Quiver < Hoard

As much for my own organizational/tracking purposes as for sharing with anyone, I'm making a list of all my boards and putting them here. I had to type somewhere and the blogger window was already open and as convenient as anything. Isn't that what blogs are all about?

1. 8'10 Vernor (now broken in half but still clinging to the fragments in hope of maybe one day reglassing it and repairing)
2. 6'9 Surftech Randy French (for sale)
3. 7'6 ET Surf Pat Ryan kingfish (starting to delam a bit, needs some TLC, fun summertime board)
4. 7'0 Brewer (ding-repair special, but that boards been great, very minor signs of delam showing)
5. 9'6 FSC singlefin (bit of a beater but still rides strong and in good shape)
6. 8'0 (or something) Miramar 70's throwback (wall-hanger, pretty pristine, amazing how I got that one)
7. 6'2 KG Fish (good shape, fun summertime stick)
   
8. 6'8 Taylor (probably the board I've used most this past winter, lots of life left)
9. 6'8 Kirkshapes (white one, this one has been mostly kept in Mt View for when I stay there overnight and hit up HMB/Pacifica breaks, good shape)
10. 6'8 Kirkshapes (neon yellow one, haven't surfed it yet, don't have Futures fins for it, but it's pretty clean also and mostly a copy of the other 6'8 Kirkshapes)
11. 6'6 Kirkshapes bat-tail quad (brand new, only been used a handful of times, afraid to ding it?)
12. 9'0 Becker Mike Gee X (uber performance longboard, bought as a pretty solid deal to replace the broken 8'10 Vernor. Haven't used it yet.)

Yeah 12 boards that is too many. Sorry Surftech Randy French you've got to go. In fact you know it's too many when I couldn't even remember every one of them -- going through my list I realized I had forgotten the KG Fish, kind of like a rockstar's girlfriends, when you can't even remember every one that surely means there's too many.

For Sale: Memories

It is with a heavy heart that I post the following:

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/spo/637437407.html

Yep my second surfboard ever is now up for sale. I've reached the stage of my surf career where I'm on to the second round of boards...first my first-ever board, the 8'10 Vernor, broke in half. Now, board #2 is up for sale. Because I just never use it anymore. I don't know why but I guess I never really took to that board -- when I bought it I wasn't good enough to use it, so always opted for the longboard as opposed to sitting on this board not catching anything -- and now that I would be able to use it, I have too many other similar 6'8ish boards to choose from so this one just doesn't get used. But it's a bit emotional to let go of things. Hopefully I'm not on my way to becoming a reclusive old packrat with 3 back sheds full of junk from 50 years ago that has sentimental value to me so I can't get rid of it. I've seen that, and it's not pretty.

Any of my 3 readers want to buy this? As a Horace reader, I'll give you a discount, hows 50% off sound? Well let me know.

UPDATE: Sold to a stoked coworker for $100. It was a sad moment seeing it drive away, but it was time. Like a child going off to college, the board needed to spread its wings and get some rides. Sam (the new owner) is taking it out first thing Saturday, may it be the first of many epic sessions to come.

So pitted!

This guy Rips!



Haha, that's just too good, got to put up one more...



That second one, is really tearing it up. Classic ... sharing the lineup with a aerial busting, charging, shredding remote control toy...

Session 56 - April 8 - Hook

Tuesday April 8, 6:15-8 pm, 6'8 KS

While Ramin was getting tubed a bit further north, I being a bit more fearful of the man in the grey suit decided to stick close to home in the protected calm tranquil waters of the Hook...should've joined Ramin but as we discussed a bit, there are just things you can choose to either do or not do in life that can greatly impact the chances of events happening or not happening. I chose caution over barrels this time around, but next time, I may not be so prudent...the allure of a head high barrel can have that effect on a man. (even a wise, old man such as myself. Ramin -- he's 22. He doesn't know any better.)

