Shiny! (Cowells)

No, the waves weren't shiny, but my new surfboard is!

And how cool is this?

Surfing was fun too. Steamer Lane was pumping...

...but I took my longboard out for a quick sunset session at Cowells.

It was messier and bigger than last time, but still lots of good rides to be had. The outside peak was crowded with wave hogs, so I sat on the inside and caught reforms, mostly lefts since many people were going right. It made for shorter long rides but I had more waves to myself, and got some nice ones before I headed to Arrow to pick up the new surfboard, a copy of Beth's magic board. They said I could ride it right away, but that it would be stronger in the long run if cured in a warm place for several more days. I guess I can wait until Sunday to take it for a spin.

"Chasing Waves" Review

Before we left for our southern hemi vacation, I read the first half of Amy Waeschle's book Chasing Waves: A Surfer's Tale of Obsessive Wandering. At home sick today, I finished the rest while half-watching the Quiksilver Eddie Aikau, a big wave surf contest that, like Mavericks, failed to include even one woman competitor.

Amy tells the story of her journey from enthusiastic newbie to confident surfer, painted with rich detail against the backdrops of varied surf spots from Mexico and Costa Rica to the Pacific Northwest and Portugal. Here are a few highlights to give you a taste of the book.

As a frustrated beginner on a trip to Kauai, Amy laments that with all the time she's spending underwater, she should have asked for a surfboard equipped with a snorkel. In Fiji, she's the lone female on the boat, but like me, due to her choice of professions, she's no stranger to being in that minority.

Amy's husband also surfs, and they plan a trip to Costa Rica. She assumes that a "surfing blitz would help calm my obsession," but even without her forewarning, we know that won't be the case. She's surprised when the instructor at Witch's Rock Surf Camp pronounces that she is in no need of further lessons, but instead should just get out there and surf. Then at Ollie's Point, Amy finds her perfect wave and draws the reader into riding it with her:

"When I dream of surfing now, I dream of Ollie's. I didn't just catch one or two perfect rides, I caught dozens and dozens. I'd paddle one-two-three and slide onto the soft, perfectly pitched slope, hopping to my feet to watch the pale blue wall rise up and extend into forever, my fingers raking the warm water at my side, my grin stretching my sunburnt cheeks. And I would fly, fly, fly, riding the wave until I began to wonder if in fact it had no end. When the ride faded, I aimed my body up and out, and as the lip crumbled into foam at my heels I would be prone, paddling with ease for the outside.

Surfing at a lonely spot in the Northwest with her husband and a friend, Amy is jet-propelled from the water by a man on the beach yelling "shark!" As she has herself alluded to the overblown dangers of the Landlord to dissuade others from surfing her cold-water breaks, she deems it "karmic paypack" when the supposed sighting turns out to have been a ruse to allow the man and his son to surf the break alone. In Italy, Amy encounters barely-populated breaks with no localism. She speculates that perhaps the area has been spared surfing's dark side because "big-name professional surfers have never traveled to Sicily, bringing aggression and territorialism with them the way the Pilgrims brought smallpox."

Having camped beside good surf only to find it vanished overnight, Amy imparts a lesson I've learned but sometimes forget, as does she: "the surf you see in any given moment is just that, a moment. It won't last. It may not be there in the morning. If you see good surf, you forget your plans, you forget your needs... and you surf. Not in an hour, not in the morning, but right then."

Chasing Waves is a short read at only 165 pages, but an entertaining way to pass an afternoon traveling another surfer's path.

Unusual Signs and Sights from Down Under

Sharks don't like Christmas. (Sky City, Auckland)

But people used to call them? (New Zealand Maritime Museum)

Live long and prosper. (Auckland)

Uh, yeah. Sure. (KMart-ish store in Auckland)

Run for your life! (Whatipu, New Zealand)

Ah, the good old days! (Russell, New Zealand)

We don't need all your stinkin' rules! (Raglan, New Zealand)

Lifesaving brought to you by Boeing and DHL. (Bondi, Australia)

In the days before sunscreen, long dresses at the beach. (Bondi, Australia)

Plastic bottles reincarnated as a Christmas tree. (Sydney)

Oh, no, Mr. Tumnus has turned to stone! (Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney)

Flows to beach. (Manly, Australia)

Surf Camera Case Review

When I bought a full-featured waterproof digital camera, a Pentax Optio W80, to replace my disappointing GoPro Wrist Hero, I needed an on-the-water carrying solution. Googling was complicated by the plethora of plastic waterproof cases, when I was instead looking for someplace to safely stow the impervious camera and keep it attached to my person underwater and in the surf.

