Reflections on a Day at the Beach

The ocean is big. Really, really big. Every time I drive out to the coast and catch my first glimpse of the Pacific I am reminded of this. It always amazes me. To pull around a corner and see the ocean stretching out forever over a cliff is an awesome sight. Two thirds of this planet is covered by water and almost no humans live there. We've still got a lot of resources available once we get our act together and start actually utilizing them. The long stretches of Kansas and Montana pale in comparison to the expanse of never ending ocean glistening in the sun.

The taboo against public nudity is one of the most absurd things our so-called enlightened populace clings to. Having to wrap a towel around your torso to put on a wetsuit at the beach is annoying. Given that public nudity is still a crime, thank goodness for bikinis. The beach was packed with teenagers, college girls, and even several young mothers in two-piece suits. Even better was walking along the beach, half blind from lack of corrective lenses while surfing and trying to find the spot where I had stashed my gear, and happening upon a gal breaking the law by sunbathing topless. While there are plenty of individuals who I could happily live out my days without ever seeing in the buff, for every ten of them there is one woman out there that would make the removal of the restrictions on public nudity worthwhile. As a presidential candidate I swear to do everything in my power to correct the injustice to human beauty. Want to piss off those Islamic fundamentalists who seem to think women should be kept in bags? Want to strike a blow against 'them'? Legalize public nudity.

Lastly, an eight foot board still displaces too much water in mushy surf when ridden by a big guy like myself. Aside from the first 45 minutes during which I caught my best ride to date, the rest of the day was small white water breaks. With the exception of a couple of experienced surfers the only people catching waves were small folks with big boards. Lots of belly riding. Now I understand those guys who will bring two or three boards to the beach.

Surf Day

Surf report for the Pacific Northwest this Sunday: AWESOME!

Waves at Short Sands ranged from 3-6 feet varying from foamy
to glassy. Not a lot of power but plenty of speed. The water had a
beautiful sea of green hue. As waves crested and curled over it looked
like old glass. The misty fog clung to the tree tops like thick spider
webbing. Everything looked so beautiful it didn't matter if I got good
surf or not. I took the opportunity to practice my duck diving and did
a couple of barrel rolls for good measure. Enough salt water passed
through my schnoz to at least temporarily clear out the mucous from
this week's cold. To make the day totally awesome, I even rode a few
waves! My surfing skill has improved from 'totally sucks' to 'sucks'.

I also discovered that women with dogs are irresistibly attracted to me... because they have a dog pulling them towards me.

The Test

The surf reports predicted a big day. All indicators pointed to huge
swells on a cold (42F) and rainy day. We get out to the coast and check
out Seaside Point. Not much to speak of. We pass by Hug Point and Mark
swears he saw 5 sets rolling in. We continue on to Short Sands and decide to hike down to the beach to check out the scene before we haul gear down. The little cove is a mess of churning whitewater with hardly a wave to speak of. So we head back to Seaside to give the beach break a shot.

Putting on the new suits, we feel a lot warmer. Both of us have Billabong Solution Gold 5-4-3 suits and O'Neill 5mm Boots. I'm sporting Xcel gloves while Mark has Billabong. The suits worked great. Every suit I have rented has not kept me even half as warm as my new one and I wore those on average to warm days. As far as body warmth, we could have stayed in the water all day long and been warmer than on shore.

The surf? Worst day yet. The first big wave to come my way I thought, "Okay. Brace yourself. This might hurt." The thing came up, broke, and gently washed right over me. Most waves felt like that. I caught one ride. Some whitewash crashed behind me, boosted me a little, then rolled by. I thought that one had slipped me by. Then another broke right behind me, surged me forward, joined up with the previous one, and maintained long enough for me to get a fun ride out of it. Just had to keep the nose pointed across the break so as not to lose it.

And most of the paint came off of my nice custom paint job. Perhaps I should build a board, paint it, and then glass it.

Smooth

For anybody who shops online, go check out the McMaster-Carr online catalog. Wow! Every online mega-retailer's site should operate this smoothly. So nice, I feel like going back and looking up more items that I don't need... yet.

What got me there? We sometimes order parts from them at work. So when I saw it mentioned in a DIY article on building an underwater camera housing, I just had to check it out. And yes, I plan on building an underwater camera housing to take surfing.

