Surfing Rats

Tofu rips!

Sick and Surfless

Home sick today. No, actually sick, not faking to go surf. If it's any consolation, the swell had dropped a lot by this afternoon, which is the earliest I could've been on it. Now I have to wait for the weekend. Sigh. But here's a cool pic I found while web-surfing.

Too Much Work, Not Enough Play

My work schedule this week is crazier than usual, with early meetings - one at 7 am! - precluding any dawn patrols. So after junky conditions this weekend transform into a nice swell with morning offshores early in the week, I'll be stuck indoors miles from the ocean. I plan to sneak away for a midweek late afternoon sesh though, and hopefully the waves will wait for me.

Meanwhile, here's some interesting stuff from Surfrider's blog.

Linda Mar, 7 October 2008

Closed-out wall of whitewater

I met up with A at Linda Mar at barely dawn and brought my Xanadu and low expectations. Planning surf around work obligations had pushed my dp sesh this week from Monday to Tuesday, and then to Wednesday, when Surfline was calling for poor-fair and 4-7'. Still, it was just ahead of the predicted gusty winds, and I needed to get wet. Plus I wanted to finally surf with A, who's at about my level in shortboarding but whose schedule had never meshed with mine until now. Linda Mar didn't disappoint, offering up mostly unrideable waves much like the last time. And also like the last time, I didn't get lucky enough to catch one of the elusive shoulders, only managing to ride a little whitewater on the way in, blah.

One thing I realized (for at least the second time, guess I'm a slow learner) is that I need to be more patient in assessing conditions before I get in the water. By the time A and I were on the beach, I had less than a hour to surf, so with little evaluation, we plunged in for the paddle out. With still a ways to go to the lineup after a bunch of short-period duck dives (which A's about as good at as I am, meaning we both need more practice), I noticed an easier path, a gap in the walls of whitewater, about 30 yards to the left. So we belly-rode back to the beach, walked to the better spot, and got out quickly with only a few duck-dives. Next time, I'll take a few minutes to assess beforehand and not waste precious minutes. Although we did need the practice.

38th-35th Ave, 2 October 2008

Update: Here is the only news I've found online; the comments fill in some additional details. And Surfline has this. More on Tuesday's memorial paddle out is here (scroll to bottom). R.I.P. Mike.

I think a surfer died at the Hook today. When I walked past on my way back to the car, an ambulance was open at the side of the road and a fire truck blocked the parking lot. The crowd on the clifftop was looking intently down the beach instead of at the surfers. From the overlook, I could see a guy on his back next to a surfboard, a paramedic kneeling in the sand beside him, rhythmically compressing his bare chest. Twenty-five minutes later, after I'd changed, there were half a dozen emergency vehicles on the scene, and they were just closing up the ambulance. They weren't hurrying, and the siren didn't blare as they pulled away.

I can't find anything on the news yet. Was it a heart attack? Did he hit his head on a rock and drown? What if it had been high tide, with the beach underwater and access tricky? Could it happen to me out there? It's not often we have to confront an example of our mortality. I do hope he died happy and stoked by a nice last ride.

~~~

After that, it seems a little strange, perhaps too trivial, to write about my surf session. So here's an abbreviated form. Oh, and full disclosure, the photos are all from the Hook.

New wetsuit and the Xanadu. Paddled out at 38th. Yellowed fishy-smelling scum patches on the water. Sea otters, SUPers, spongers, dude wearing only boardshorts. Crowded. Nice set waves going overhead but all taken. Non-set waves mushy and moundy, breaking wherever they damn well please. No good spot to sit away from the pack. Tried right, tried left, tried 3 blocks farther west. Sideshore breeze pushing east, so paddle paddle west. Back hurts, better go. Caught one on the way in, but slow and hesitant on the pop-up, blew it. Kept heading in - but wait, caught one back there! Turn around, paddle back out. Caught another, too far inside, whitewater but what the hell, popped up and rode it - yay! Better ending, time to go.

No Bra Girls?

Last night I finished watching the Bra Boys DVD I got from Netflix. It's not the usual surf porn since it has an actual plot, focusing on the Bra Boys surf club from the hardscrabble Sydney neighborhood of Maroubra, in particular on the lives of the Abberton brothers. The "club" is a tight connection of disadvantaged boys, some grown into men, who with limited success avoid falling into crime and drugs by surfing.

I hadn't watched for very long when I was struck by the absence of girls and women. As an engineer, I'm used to being one of a few or even the only woman in a room, but this was notable. The surf footage was only of guys (not surprising in itself), and long shots of the club members posed at the beach showed a sea of only male faces. Other than "Ma," the elderly matriarch whose home was the de facto club house, plus a brief scene with a couple of grommet mothers and two girls playing pattycake, there were no females in the film. (I'm not counting the few seconds of a stripper and the faceless girl in the car during the shooting.) Can the Bra Boys' lives really be so male-centered, so focused on the brotherhood? Are there no gidgets in Maroubra who also want to surf the break in their backyard? Or is this just filmmaker bias?

Coming on the heels of making hotel reservations for our trip next month and finding Ms. unavailable as a title choice, I am wondering if I'll find Australia a more chauvinistic place than the US. And curious about what that would translate to on the water.

Cyclops... Koby Abberton is crazy to surf this wave.