2 down one more to go

Okay, so my last update said I was offing 2 of my boards. Update: The bonzer is gone to a stoked guy who looked like he weighed less than me and was in better shape. He's probably gonna really enjoy that board. I am also selling the Daisy Junod, and I've had some interest but nobody has seen it yet.

The third board is the small Schrodel twinzer. I took it out on a head high day when the waves had juice, but not too much. I got a wide open face about head high and the board wiggled and squirmed but didn't go forward very well. It was the third and final time I will ride the board. It has been returned to my dad, who it belongs to, and he's gonna return it to the guy who tries to get his kid to ride it. It's a terrible board to learn on but that's okay cause I don't think this kid wants to surf anyway.

I'm still trying to sell the Daisy. I took it out that same day for a second try at the waves that proved the Schrodel wasn't for me. Got a few waves but one bottomed out when it hit the sandbar. The board flipped under me and I landed on the fins. Luckily it was the top of my foot that took the hit and nothing is broken. The worst of it is that 4 days later and it's still a bit swollen and sore. I still got some surf since then so it's not a problem, but maybe another hint that I should let that board go.

And since then, the next day actually, while I was surfing I took another hit. I was trying to power myself and my board through the wave face under the lip of a closeout. I was kneeboarding and since I'm lower to the water, the board is closer to my face. As I powered the turn the board made it around and up the face and into my face. Wham! My thoughts as I'm thrashing around in the white water bumping on the reef are as follows, "Lower lip owwww. Feel for hole, no hole, Check Teeth! all there." Then I came up and did the spit test as I was paddling back out. Very little blood in the spit. Great, let's surf. As I continued to surf my lip started to throb a little and tingle. By the time I got back to my car and said hello to my wife my lip was double in size. She screeached, I shrugged. That night I saw myself in the mirror. The inside of my lip is a nasty shade of purple. One more day off before work, I hope clears up enough that I don't have to tell the story to anyone.

As for the plan of replacing the Haut Quad, my general kookyness lately has me wondering if that's the right direction to go. It's quite a bit of money for me to spend right now and there's no telling if I'll still be just as big a kook on the board. If I'm gonna be a kook I should get myself a soft top with a rubber fin. (Probably be cheaper and last longer.)

Here's my guilty admission for the day. A quality swell should be lighting up the reefs about 1 1/2 hours south of here. The weather is good, the waves are good, I'm at work. I don't really want to make the drive to go surf. I feel tired, hurt, and not up to hassling with the crowds.

Jeez, I AM a kook.

Quiver Minus 2

It all started when...

Last weekend had the waves and weather I dream about. Warm and sunny with offshore winds all weekend. Record breaking warmth in November. The wave were cooperating too being overhead Saturday and headhigh Sunday. I watched so many barrels ridden it was ridiculous. I surfed two sessions on Saturday and one on Sunday with a total time in the water of upwards of 8 hours. But I'm not smiling.

I took the bonzer out all weekend and couldn't beat the current on the small board. I'd be paddling to a spot and have to rest and drift away before a set came. I'd paddle for a wave only to find one of the many many people out surfing had already caught it and was coming my way fast. I ended up without a single wave that I rode that sticks in my memory, and so many I watched that do. That's it, I'm done with the bonzer.

And while I'm at it I'm trying to sell the Daisy too. Already got a few interested people. $450 for the bonzer, $300 for the Daisy and if I sell both I'm ordering another Haut Quad to replace the one I retired. I'll have it glassed a bit heavier, maybe stronger foam and wider stringer too. Why mess around with other boards when I had so much fun on that board.

Well, since I brought it up, I already know the answer. The answer is that I get board no matter what. If I have the perfect board in perfect waves after a few days I'll be wondering what else there is. Before I had ridden the Haut in Santa Cruz a few times a week for a year. When I moved up to Oakland I got great waves at OB with it too. Then it started to breakdown and I was looking for a replacement board. I ended up with the Three Bears situation where one was to big, one was too small. Then I stopped before I had one that was just right. Now I'm selling off Papa Bears surfboard and Mama Bears surfboard and gonna buy me a Baby Bear board. But I still have several oddball surfboards in my closet to ride when I've gotten my fill of good waves on a good board.

Bonzer Ride Report

It's been a long, choppy summer. This last week saw the wind calming down long enough for the NW chop to mellow and the big beach to clean up. I wasn't the first on it, I didn't surf 9 hours (I'm calling bull$hit on that claim anyway) but I got enough to put a smile on my face.

The prior few sessions ranged from depressing to simply maintenance surf. On Thursday morning I got out for two hours of fun waist to shoulder high waves in dead glass with some organization. Not perfect, I would find a peak that was good, ride 2-3 waves and the sand would shift or something and it would be gone. After that I would peer up and down the beach trying to decide which way to paddle to try to find the next bit of magic.