Anyways for my session, I rode my bike to the Hook again (and can add another con to the merit of bike-riding debate -- Flat Tires -- seriously that blows, how the heck did I get a flat tire? Oh I think I just answered that there's a huge rose bush right over my front gate. Beautiful rose bush, it really grows and blooms like crazy, I'm looking forward to that later this spring/summer. But with that rose bush I'm sure there are some thorns which I probably found with my bike tire, grrrrreat...)...Wasn't much of a crowd on the hook, in fact wasn't really a crowd at all if you took away the pack of HS Surf team groms who were swarming all over the place, was 7 of em or so and what they say about groms is true, they really do seem to be every where at every time, just all over the place constant motion. I actually tried to take a queue cue (thanks grammar police Zac) from them and move around some myself, getting a few extra waves that way so thanks HS surf team groms. Anyways they got out for a bit when their coach called em in and there were only 5 of us left, and I thought awesome 5 guys and up to that point there'd been pretty steady chest high waves coming through....but of course the whole time they were in on the beach talking there were ZERO waves, and then 2 of them left with coach and the other 5 paddled back out and we were back to the same as before....really no problem though not crowded but I did have to back off a couple good ones which would've been great if I didn't have to but can't complain, at most was still only like 15 of us out there. Anyways aside from that good start we had some really really long waits between sets, and waves were clean but not really anything worth writing more about, pretty standard small to little to no swell evening glass off at the Hook.

Session 55 - April 6 - Hook

Sunday April 6, 5:30-8, 6'8 Taylor

Just good enough...about sums up this session. Surf was just good enough to get me out there for an evening glass off session, just good enough to keep me out there until after dark waiting through the 20 minute lulls between sets, just good enough to catch a couple decent rides that made the session all worthwhile. I could've done without the long, cold wait after the sun went down for that very last set...seriously, they say you should never paddle in, always surf in, but this was pushing it...I got a little dribbler and took it in after my patience was exhausted.

Was pretty windy and I was feeling pretty lazy so opted to stick close to home, rode my bike over to the hook.

Pros for riding a bike to the break: fast, easy, looks cool.

Cons: bike locks. After about 3 hours in frigid water, hands and fingers become pretty much useless inoperable little appendages hanging limply at your side. It is dang near impossible to get those frozen blocks to operate and unlock a tiny little bike lock key -- no joke -- I struggled with that stupid thing for a good 5 minutes trying to get my fingers and my wrist to twist to the point I could get the lock open...try it sometime (or just take my word for it) it really is amazing how useless your fingers and hands and even wrist are after a long cold surf session. Finally I managed to get it unlocked, leveraging both hands and a little bit of pain, and got to ride home.

In conclusion, while even though yeah I probably could've walked home and back in less time than it took me to open the stupid bike lock, I'm going to keep on biking. It's just far too satisfying gliding right past those miserable, shivering, walking surfers on the way home. I can feel the jealousy in their gaze...sucks to be you! I'm about to take a warm shower! Ha!

Session 54 - April 5 - the yo

Saturday April 5, 1:30 - 5:30, 7'0 Brewer

Wow! What an amazing session. So my friend Ramin has been talking my ear off about this sick surf spot we got to go check out, you got to go, so sick, so fun, so perfect, so epic, so gnar gnar, so this so that on and on and on and on...so today we met up there and I had my first session. And all I can say is thanks buddy you weren't lying! That was pretty incredible, great session. As a general rule, if a surf session lasts for nearly 4 hours, there's got to be something pretty damn good about it...no exception here. Fun peaked up rights and also some racetrack lefts, but what was just so amazing about it was how crappy it was everywhere else. Blown out and not much swell at all the spots I checked up and down the coast. Yet in the middle of it all, here we were scoring some great rides, even some barrels thrown in the mix (although I didn't make it out of any, but then again, not many people were -- one to be exact that I saw)...Anyways it was pretty sweet. Needless to say I'll be back out there again I'm sure many more times.

