Santa Cruz Coast, Then and Now

The coast off of West Cliff Drive in 1909 and now
More on our oceans in crisis.

40 Degrees and Killer Tomatoes

This may be my last post. I'm about to do something very brave - eat a raw tomato.

It never ceases to amaze me how the collective conscious blows tiny risks completely out of proportion while ignoring larger ones. 200 people over 2 months have been sickened by tomatoes – out of untold tomato eaters across the country who enjoyed their meals without incident – and suddenly we cannot purchase any tomatoes at all? One clueless crazy guy tries to light off his shoe on a plane, and forevermore we must walk barefoot through airport security? Not to mention the fear of men in gray suits, who in reality attack very infrequently. Apply this logic to cars, and we would all be walking everywhere; they are far more dangerous than vegetables and flip-flops. Strangely I cannot recall ever hearing that restaurants stopped serving all beef products during the more frequent outbreaks of meat-borne illness. Society is wildly irrational, but I object when it imposes its silly fears on my life.

Two restaurants this week have prevented me from taking the dangerous risk of consuming a tomato, but my Tofurky sandwich just wouldn’t be the same without a juicy red slice. Fortunately we still have a few illicit vegetables in the refrigerator, purchased nearly a week ago before the irrational fear of produce reached its frothy pinnacle of panic. And we surfers are risk takers, after all, so here I go, taking a nice big bite of killer tomato! Mmmm.

Yesterday I planned to surf HMB again or Linda Mar, before the Surfrider meeting at the Montara Lighthouse. And indeed, the wind and waves looked to be amenable. But at the last minute S decided to come with me, so I took him to dinner at the Half Moon Bay Inn instead. When we left Palo Alto, it was 95 degrees and sunny. Thirty miles away, the coast was 55 degrees and partly foggy. No wondering the wind howls so often at this time of year.

Alas, not only was the HMB Inn Kitchen & Cocktails restaurant still out of ciabatta bread as they have been for a month, they were also out of aioli, and had rid their kitchen of all traces of evil tomatoes. None for sandwiches and no tomato vegetable soup – although ketchup was somehow still on offer. Our vegan burgers were thus pathetic shadows of their former delicious selves. It may be time to find another favorite coastside restaurant.

HMB @ Jetty, 11 June 2008

I was planning on a trip to Santa Cruz this morning, but M reported that the Jetty's been fun, so I took the shorter drive there instead. There were only a few people out when I arrived, and it was a beautiful sunny morning, nearing 60 degrees. Thankfully I had also headed M's warning about the upwelling and came kitted out in my warmest layers, because the water was damn COLD! Quite a contrast from Santa Cruz. As I paddled out on the Xanadu, whitewash heading towards me, my brain said "I should duck-dive this for practice," but my body said "Nooo! Too cold!" And indeed when my head did get submerged later, I got a huge instant icecream headache.

The waves were up to about shoulder-high but inconsistent and mixed up, with many looking paddly-worthy that would just mound into mushy humps. It was a bit of a challenge finding a good place to sit, but eventually I caught a wave, popped up a little early but made the drop - it was only 4', OK maybe only 3', but it was steep, and it felt exhilarating to make it! - then the wave closed out in a crash and tossed me. It was followed by a couple friends I tried to duck-dive; made one, blew the other, and got the aforementioned headache from the icy water. About then there was an invasion of SUPers - well, only 2, but they were taking most of the waves, dammit, making me back off. The regular surfer crowd was growing too. When I looked at my new watch, I was surprised that only half an hour had passed, but I could no longer feel my pinkies and several of my toes. I lasted a bit longer, till my teeth were chattering, and went in. I know, I'm a wimp. I really should put on some body fat like a seal so I can better stand the cold. Nah.

Tide Watches, Part II

Over a month ago, I bought a new tide watch to replace the analog Rip Curl Pacific Tidemaster I've have for a few years. The pickings are slim for girls' tide watches, unfortunately, and I have very small wrists so guys' watches are just too big. The silver Tidemaster looks pretty, dressy enough for work, but it's always been hard to read, since the hands don't contrast enough with the mother-of-pearl face. And forget reading it at night; the luminescence wears off quickly, and only lights up the outer ring of dots, not the hands, which is useless. Worse, the tides are not all that accurate, only ballparkish, with the best correlation if I set the tide dial during the middle of a moon cycle (between new and full).So I decided to go digital, and Rip Curl still seemed to offer the best choices. The womens' Waikiki Tide (above right) is much more readable than the Tidemaster, which is a plus, but unfortunately the face is not all that small and it has a wide band, like they just molded a men's band from white plastic instead of black. Hello - it's a girl's watch, how about sizing it for girl's wrists? I must have misread the description because I thought I'd be able to set the tides to a certain location, but instead I have to program a future high tide and it just times it from that. So it's no more accurate than the analog. With all the computing power they can jam into an iPhone, I don't understand why they can't get more features into a watch. And make it smaller.

