EXPOSURE Inspires

The EXPOSURE women's skate event was inspirational. It got me to the park in Ocean Beach for the first time in probably a couple months. I'm rusty and out of shape!

Ross Field Skate Park this morning. And that's how skaters do memorials.

What inspired me was seeing other girls of all ages and abilities skating. Groms (if they're called that in skateboarding) were boosting airs, and I can't wait to see what rad moves they're capable of in five or ten more years. Then there were the seniors, a few women over 50, who were taking their first tentative pushes around the flats. And the pro women were absolutely ripping. Truly inspirational.

This little Pink Helmet Posse girl had the biggest smile when she pulled a fakie with the help of a friend.

Front-row seats - this was the view from our Surfrider Rise Above Plastics booth.

Ready, set...

Go!

Commit.

Amelia Brodka

Flying

Halloweenified

I surfed this morning in cat ears and made a few people smile. Google Halloweenified the photo and made me smile.

Surfline's Pacific Beach cam is stuck in a weird orientation (and wouldn't show the south side of the pier in any event), but you can see the waves weren't scary. And that they were a little bit fun. Happy Halloween!

You Deserve a Name

While the swell came up overnight, the period dropped below 10 seconds. Since it was hitting from almost due west, I knew the beach breaks would be closed out, but wasn't really sure what to expect at the La Jolla reefs.

Straight out from Calumet Park, the ocean was churning, mixed up waves sloshing unrideably at my usual spot off the main peak. They lined up a bit better farther south and also at Sewers, which had fewer surfers out. I mentally tossed a coin on swimming vs. surfing and then Hennemans vs. Sewers, and then picked the latters.

There were four guys in the lineup, including a couple I'd seen there several times before. An older longboarder paddled nearby and smiled. "You've been surfing here enough," he said, "you deserve a name. I'm Rick." I told him mine and he pointed to a shortboarder I'd chatted with on Saturday. "That's Mike." He gave me the names of the two longboarders sitting outside, which flew over my head like pelicans and were gone, as always when I'm introduced to too many people at once.

It was nice to be welcomed into the morning surfer circle. That spirit of aloha and sharing waves makes the session so much more enjoyable. We chatted in between attempts to catch the mushy, shifty, backed-off waves. Turns out Rick is a shaper, and Mike and one of the other guys were taking boards he'd made on their maiden surfs, with encouraging results. My own results were less than stellar, with a couple middling rides and one head-high drop Mike called "wicked"- I got the bottom turn in, he saw, but then my board went airborne as I failed to negotiate a big mogul that suddenly appeared in the face.

I stayed out much longer than planned, trying for one good wave (which is one of the 10 Signs You're Addicted to Surfing), and had to nervously negotiate a return to the steep cobblestone beach at a nearly 6' high tide through mid-period swell. Fortunately I timed it right. I'm looking forward to hopefully better waves and the same company tomorrow.

RIP Seal Bite

Three days ago, a 67-year-old surfer died at my favorite reef break, apparently of natural causes. I've been surfing there a lot over the past couple of months, and wondered if I'd ever seen him. The photos accompanying news reports were either too distant or obscured his features, leaving me in the dark.

This morning I paddled out at 7, the same time he'd arrived on Wednesday. Since the tide was rising fast to a high high, I hurried past the impromptu memorial of flowers, photos and notes on the north side of Calumet Park.

There were a handful of surfers at Hairmos and a couple heading to Sewers, but no one at Hennemans, so you know which spot I chose. The enticing scent of tortillas baking in one of the clifftop mansions floated on the slightest offshore breeze. Solitude didn't last beyond a couple of waves, but the several near-dawn patrollers who joined me were friendly and talkative.

The waves were small and shifty yet fun, and I remembered to smile so I'd surf better. (Really! Read about that here.) I rode my last left nearly to shore, crossed the cobbles, and started up the cliff path. Ever since I slipped soon after I started surfing this break, I've half-run up the steepest park to the top, using momentum to keep me going, and that's worked every time - except today.

