The Next Wave

What's in the old quiver ...

Couple of folks asked me what boards I surf on ... Well ... I have a bunch (eight in my garage right now) ... but as with anything else, it feels like I could always have more :-) I think my three favorite boards are:

1. A 9-0 Yater longboard (unfortunately, it belongs to my wife and I rarely get to ride it )
2. A 9-6 Gerry Lopez "Noserider" ... amazingly good board on bigger (steeper) waves ... probably has something to do with a certain Banzai Pipeline influence
3. An 8-2 Rusty "I'm-not-sure-what-it-is" board. It's not really a funboard as it's shaped like a thruster (but bigger). Perhaps more in the category of a "Big Guy Tri" (which makes sense given my size). Nice thing is that it floats me fairly well yet given my size (I'm 6'-7" and weigh around 235) I can whip that thing around as easily as the young guns can on their little Merricks)

So what am I missing ? I would really like to add a Twinzer to the rack (I looked at some L&M Twinzers right before Clark Foam went under ... by the time I came back from a business trip, Clark was out and the boards were a heck of lot more expensive). Supposedly, Kane Garden will be making the same boards (but not with foam) ... I'm doubtful but will have to demo one to see how it handles. The other is a good 10+ footer ... a friend of mine who shapes boards comes up every summer from Baja (where he lives) ... before he left he said he would love to make a board for me (and I'm going to hold him to it). Looking forward to taking the Rusty to Australia at the end of the month ... might rent a long board as well (I'd take my longboard as well, but given the smaller aircraft I'll be taking on this trip, anything bigger than 8' can be a problem ... it's also a bit more trouble hauling that board around between airport and hotel ... ) Post-Australia, I'm going to Brazil, but it will be Sao Paulo and unfortunately I won't get anywhere near the ocean ... however ... I'm making arrangements to go to Represa Guarapiranga while I'm there (it's a big lake right near the city) and will bring my wakeboard (did I not mention that I do that too ?) Until next time sports fans ... Posted by brewin Mar 06 2006, 03:21:33 PM PST Permalink

"Big Wednesday"

There was, of course, the movie "Big Wednesday", what I consider probably the best of the fictional surf movies out there (of course there is "Blue Crush" ... a movie my wife likes almost as well (but she also prefers Big Wednesday), but very recently, there was a series of swells which lit up the California coast, the best day being Dec 21st (surprise, surprise ... a Wednesday). To get an idea of how some of that looked, here are some pictures. Have there been other days with waves this size ? Sure ... pretty much every winter. The difference this time was the swell direction which instead of coming from the North West (as usual this time of year), the swell came pretty much right out of the West and as a result, breaks all up and down the coast came alive (with some amazing results). That coupled with favorable winds made it a great day to surf (or for most of us, look at the surf). I almost went out, but after watching a couple of guys spend half an hour paddling into the surf (and not getting anywhere except about a 1/2 mile further down the coast), about a dozen broken surfboards and scores of rescues, I figured it was better to just watch from the shore.

The interesting thing about this series of storms in San Diego from mid-December through early January is what it's done to the topography of the breaks around town. A lot of sand has been moved around and as a result, a lot of my favorite breaks have changed (sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse). Waves are quite susceptible to a number of factors, the underwater topography is just one of them, but when sand shifts, rocks get exposed and because of changes at breaks further away modify the currents running alongside the shore, what used to be a world-class break might become nothing worth surfing.

Will those favorite breaks return to normal ? Will the sand come back. Sure... in pretty much all cases, year after year, most do. There are exceptions of course ... I remember going to Black's Beach below Torrey Pines when I was a kid ... what is now a couple of famous peaks used to be a solid ridable break from end to end ... but with the collapse of areas of the cliffs, changes to water runoff because of building on top of the cliffs and the shifting of sand as a result into the deep water canyon off the coast (never to return), the old Black's Beach will likely never be the same (at least not in sub-geological terms). Unfortunately, while nature constantly moves sand about and generates these cycles of topography change and wave changes, what we do is more or less permanent. Case in point ... the Trestles Toll Road.