Well, it turns out they can, and Freestyle has, the Tide 3.0G (above left). In Part I, did say I'd never buy a Freestyle watch because I found their ad insulting, but after Chad from Freestyle left a comment, I decided not to hold their ad agency's poor wording against them. And I think that was a good decision. In a way it was fortunate that Rip Curl makes a defective product, because I ended up with a much better watch from Freestyle.

Here's what went wrong with the Rip Curl Waikiki Tide. The watch comes in white or light blue, neither of which got me excited, but I bought the white one. Within weeks of normal use, I noticed the exterior of the band was looking gray and dirty. I tried to clean it with various products but it still looked like crap, so I contacted Rip Curl to ask if there was something else I should try. The company responded with this:
"Unfortunately nothing can be done to restore the band back to its original color besides replacing the band. Its nothing that your [sic] doing wrong. The light color of the band causes it to get dirty alot easier than most bands."

I was surprised that they were seemingly admitting to a design defect, but it still left me stuck with a dirty-looking watch. And what - I'm supposed to send it in to Rip Curl once a month to have the custom band replaced? Against their protests, I'll return the watch to the online retailer who sold it to me, and try to get a credit from Visa.

I stopped by REI after work yesterday and picked up a black Freestyle Tide 3.0G. It's way better than the Rip Curl. First, it's preprogrammed with years of tide data for many beaches. Locally, the choices are Ocean Beach and Santa Cruz, with Mavericks thrown in just for the wow factor I suppose (since the number of women - or men for that matter - who need that information is slim indeed). You can downselect a bunch of favorites to easily switch between locations. And you can press a button to advance through upcoming and past tides too, which is very handy. Thus far my only complaint is that the plastic band is stiff and doesn't conform well to my tiny wrist.

My favorite feature, which is purely gimmicky, is on the Big Time display. Big Time increases the font size so the time fills 2/3 of the face, a plus when you need reading glasses like I do. The top 1/3 is left open for a shark fin that "swims" by at the start of every minute - to the right on even minutes, and to the left on odd ones. It's silly, but I know I'll be watching for it when I'm stuck in boring meetings.

The saga continues in Part III.

38th Ave, 7 June 2008

Once again my old surfing buddy D had good advice for me. I was feeling discouraged since I hadn't ridden a wave in so very very long, and he told me to take out my longboard to get my stoke back. It was an excellent suggestion - stoke restored!

Actually, there wasn't much choice on which surfboard to use if I wanted to get wet this weekend. Strong winds continue to plague San Mateo County beaches, blowing out the head-high surf. Although I later heard HMB Jetty wasn't bad this morning, it's too long of a drive to risk it all on the chance of one break possibly being good. Santa Cruz was forecast to be clean and only 1-3', but with the longboard I figured I'd find something. A negative low in the morning pushed my start into the more crowded time, and I got into the water just west of 38th at around 11 am. I'd relied on N's report that the water's warmed up some, and he was right. The 4/3 wetsuit was just fine and it was nice not to have the bulk of the 5/3. Air temp in the 60s and lots of sunshine helped too.

I caught a wave almost as soon as I got out, popped up perfectly, and was starting to make my bottom turn when - dammit! - there was a kook right in my way. I tried to maneuver around him, but I haven't ridden the LB in so long, I wasn't successful and bailed to keep from hitting him. At least I managed that. He apologized so I couldn't really be mad, but it would've been a sweet ride.

I'd forgotten that I'm not half bad on a longboard. This put me in a unexpected situation: being better than a significant number of people in the crowded lineup. There were a lot of beginners in the water, and I was catching waves they couldn't. A good feeling, and a real confidence-booster.

Even though the tide had risen for a few hours off of the negative low, kelp was really an issue. I had to point out to the kook who blocked my wave that he was trailing a big hunk from his leash, and then found myself having to frequently untangle. Worse, on one wave I ran into a patch of unavoidable kelp speed-bumps; one of them stopped my fin cold and I went flying off the front.

Just like when I try to keep track of laps while swimming, after a while I forgot where I was on my wave count. Somewhere around 6-8 and I was only out a little over an hour, the best sesh I've had in a very long time. Not that they were all good by any means, and most were short since I was sitting inside. But I got one really nice ride with some decent turns, even kicked out the back at the end, although I didn't manage to sit down gracefully on the board. Next time. Woo-hoo!

On Surflessness and Sharks

I was in Vegas for a long weekend (Vulcan Mind Melds kick ass!), but returned to the spring pattern of too much wind in San Mateo County and too little swell in Santa Cruz. And now it's been - OMG! more than 3 weeks since I've gotten wet, much longer since I've actually caught a ride. That sucks. This weekend promises more of the same, but I'm getting in the water, regardless.

A young guy from San Francisco was recently killed by a shark in Mexico just after he arrived on a surf trip. I didn't know him, but there's a paddle-out at Linda Mar on Monday. Sadly he bled to death, too long from medical attention to be saved. That's one scary thing about surfing in a remote location, or by myself at Montara, for that matter. But it's been so long, I'd risk it now!