My search turned up only the Surf Camera Case, which looks pretty good on paper (or rather, on computer monitor). It mounts to the upper chest area of a wetsuit, secures the camera with both a lanyard and a float, and has an opening for the lens to allow recording of photos or video while surfing on a wave. My early reluctance was that attaching the case would require punching two holes through my wetsuit, but the product's website claimed this would not decrease water-tightness. Lacking other options, I plunked down $40 (rather steep, but at the moment there's no real competition).

Unfortunately, the Surf Camera Case has some big design flaws. Major ones can be seen in the photo. There is a spacer glued onto the front of the mounting plate (perhaps they didn't manufacture the mount to the right thickness) which debonded after I used the case maybe half a dozen times. Luckily the mount broke apart in the parking lot so i didn't lose the camera in the water. Another recurrent issue is that the retractable lanyard is not made for water applications and rusts after a few uses, seizing up and failing to respool into its case, despite post-surf freshwater rinses. To their credit, Surfer Shot quickly sent replacement components, but for the repeatedly rusting lanyards, I would need to be on a monthly re-issue plan. I can report, however, that the lanyard does its job; I once had to duck-dive with the camera out of the case, and the lanyard kept it with me.

But wait, there's more! Although I wear a rashguard underneath, the mounting plate bruises my chest. The orange float gets in the way while paddling. And remember those two holes I had to punch in my wetsuit to attach the case? Despite claims to the contrary, I think they do cause some leakage. Not to mention the mount must remain attached at all times to block the holes, and the case can't be transferred to another wetsuit without a screwdriver. The window is nice but inconveniently there is no access to camera controls such as "record" or "on/off" while it's in the case. And it takes some force to push the camera into the case and to pull it out again, best accomplished as a two-handed operation.

With the surge of affordable waterproof cameras, a well-designed case for surfing and other active water sports is an invention waiting to happen. Still waiting; the Surf Camera Case ain't it.

"Yoga for Surfers" DVD Series Review

Yoga is not a sport.
Yoga is not a competition.
Yoga is not a religion.
Yoga is a tool
To help you live better
And to help you surf better.
- Peggy Hall, Yoga for Surfers Vol. II

Several years ago I started doing yoga, and it has significantly improved my balance and flexibility for surfing. I've collected all three of the DVDs in the Yoga for Surfers series by Peggy Hall.

In each video, Peggy is flanked by pro surfers including Taylor Knox and Rochelle Ballard (who has just released her own DVD, Surf Into Yoga). Demonstrations of the poses, often performed oceanside, are interspersed with surfing footage.

On a recent morning, I awoke achy from the previous day's intense shortboarding session, which had me pushing through a lot of duck-dives using muscles grown lazy on small summer waves. The post-surf segment in YFS V1 was just the ticket to get the kinks out. The DVD also has pre-surf and on-the-water chapters. Peggy and crew demonstrate some warm-up stretches to get you loosened up on the beach before you paddle out. Once in the water, if you can remember them (or have a waterproof case on your iPod), you can practice some yoga moves on your board to stretch and release tired muscles.

YSF V2: Fluid Power Yoga is my favorite of the series, the one I've played so often I almost have it memorized. Chapters include Spinal Warm-Up, Vinyasa Flow, Balancing/Relaxation, and bonus techniques to increase lung capacity. As I'm often pressed for time, I mostly do the first and last segments which clock in under 15 minutes. When I'm less busy and feeling energetic, I'll burn through the Vinyasa Flow segment as well. If you only buy one of the YSF series, get this one.

More advanced yoga practitioners may want to pick up YSF VIII: Unleashed, which features chapters called Fit, Focused and Fearless. While there is just one pose in V2 that's too hard for me, V3 has quite a few contortions that I can't even understand how to do. Maybe I'll get there one day, but for now, I'm happy with V2. Namaste.

And the Stoke Goes On (HMB Jetty)

I was getting the shivers just thinking about how cold the air and water would be at the Jetty this morning, both near 50 degrees (10 C). But it wasn't so bad in my 5/4 wetsuit with integral hood, new gloves and thick booties.

Good rides were had by all, including Manabu on his quad, Luke on his Harbour, and me on Beth's magic board (hopefully for the last time; my copy should be ready next week). After some initial flopping about and one spectacular pearl, I got several nice rides, including one that lasted from around the sewer pipes almost to the log. I even made a challenging drop, described by Luke as epic for its late takeoff. Fun!