Two months ago, I wrote this in my blog:

The dirt trail to the top of the bluff is also a bit tricky. Not only is it steep, but there's a constant trickle of water dribbling down that turns the footing to slippery mud. (Which is odd, because we're in the middle of the drought, and other than a couple of freak thunderstorms a while ago, we haven't had rain in a long time.) Near the top, one of my feet lost purchase and I barely stopped the slide with my free hand. 

"Want to give me your hand?" said a voice from above, and I looked up to see a longboarder offering his. I raised my muddy paw and he hoisted me up the last few steps. The nice dude told me the trail's always been wet, since he was a kid, due to a natural spring. Perhaps that also explains the brownness of the water there. But hey, I'll take muddy reef break over closed-out beach break any day of the week!

This morning I tipped forward into the dirt and came to an abrupt stop. My feet scrambled for an upward toehold but I found none at first on the slippery slope. I glanced up, half hoping to see an extended hand; there was only sky. I tried once more and got a grip, then scurried the last few steps to the top. Back in the park, I took a look at the photos of Stephen Saburo Fujii, nicknamed "Seal Bite" because one nipped him years ago. I can't be certain, but I think he's the guy I met on the trail in August.

RIP, Seal Bite. I hope your last wave was a great one.

The Orange Bucket

Today was a rare day when I didn't take the time to check the surf before I grabbed my board and shut my key into the lockbox hanging from my car door handle. The tide was dropping and I didn't want to delay. Nothing was breaking as I picked my way carefully down the steep path to the cobblestone beach, but a couple dudes had just paddle out, one heading to Sewers and the other to Henneman's. Must be something out there to ride, right?

Eh, not so much. The waves were small, soft and breaking shallow. I spotted an orange bucket on the beach at the base of the cliffs, just below where a few-million-dollar La Jolla house had been torn down and workers were busy preparing to erect a many-million-dollar mansion. Surfrider has a plastic art contest going on for Rise Above Plastics Month, and I decided to fetch said bucket to perhaps use in my sculpture. Not that I have much hope of winning the contest, which has a top prize of a Firewire surfboard. After all, this is not my entry:

Fish made from plastic beach trash at the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito

This is (so far):

Mostly it's made from trash I collected at Surfrider's cleanup of Goat Canyon in Border Field State Park the weekend before last, with a few additions from Hennemen's: the "scarf" is a plastic bag that tangled around my leash like a strand of immortal seaweed. The border cleanup was a real eye-opener; we were within a mile of the beach, and there was an amazing amount of trash poised to wash into the ocean with the first heavy rains. Because garbage doesn't respect border fences.

Mexico is on the other side of the fence, but the trash is here

But I digress. After chatting a bit with the other dude at the main peak, about how us goofyfooters love it there and the appeal of Garbage (the break) at Sunset Cliffs, I finally caught a stoke-worthy wave and decided to end on a high note. Paying heed to the reef that was nearing the surface on the dropping tide, I made my way to shore, set Rocket gently on the stones, and walked back a bit to get the orange bucket. I picked up a few bits of trash and my board, then painfully stepped toward the cliff path on shifting cobblestones, stopping for more detritus along the way. By the time I reached the ascension point, I'd filled the bucket to almost overflowing, with two balloons, two straws, a potato chip wrapper, a fiberglass strip perhaps from a surfboard deck, a knee pad, one plastic Starbucks cup, a golf ball and odd bits of plastic.

A fitness coach and her charge saw me emptying the lot into a trash can at Calumet Park, and thanked me for doing a little cleanup. They got to talking about the gyres, and I politely corrected their misperception that they're floating islands of recognizable trash, explaining that sunlight photodegrades plastic into smaller and smaller pieces like this:

Photodegraded plastic is hard to clean up on land and impossible in the ocean

but the little bits never go away (at least not for 450-1000 years). I left them on a positive note from a film my Rise Above Plastics committee screened a couple months ago: scientists may have found a bacteria that eats the tiny plastic fragments in the gyre. Maybe they'll save us from ourselves.

Nice Ending

"How about this? It's October 17th, and we're surfing in board shorts!" - one longboarder to another

"Yeah! Nice." - surfer paddling out as I swished by him on my last and best wave