Great prices on titanium bar stock. Hmm...

The Stoke

Just before 2 my surf buddy calls me up. "Dude. I just picked up my board. Can I stash it at your place?" Hell yeah. So he drops it off. I offer to let him use my base coat to wax his board and he has brought a package of Sticky Bumps cold water wax with him. I am fairly certain that all surf wax smells awesome. Right now the house has a scent that reminds me of all of the good things about grape cool-aid. I call home at lunch break to talk to the loveliest girl on earth and she says, "I walked in and said 'What is that smell? Mmmm, Sex Wax.'" I informed her that it was actually Sticky Bumps, but agreed that surf wax smells freakin' awesome.

So this Sunday, now that we are fully geared and ready, we are hitting the coast. I've checked surf reports every day. They had predicted average swells with some winds out of the west. What do I find today? Surf reports have suddenly changed to predict epic swells bordering on 'hazardous' starting Sunday. That sounds so sick.

Then tonight after work I have my ride drop me off at the pub to pick up my post math test lover. I find her talking to a guy who just moved here from Southern Cal. The guy asks me, "What gets you going?" My answer, surfing. "Oh, no way! I moved here to get away from that scene." So I explain to this guy that Oregon has killer surf, this weekend Seaside Point will probably get double if not triple overhead waves, and since the water is freakin' cold, almost nobody is out riding them.

And when we get home, the killer smell of surf wax makes the underlying smell of a couple of shedding dogs seem but a trifle.

Dude, I am STOKED!

Show and Tell

I now have all the equipment I need to go surfing whenever I like.

I'm wearing the wetsuit as I type this. While it offers many of the benefits of nudity with the bonus of remaining warm, the inability to access my genitalia will keep this a special purpose outfit. Next step, spending more time on the board and less underwater.



Is it just me, or do I look like a turtle in this photo?



Finally, check out what happened to me last night! It's not nearly as bad as it looks. I accidentally jammed my knuckles into a stack of sharpened saw chain. We must make good chain. I barely felt it and it left four very clean and pretty deep cuts. Basically tried to remove a good chunk of my knuckle. It looks messy from me applying the superglue before it had stopped bleeding.

Surf Advice

Here is the absolute best surf advice I've found to date.

Always go surfing with a buddy. It cuts your risk of being eaten by a shark in half.

Stupid MySpace Games

This came across in MySpace today and I thought I'd share my responses.

Type the first word that comes to mind when you read these 40 words. Don't think and don’t go back and change. Doesn't matter how random just type it! Repost it for all of your friends.

1. Cigarettes: surfing

2. Elevators: surfing

3. Relationships: surfing

4. Your Last Ex: surfing

5. Michigan Football: surfing

6. Crack: surfing

7. Food: surfing

8. The President: evil

9. War: surfing

10. Cars: surfing

11. Gas Prices: surfing

12. Halloween: surfing

13. Bon Jovi: surfing

14. Religion: surfing

15. MySpace: surfing

16. Fear: surfing

17. Marriage: surfing

18. Beyonce: surfing

19. Blondes: surfing

20. Brunettes: surfing

21. Politics: surfing

22. Pass the time: surfing

23. Summer: surfing

24. Cell phones: surfing

27. Vanilla Ice Cream: surfing

28. Porta-Potties: surfing

29. High School: surfing

30. Pajamas: surfing

31.Wet socks: surfing

32. Marijuana: surfing

33. Alcohol: surfing

34. The word "shake": surfing

35. My best friend(s): surfing

36. Money: surfing

37. Heartache: surfing

38. Love: surfing

39. Time: surfing

40. Divorce: surfing

So Close

The wetsuit I ordered has arrived in California from the factory. With any luck I will find it in my possession in time to go surfing next weekend.

STOKED!

Metaphor

Surfing as metaphor for something, and I like. From Ze Frank.

The Board

The weather got nice. I clear coated the paint job on my board. Got a new leash. Now for the wax!

Makes Sense

A while back I told you about a surfing drysuit and how it would flop. Here is the competition. Ripcurl has developed the H-Bomb, a heated wetsuit.