I've been on the nearly-fish Junod (Daisy) for the last few go outs and have been unhappy with the way the board feels. It feels so wide and buoyant that I think that I'm outrunning the pocket all the time. So, I went to the opposite extreme with the board that normally feels too small for me, the minty green bonzer. I had some trouble adjusting to the lack of wave catching ability this board has, but in truth I think it was a benefit given the conditions. Most of the time I was sitting just outside of the sandbar. If I chased a small one too far in all I got for my effort was a brown dumper wall. The larger waves would get me up and running before the sandy closeout and sometimes hit the bar and enough of an angle for a speed run.

This bonzer, when under my feet, likes to pearl. I don't mean I'm paddling for the wave and the nose sinks when the wave picks me up. While that does happen it's far less often and I can sometimes recover. What I mean is that I get to my feet on a late/steep drop and hit the bottom of the wave and down goes the nose. When I first got this board I wasn't expecting it and would often be looking down the line and trying to project my bottom turn when "fump" would go the nose and off I'd go, flying through the air. This was something foreign to me, something I had forgotten about because it happens so rarely to me. But there I was, doing it time and again.

So onto Thursday's session and my first good wave. Up and down and "whua whua whua" I made it. Luckily the wave was just a jacking peak because I was completely out of control trying to handle the drop without sending the forward 1/3 of my board into the sand. A few more like it throughout the session. It made me think about the last time I experienced that, which was trying to make a longboard work at a jacking reefbreak. Which reminded me of a comment someone once made of the bonzer, that it had "longboard rocker." I don't consider this guy much of a surfer, he's the once every other month maybe type of surfer, but I was interested by his comment and asked him what he meant. He explained that modern shortboards have two part rocker and longboards have three. If you don't know what I'm talking about then I'm not the right person to explain. If you DO know what I'm talking about I'd like to have someone comment on that idea.

Besides all that, I find the bonzer a nice change from my wider/fishier boards when I'm in the mood to surf close to the wall with few turns. There were a few lips flying through the air and I managed to get 1/2 way under one (and dodge in fear from another) through the day. Other waves I enjoyed by just sitting in the pocket on the tail flipping the board from bottom turn to top turn, never really changing direction completely.

I think it's the wide point forward and narrow tail of this board that makes it work better for pocket stalling and worse for out to the shoulder roundhouse cutbacks.

Surf Travel Changing Again

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-surfboardfees22-2008aug22,0,2880131.story

This article from the LA Times talks about the continuing increase in fees that airlines charge for surfboards. It makes me think about the evolution of surf travel. As a disclaimer, I am a lightweight when it comes to surf travel. The first time I got on a plane to surf was in this decade, so I'm not much of an authority on the subject. But, nobody reads my blog so I don't expect to get any negative comments. :P

Back in the day of wooden kook boxes it seems like just getting to the beach was surf travel. Later, in the early 60's guys could sleep on the beach at Malibu and eat seafood from the cobble reef. To me that sounds like surf travel. California surfers rode steamships as a cheap way to get to Hawaii. I remember a movie with Greg Noll flying to Mazatlan, MX and finding surf. The Endless summer had Bruce Brown and company traveling by plane and auto all the way around the planet searching for surf, asking for directions, and finding so good waves.
The 70's was a time of tune in, turn on, and drop out. Feral Aussie surfers posting up in Indo breaks risking malaria and starvation for barreling waves the likes of which I've never seen. California surfers exploring Baja and mainland Mexico. Travel down every path that looks like it leads to the ocean.
The 80's seems like it was a time of more access, more travel, more magazine coverage but still an inequality of information.
The 90's and the internet brought the ability to research and pass along information on a massive scale. No longer did someone have to overhear a conversation, search for a map and bit's of travel information. The internet allowed one slip of the lip to result in 100s or 1000s of other people learning. Then they could search for more info on the net. The golden age of surf travel (unless you were one of the older crew who worked hard to find remote surf spots that now all of a sudden everyone knew about!)
Then the turn of the century, 2000! Not long after I jump into the surf travel scene with a trip to Puerto Rico planned perfectly between two great winter swells. Waist high waves for 5 days strait, me with my 6'4" potato chip and I could hardly catch a wave. A few years later was Panama. Better waves but harder to get to. The waves weren't better than what I had left behind but the water was warmer and seeing how people from another country lived really opened my eyes and changed my perspective forever. (I'm digressing)
So on to today. USA is in a recession leaving less money in everyone's "travel account", gas prices have jumped leading to increased costs for flying. The base tickets are more expensive, now they are gonna charge you for a pillow and a cup of soda. And to top it off, up to $300 per board per direction! Are we headed towards the 70's again? Are we going to have to take local buses through mainland Mexico and walk the last 5 miles to camp on the sand and live off hermit crabs and coconuts just to surf somewhere else?
Anyway, my surf travel account is only large enough for me to make it to the nearest beach once a week so the rising cost of bringing a board on a plane doesn't really affect me. :)

In this years election, I'm voting for the surfer...

www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/08/barack_obamas_bodysurfing_vide.html

That's enough for me right there. Although, I had no problem with John Kerry windsurfing and that seemed to cost him some votes.

I wonder who those voters are? What is the thought process?

"Look at that guy, he's having fun, outside. I'm not gonna vote for someone like that."

