Window Shopping

I'm window shopping surf shops trying to figure out what board I want to add to my quiver. The only new board I bought was my first- a 7'9" Bic Natural Surf which still has its place. In addition to that, I have 3 longboards, a 6' softop for my little grom, a 5'11" thruster, and a 6'8" big boy thruster- all used with most of them coming from yard sales. I enjoy fixing them up and have replaced a glassed in fin (the most technically challenging of my repairs) fixed many a ding, some small scale delams, small patches, and on one did a major rehab that involved adding a full length "patch" to the deck. I also tinkered with graphics and lately have been trying to study up on design since I fully intend to build a board myself (shape and glass) starting this winter. I have some good Aerialite glass and a local source for Teccel blanks. I will write about that project in the future. I like checking out surf shops anyway, so looking at the various boards gives me ideas about what I might buy and/or build. We have great shapers locally and I am considering having one built for me. My 4oth birthday is around the corner and I even have the blessing from the Mrs. (Actually it was her idea!) and I know they could build just what I need even if I don't know really what that might be myself. I know I can stand up on the 7'9" and with a little more volume that length or something in the vicinity might be good in more of a longboard shape. I have seen some really thick 8 footers that interest me. But I also have seen some shorter boards shaped by Will Allison (shaper of two of my longboards and local surfing legend) that have lots of thickness that maybe I can stand up on. Maybe a good fish might be the call? Then I go completely in the other direction to a big, heavy log. Ten feet plus! Maybe even find a vintage board that is still a rider. The longboard association I just joined has an annual contest with both a classic (pre 1968) and supertanker (11" or longer) division and that might be fun to have something that would qualify for those. But gosh, I don't know that I really get everything I can out of the boards I already have! Maybe I should wait til I break one or take more time to ride these and figure out what I want. You might be thinking we should all have this dilemma....

Any Given Morning

I recently joined the Wrightsville Beach Longboard Association and though I don't know most of the members it is a good group and I like being with like minded folks. One of the members just had a movie in the local independent film festival, Cucalorus, entitled Any Given Morning. It really was a good film. Thirty minutes of surfing footage, narrative, interviews, and all of it seemed to hit home with me. The link above goes to a static web page, but a trailer is being worked on and she is going to be taking pre-orders for the movie soon.

On this past Sunday and Monday(Veteran's Day Holiday for this bureaucrat) I surfed some OK longboard waves. Sunday I rode the Weisbecker Board, but forgot my leash which was interesting. I was essentially alone in the water as far as surfers went, but there were a lot of people walking on the beach enjoying the bright day and crystal clear, Caribbean blue waters. I wasn't alone in the water if you count the 2 or 3 pods of dolphins. There were maybe 15 or 20 total swimming and feeding as close as 10 yards away. I could see some of the finer details of their markings, things like little notches in their fins. I missed a few good set waves as I preferred to watch the graceful arcs they make in the water. Monday was a better surfing day, cleaner and a little bigger but nothing spectacular. The picture is from the same day and probably a few beach accesses south of where I paddled out. Different board, and I had my leash this time, different waves, different day, same spot; It's continually impressive how different surfing is for me from day to day , session to session. I thought of Any Given Morning and how I am not alone with these thoughts.

Weisbecker and the club with no roster

A call to action!
I am a fanatic about Allan Weisbecker and his literary works. His latest memoir is out and avaiable. If you have read In Search of Captain Zero and / or Cosmic Banditos... then what are you waiting for...
http://www.banditobooks.com/ezine/books/cygawa/overview

If you don't have any cash...send me and email and maybe you can borrow mine-In a few days a copy I donated with be available at the New Hanover County Library. Or if you want to kill some time online while you are supposed to be working or doing homework...go here...
http://www.banditobooks.com and please join the forum. As a moderator I get a little bored and like the conversations.

What's even better is that he is an accessible kind of guy. Check the website, send a message or give him some feedback and you will see.

Big Days

Hurricane Noel brought lots of grief to many, but it also brought surf and with that joy to others. Saturday was big, a little chilly (full suit for the first time this season) and fun. I has some trouble getting clean rides because the steepness of the wave faces and my relative lack of higher surf skills made it hard to get past the drop. My pal with his board, 2 feet shorter, had similar problems so maybe it was just tough conditions. I think I had as much fun watching others get good rides on Saturday. I have not seen, with my own eyes in person, that many surfers get barrelled. By this I mean a true, inside the tube and back out again legitimate "getting shacked" experience. That day I did see this happen and more than once. I also saw a local board shaper and was impressed how he maneuvered his longboard on these same waves. Its a little frustrating, but mostly inspiring. I may get a board shaped by this guy one of these days.