"The theory is to apply direct heat to the body to keep the blood warm, rather than wait for nature to take its course," explains BrianBosson, Wetsuit Product Manager for Rip Curl USA.

Sound absurd? The geeks over at Popular Science Magazine didn't think so and they're featuring this revolutionary technology in an upcoming issue. Not bad for a bunch of surfers.

I've met a few Oregonian surfers who would go for this in winter time. The current practice is to throw a rash guard on under your wetsuit. I'm hot blooded enough that I can surf for hours in 50 degree water without any gloves on. Still, the heated wetsuit is a good idea.

It's all about being able to urinate while surfing.

Sharking Sharks

Found a product called SharkCamo.

Sharkcamo was created based on the scientific fact that Mother Nature protects certain species of animals with distinct coloration patterns. The technical name for this phenomenon is aposematic pattern coloration... In the documentary "Smile of the Shark", shark experts proved Tiger sharks would not eat striped poles filled with fish. After viewing this film, the quest to find a graphic that could be applied to the bottom of surfboards began. The end result was the Zebra or fingerprint design.

The most dangerous surf spots in terms of shark attacks are in South Africa. With that being the case, which is worse; being attacked by a shark or getting mounted by an overly zealous zebra?

Rather than forking over $30 for a decal, why not just break out the Sharpie? Then you could get all modern primitive tribal. Regardless, I'm betting the bottom of my board won't have stripes on it any time soon.

Patience

Now is the time of waiting. Last week I finished cleaning up my surfboard, stripping it of wax and the previous decals. Friday and Saturday was spent carefully laying out the grid I would use to transfer the selected image to the board. Today represented a crucial moment in the process. In art, the transition from concept to manifestation can leave a person disappointed, disgusted, disheartened, disillusioned, and generally all around dissed. Working from my electronically rendered art in an effort to reproduce my vision on the physical plane, I was happy. Even as I carefully removed the penciled grid work with cotton swabs and lighter fluid, the outline rendered looked beautiful. Now a coat of red paint dries on the board. This paint dries quite quickly, and the temptation to continue is strong.

Now is the time of waiting. While the paint may look dry and feel dry to the touch, I know that application of a wet coat with some overlapping areas could easily ruin the work already accomplished. Tomorrow.

It still looks awesome.

NSFW: Board Art

My board is nearly stripped. A few more spots of stubborn wax and old decal art to vanquish. When not stripping the board, I've spent time assembling new board art concepts. I'd love input on which designs people like. Not that I'll necessarily use the one that people suggest. I'd just like to know if you were at the beach, which of these designs would be most likely to make you go, "Awesome board." Not that any of you go to the beach or use words like 'awesome'. But if you did...

I know. You all watched Sesame Street. Sing it with me. "One of these things is not like the others..."

I marked this NSFW as a service to my readership. Personally I think breasts are safe anywhere. Except for that one gal they told me about at work who had somewhat floppy breasts and never wore a bra and one day got her boob caught between a guard and a spinning part selector. That breast was NSFW. She wore a bra to work after that.

Smokers and Surfers

I discovered a new trick for all you surfers out there. You can get most of the wax off your deck with some warm sun and a wax comb. It is Portland in the winter so warm sunshine is in short supply. You can still get a lot of wax off with the comb if you bring your board inside. To get the last layer of wax and clean up your board nicely, use lighter fluid. I squirted some Zippo fluid on my deck and then wiped that spot off with a paper towel. That spot was wax free and bright white.

You can also put it in your Zippo and use it to smoke tobacco, start a camp fire, or commit arson.

Oregon Surf

When you mention surfing people tend to think of California, Hawaii, and maybe Florida. So when I tell people I surf in Oregon, they often ask if the surf here is any good. Hmm, maybe they should ask some of the world's top surfers who gathered along the Oregon coast on Friday for the annual Nelscott Reef tow-in invitational. I was hoping it would hold off just one more day, but when the break is pumping, it's pumping. So while the biggest names in big wave surfing were enjoying fast double over-head (and bigger) waves, I was at work. Quintessential bummer. This surf spot is in Lincoln City, only two and a half hours from Portland.

We've also got Seaside Point that provides good waves all winter. Then there is Short Sands that has excellent summer waves. You just have to be stupid enough to surf in 50F water. Yep, I qualify.