A really, really huge swell is forecast for next week; there's talk of possibly holding the Mavericks big wave contest on Tuesday. We'll see if this swell lives up to the hype, but there may be no water-time for the rest of us ordinary surfers until next weekend.

Surfing by Moonlight (Cowells)

After the Southern Hemi wave drought, I was sorely in need of a stoke restoration session. So I headed to Cowells with my big blue longboard for a sunset surf on a negative low tide.

I caught too many waves to count. Many good rides. Loooong rides. Mostly frontside lefts. Woo-hoo! The vibe at Cowells was friendly and lots of people were smiling at me. I thought, gee that's nice, but then realized I had a stoke smile stuck to my face!

The Surf Camera Case (a product I do not recommend) mounts to a wetsuit on the upper chest and has an opening to allow video/photo recording while surfing. I played around with that for the first time today:

 

There's another video here. These weren't my best rides, but it's a fun perspective. (Hmm, maybe it's time for some clean new wax?)

I stayed out until the near-full moon was shining bright along with a few early stars in the deep twilight sky. The shot below was taken with the Pentax in night-photo mode, for which it suggests a tripod. Since instead I was being knocked in the knees by waves, it's blurry in an artsy way.

Barefoot Surfing (North and South Steyne)

We had planned two nights in Australia's Blue Mountains but bailed a day early to get back to the beach. Although Coastalwatch claimed the surf was only 0.5m, a morning walk in Manly toward the south end of the beach brought the eye candy of guys getting barreled in translucent green-blue water. (Sad to say, operator error botched the videos.)

Don, Australia's Mr. Realsurf and a transplanted Santa Barbaran, joined me mid-morning for a surf at North Steyne where the waves were a bit smaller and more suited to my skill level. It was a glorious warm sunny day, and a treat to surf without gloves, hood or booties. Unfortunately, aside from the unaccustomed 70-degree water, the break reminded me of Linda Mar on a typical day. It was crowded, with many waves that either looked promising but turned into moundy mush, or sucked up sand and closed out with a crash. Alas, I caught nada. But tomorrow is another day, and there's time for one last surf before we fly home to SFO.

I did get to try out the Ola Chica "wipeout-proof" bikini while bodysurfing, and can report that it passed that test with no wardrobe malfunctions. The real trial will have to be on a tropical surf vacation, perhaps in Hawaii.

To beat the crowds, Don agreed to meet me for a 5:30 am dawn patrol and showed up on the dot. The swell had dropped considerably but still offered up waist- to shoulder-high waves. At that early hour on a Saturday, the crowd was much lighter, and we picked an empty peak at South Steyne for ourselves. It didn't have a catchable shoulder and we had to paddle constantly against a south drift to stay right on the peak where it was makeable. Oz showed me a little love on my last day; I got a couple decent though short rides, pulling off one turn and then two.

In front of the camera: above with Don by Scott, below by Don with his waterproof Panasonic Lumix.

Bare feet on the board was a pleasure, and I've become quite spoiled on warm-water surfing. But all good things (and vacations) must come to an end, and now it's back to cold autumn in NorCal. There was a picture in the Sydney newspaper this morning of supposedly 9m waves at Ocean Beach, so surf's up, waaay up. Crossing the International Date Line makes me live Saturday twice, just like Groundhog Day. So in theory, having surfed Australia Saturday morning, I could surf Santa Cruz Saturday afternoon - both Hemis in one day. But I'll have to see how I feel after 13 hours trapped in a flying tin can.

Much to my dismay, when it came time to pack up my surfboard for the flight home, the fitted foam rail guards (pipe insulation) and giant bubble wrap bag were nowhere to be found. I must have left them behind at the hotel in Bondi. D'oh! All of our t-shirts and other soft clothes pulled from the dirty laundry will hopefully provide enough protection within the travel board bag.

I'd like to go back to Oz again sometime, but not until the exchange rate improves considerably. Since our visit last year, the Aussie dollar rose 40% against US currency. We had to pay nearly US$2 for a single banana! One thing for sure, I'm not eager to fly Qantas again. Not only did they temporarily lose our checked bags, the in-flight entertainment systems malfunctioned on both trans-Pacific flights, partially on the way there and nearly completely on the way back. Fortunately I've learned to bring my own entertainment as well as food and water as the airlines can't be relied upon anymore for even the basics. On the plus side, Qantas never charged me a surfboard fee, and mostly forgot to have me sign the damage waiver as well.

Update: Nemo made it home on time and in good health. The wax didn't even melt, so it's on with some cold water Matunas and back into the chilly NorCal surf for the both of us.