Sunday was a different story. It was cleaner conditions, smaller, but plenty big for me. I found myself wishing I had waited and not gone out the day before. My body- arms, shoulders, stamina- was lacking and I found myself having to quit sooner than I wanted to end that session. At the next public access north of me, I could see the kite festival going on and the colors pulled taught against the sky provided a change in scenery. As I stopped I passed along the good news of promising surf to the fellow surfer just getting ready to walk down to the beach. It seems I made him happy even before he got wet.

Feeling small

The surf has been pretty big the last week or so and I can usually push past the impact zone and get through the breakers and to the outside. I know there is a return on that ivestment, so I "will" it to happen and then just float around and rest for a few minutes once I punch through. I haven't been working out as much lately, telling myself I am getting enough surfing in instead, but this morning I feel pretty small. I couldn't get through, the longboard I was tethered to wanted to get ridden, but I didn't have it in me. I applaud the pair down the beach that made it out. Sometimes I do better when a buddy is with me, maybe its peer pressure, maybe I am just being shamed into paddling harder. All this said, its still a good day when I paddle out. I will sleep well, maybe my muscles have been conditioned a little in preparation for saturday when the effects of TS Noel reach us and clean up.

A Noseride

Well it happened.

I surfed yesterday in what mostly were just "OK" conditions. The waves had decent size but were inconsistent and a little choppy, but mostly they would have been characterized as mushy. Generally, I move myself along the length of the board trying to enhance or prolong my rides, so I spend plenty of quick moments in that space from maybe 12 inches back from the nose to the place that he fabric inlay ends which is maybe 30 inches back. I like to tell myself that time spent there was noseriding, but I knew it wasn't really a noseride. Its not that I haven't been trying. I know technically and logistically what is supposed to happen and I spend lots of time trying to make quick turns into the face of the wave and head down the line. I try to be graceful in my cross stepping, but I really have not mastered that at all. Its mostly a skip or hop forward and then some backpedal steps. Considering that most of the rides are short anyway, it seems like a pretty efficient, though unattractive, way of moving around the board. After about an hour in the water I seemed to have found my groove. The first few rides of the day were clumsy failures and I noted to myself that proper stretch and warm up were in order from now on. I also had been somewhat distracted by the large youth group that seemed to be engaged in some sort of organized exercise. It reminded me of those government sponsored morning exercises in Japan or China that I had seen photos of, except these teenagers were decidedly foreign as evidenced by there "speedos". Or at least I hope they were. Off on a run to the pier, I resumed focus, or rather lack of focus on anything again and was getting some fun rides.

I paddled, felt the speed pick up and the familiar sensation of catching the wave, and I popped up as I have a thousand times by now. I went right which is never as natural feeling to my goofy stance, but I am pretty comfortable with that now. I was prepared to move forward to find that "glide" by trimming the board with my weight forward or aft but I felt something odd, very odd indeed. Anticipating the rush of sliding down the face of the wave, I stepped (OK- hopped)forward and felt the sensation of my board being held down behind me. I could feel the weight of the wave securely holding my board level. I looked down and could see a large space beneath the nose and I was standing "out there" on said nose. I didn't hang ten or even cheat five, but holy soul arches! Batman I was in fact noseriding. Too shocked and surprised I didn't think to move forward and try a more impressive move, but I did have the composure to backpedal a little at just the right time.

The youth group was far down the beach, a few small groups of people on the shore were busy playing with children or reading. I looked around and gave myself a well deserved, though maybe not really earned, hoot. Among memorable surf days, this one is currently at the top.

State of Mind

My current state of mind is dulled by a persistent, yet mild head cold. This being the case I am eyeing the surf forecast for tomorrow morning like a kid watching a frosting beater being handed to them. I see it coming, I think its going to be pretty good, and nothing else is really on my mind. I surfed the other night after work. I can't recall through the congestion sitting behind my face now which day that was. I went to my secret spot which really is no secret and paddled out alone. I estimated I had an hour before sunset as I had hurriedly unbuckled the faded straps on my roof rack. I wasted five precious minutes setting everything down and scrambling back and forth to pay for the 30 or so minutes of parking for which I was still responsible. Soon I was joined by two other souls and felt the relief of another human nearby in the water, but not too close. The wind had picked up an things looked a little sloppy, but looks are deceiving and waves are best judged from paddling vantage point. The waves were fun. I think most surfers can interpret this descriptor "fun" easy enough. Fun is getting rides if you give a little effort, fun is not epic or threatening, fun is not likely to give you an individual wave or ride that will stick in your head forever. I look for fun waves tomorrow as a minimum, which is usually pretty easy for me to experience. Since I don't think of much else when I a surfing, the head cold will vanish for a while and my state of mind will be altered.