In Southern California, there is a proposal to build a toll road extension connecting highway 241 (an existing toll road) to Interstate 5. As a result, this road will likely completely change the flow of sediment which comes from the San Mateo creek, the natural way in which a surf area called Trestles is replenished and maintained. Trestles is considered one of the few "world-class" breaks in California and if this toll road is built not only will the wave quality be severely diminished (likely ruined) but the runoff will most likely result in further pollution in one of the last pristine areas we have left in Southern California.

<sigh>

So I don't normally do this, but if you are a surfer (or even if you aren't) and feel like this is yet another case where over-development in California is running rampant and destroying the delicate ecology along our coast, spread the word (and if you have the means, make your opinion known to those who have the power to "say no").

 

 

Posted by brewin Jan 22 2006, 09:22:50 PM PST Permalink

What's Up, Dudes ?

Yesterday, someone said to me "well ... you look like a surfer, but you certainly don't act like one ..."

It's a funny thing being known as a "surfer" and sometimes the image or conceptual model it creates in peoples minds when they think of you... and it's usually not a positive one (although the tan you can get looks really, really good). I think I blame Hollywood for that. Although all the Gidget movies were actually pretty tame, movies like "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" brought you Jeff Spicoli, and while this was a great performance by Shawn Penn, it created an image of the surfer as a "stoner" and waste of human tissue ("All I need is a cool buzz, some tasty waves, and I'm fine...").

A possibly interesting but pointless fact ... at my home break in San Diego, I'm in the water fairly regularly with a really nice lady who just so happens used to be the young girl who did stunt doubling for "Gidget goes Hawaiian" way back when : Linda Benson ... read the article ... a "Spicoli" she is definitely not ...

The truth is that, sure while there are a few of the Spicoli variant wandering about, most of those don't actually surf (they just hang out at the beach). It takes physical stamina, coordination, endurance and mental alertness to surf ... Jeff Spicoli in real life would eventually find out (personally) about Darwinian theories related to survival of the fittest.

For example, my wife also surfs ... and is a member of a women's surf club in San Diego. The women in this club (young and old) include attorneys, doctors, educators, entrepreneurs and women who work in the computer field, journalism and as students. They are all extremely bright, capable an hard working people and the notion that being a surfer equates to inherent laziness or sloth is misplaced (in fact, I usually have to get up at 5AM if I want to go surfing on a weekday so I can make it back to work by 8AM or so ... and usually, when I'm out in the line-up at 6AM, I'm out there floating around with a bunch of working professionals, trying to catch one last ride before heading to the showers and then the office ... ).

It's amazing what people will do for what they love to do ...

Until next time ... "Aloha, Mr. Hand" ... Posted by brewin Jun 25 2005, 09:45:10 AM PDT Permalink

Passions (Surfing and Java)

Interesting thing happened while I was in Prague last month visiting the NetBeans architects and engineers... I received a piece of e-mail from a webmaster and developer in Brazil who is also an avid surfer ...

If you go to Waves, this will take you to the largest surfing website in South America. Rafael, the developer I mentioned earlier, is also the developer of E-Surf, a website with interactive web cams which allow you to visually check various surf conditions at beaches in Brazil...

I've only managed to have a few exchanges with Rafael, but what he's done with E-Surf is pretty cool ... he built a pretty sophisticated system (yes, in Java of course) involving a web application that interposes itself between the user and the camera. This both allows him to display things like user credits but also maximizes the number of users allowed at a given moment on each camera. Per Rafael, one distinct advantage is that he now has a web app-driven system which both removes some of the limitations he had with the applet-driven implementation, but also allows him to serve more users at a given time than was possible before (for example, the camera itself has a 20 user limit, with the model that E-Surf has in place he had 25 simultaneous users accessing a camera during a national contest ... pretty impressive).

Rafael evidently also uses NetBeans, so he definitely gets a gold star in my book

Take a look and see what you think ... I know that when I go to Brazil next (lived there when I was much younger), I'll certainly be checking his site before I hit the waves ... Posted by brewin Jun 06 2005, 09:59:35 PM PDT Permalink