance. It is harsh, honest, and often obscene. Probably the result of years of wrestling, football, and rugby coaches' helpful hints. Surfing is both dynamic and solitary, so I can hear the voice well. It lets me know that taking off late on a steep wave was a poor choice. It suggests I take a look at the second wave of the set. When my duck dive is a little lazy and I narrowly avoid taking an unwanted ride, the voice points out how lucky I am not to have eaten it for no good reason.

Probably not the only guy in the lineup with a little voice. Who cares? But after getting into the World Championship Tour webcasts, a funny thing happened to my little voice. The voice never really belonged to anyone before but now it is Mark Occhilupo ragging and encouraging me. Odd but I could do a lot worse. Only happens when I shortboard; Occy doesn't seem to care about longboarding.
Occy is great on the Webcasts. Here is an example.

Update on Slater's new Tour

Check out Down The Line for the latest on Kelly Slater's ESPN centered new pro surfing tour.

Rueters Article on the Garbage Patch

Here's the link

Where do the Waves Come From?

Following the biggest summer swell in years (for SoCal) the waves backed down to chest high then knee high then less. Today and tomorrow we are expecting a little SW swell. Emphasis on little because the storm that spawned this swell was off New Zealand and had a track direction that will rob our area of some of the swell energy (angular spreading decay).

Where do the waves come from? Short answer, the Sun. Earth receives more heat along the equator than at the poles. Hot air rises and cold air sinks. The rising hot air has lower pressure and we call those areas "Lows" and vice versa. This would make for some very boring weather but Earth is tilted and it spins. The spin of the Earth separates the global circulation into bands such as the Tropical Easterlies (wind from the East) and the Mid Latitude Westerlies which cover the 48 states as well as Europe. From the interactions of cold air, warm air, moist air, and dry air we get storms. For a storm to produce surf, it needs some staying power so we normally look to big low pressure systems in the far North (winter) or South (summer). We also can get great surf from tropical systems (hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones). For a great explanation of how the winds from these storms become good surf, read Sean Collins explanation on Surfline:
So how do we get Surf?

For a book which goes much deeper into the science behind forecasting waves:
Wetsand Wavecast Guide to Surf Forecasting by Nathan Cool

Meteorology Today linked in the Amazon box on the right is great!
If you want to know more about all types of weather, this is the best textbook I ever used in any subject. My edition is about 15 years old, so hopefully it only got better. And a used copy might be much cheaper. Easy to understand explanations of every weather phenomena.