"That there fool is on one of them new fangled surfy boards ridin' the wind!"

I wonder if Obama in the ocean will hurt his politics. I guess I'll never be president.

Contests

To be honest I've never been much of a contestant myself. I didn't play organized competitive sports until high school and never did again after. During high school I played water polo for the "tied for worst" team in the league. I was also on the swim team and enjoyed practice more than the meets. On to the topic of surfing contests.

Who the eff cares? Well obviously quite a few people. To be honest when I was first learning to surf in the late 80's early 90's I was excited to go see the Cold Water Classic. I remember Gary "Kong" Elkerton getting shafted in the finals by Tom Curran. Kong nailed a solid vertical lip bash late into the lip of an 8' wave. Curran had more turns on his waves. I felt like I missed a chance to go surf somewhere else. The finals were during low tide, I should have been surfing.

I'll still poke around a contest these days, but I'm never satisfied with what I see. Even the brotherhood/no sponsor ones turn me off. I've spectated at ASP, high school, Grom, kneeboarder, kayak, skimboarding. All the same when you break it down.

The worst was a weekday morning when the man on the loudspeaker reminded those of us surfing before the contest that there was "GOING TO BE A CONTEST" and that in one hour we would "HAVE TO EXIT THE WATER" he continued to remind us what felt to me every 2 minutes. The surf was good, the weather was good, the contest was bad.

Then there was the Surfline "Contest" in Mexico that amounted to a bunch of guys buying the beach so they could surf with their friends. Everyone was upset. Several people complained that it wasn't even a contest. As far as I'm concerned it didn't matter, it was the same story whether it be a company and "Pro Surfers" or a group of individuals. They're still excluding others.

And the latest contest detail that got under my skin, I was watching a clip from the "Somewhere in Bali" contest that I think was Rip Curl, and between the repetitive whack the lip, whack the lip, whack the lip, was a clip of a contestant climbing onto the back of a jet ski and heading back to the line-up. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me like this is becoming more and more common in contests. Chauffeured professional surfers. It's one more step towards golf! And one more step away from my personal surfing experience.

End of Rant.

Retro

Here's a link with a (fictional) story that's been lighting up the web world lately.

http://www.surfline.com/surfnews/article_bamp_400_v03.cfm?id=17437

I thought I'd put my two cents in at an out of the way place where it wont bother anyone else, here!

Most, if not all of the boards in my quiver would most likely be considered retro by the author of the story. That being said, the GeeBee is a new idea based on an old board. The Bonzer has been continually refined since it's invention. The Junod Daisy is basically a fat tri-fin that I think works better with large outside fins. The Wheelwright (is that one up yet?) is truly retro because my dad and I are guessing it was made in the mid-70s. I also have a board at my dad's house that is modern built but truly retro because we had Junod shape it to exactly match a board from the 60s that I liked. He told my dad all the ways he could make the board ride better but we were determined to remake the old board. Anyway, they're nearly all "retro."

So why do I ride retro boards?

1) Wave quality. The majority of the waves I ride are soft and small. I'm not happy about it but that's the reality. Retro boards typically have more floatation and work better in small, weak waves. This fact was conceded in the story. But there are exceptions to this rule in my quiver. The Bonzer is for good waves. Narrow tail, design that works better in good waves. The Wheelwright is somewhat of a Cali gun, so I expect it to handle size alright. The Strech flexspoon kneeboard has almost no floatation and needs a powerful wave to work at all. Still, the Haut Quad, the GeeBee, the Junod Daisy all work better than a modern tri would when the waves are small and week.

2) Style. I spent 10+ years on very large longboards. That approach lead me to a down the line style with few turns. I didn't do a square off the bottom hit the lip combo for the first 8 or so years of my surfing. To this day I am front foot heavy more concerned with staying ahead of the lip than bashing it. Not that this is the way I want to surf. I'd love to be able to surf like the pro's when I wanted to. Anyway, the front footed, rounded turns style doesn't work well on modern tri-fined boards.

3) Wave count. Retro = more float = more waves. Not always true, such as a sudden barrel over a shelf reef, but see point 1) for why this is normally true.

4) Education. I like trying as many different styles of boards as I can and try to understand the advantages and disadvantages of each shape. Understanding the progress that has been made, why certain shapes have been at the forefront, where different styles of surfing came from and where they're going. These are all things I value. "North Shore" was a silly movie, but I always thought it was interesting when the Arizona kid was forced to ride all the old boards as part of his surfing education. I'm trying to do that on my own.

5) Mistake? What if there is a shape or style that was actually a good idea but was dropped because everyone wanted something else? What if a shape will only really work with modern materials? Or materials yet to be used?

All that being said, I've felt a hole in my quiver lately. I'm strapped for cash so I won't be able to fill that hole anytime soon. That hole is a modern tri, somewhere around 6'4" with a touch more tail width, but far from fish dimensions. I rode my friends Merrick this spring for only a few waves but was amazed at my ability to make late drops and hit the lip on the thing. Maybe it was a fluke, but I'll never know until I get another board and give it a go.