As for my surf, I took out the 7'0 Brewer, which we all know is a pretty great board, my time-tested travel companion, that board has been around the world and back, and my go-to stick when I don't really know what kind of surf to expect. Turned out I could've been fine with a smaller thinner board, waves were pretty peaky and hollow, but still the Brewski is great because I could catch most anything, no joke I probably got about 50 waves. Mostly sat off the premier peak and for the most part had my choice of waves at the second peak, which served up a mix of longer rights and real fast lefts as well, plenty to keep me grinning and giving kooky thumbs ups and shakas and whatever else after every notable wave to Ramin. A super fun session I'm still feeling good about it now. And my sunburn isn't even that bad. What a day!

Session 53 - April 3 - MT

Thursday April 3, 6:15-8:00 PM, 6'8 KS + a couple on Ramin's pink, flowery, peace and love funboard

While we didn't find the clean, wide open walled up faces I was hoping for on this session, it wasn't a total wash. Managed to get some decent fun ones and just getting in the water is always worth the drive...always good to have some friendly faces join ya as well. Ramin made the trip and just so happened to pull right behind me on HW1 as we were driving, now that was pretty impressive. What timing! On the drive past, Rockaway actually might've worked out pretty good but I had my heart set on Montara, so we kept going the additional 10 minutes...came around the bend though and wasn't overjoyed with what I saw. Pretty crossed up, sectiony lumpy surf out there, a few guys on it near the middle of the beach, didn't look like anybody on the south end where I was thinking I'd go...pulled into the middle lot and made the most of what we could get. I've been spoiled rotten by a good Santa Cruz winter season -- becoming a bit of a wave snob -- but man the surf is just so good down there it's impossible not to get a little stuck up when it comes to wave quality. I think I'll have to lower my standards a bit though, as we continue to progress from winter to spring...looking back on it now, winter was (is?) pretty sweet.

Back to this session, though like I said surf pretty funky, waves just weren't really cooperating much, on several I actually started out thinking it was gonna be a right, but then found myself going left instead as the wave was just all mixed up...oh well. Weekend surf forecast is not looking super stellar, but I'll get out anyways and find something -- not gonna have another surfless weekend, that's definitely not happening.

14 sec

So we've got a bit of a bump, confirmed south swellage filling in a little more, so surf is on again for tonight...will hit up Montara this time around and hopefully have a few friends in the water with me as well. Work estimated time of departure 5 PM, hopefully in the water 6PM.

Swell Height:
5 ft holding

Swell Directions:
Most energy from WSW(247), with NW(326) and WNW(286)

Swell Period:
14 sec increasing

Which gives me a good excuse to post THIS:



Which Joel sent me today. In responsible blogging form I always attribute my sources -- he found the cartoon on the following surf blog: www.surfinoregon.blogspot.com

Which I have to highlight even more as a born and bred Oregonian myself, good stuff there. Unlike those surf-starved Oregonians though, for me the California transplant a 14 second period isn't really that big of a deal, who cares, but for those guys...it's huge. Lunch at mom's will have to wait!

Also a thank you as always to Stokemaster.com's great StokeConsole, my go-to online resource for San Mateo county surf conditions.

Session 52 - April 2 - OB

Wednesday April 2, 6-8, 6'8 KS

Flatness was the name of the game this morning, but surf picked up some throughout the day, at least enough to the point that a surf quest was in order. It'd be an entire week since my last session. That's a pretty long layoff ever since this 150 session goal thing got started...I was ready to go, whenever and wherever. As I was able to recruit one surf buddy to join me, decided to go to Ocean Beach and try things out there. It's also the most likely place to always have waves -- although another friend did let me know that Montara could've been working as well. I'll have to check with Manabu and see how his session was. But anyways, back to OB, Colin lives a block or two from the ocean there in the Sunset, 46th and Judah, and so I met at his place, suited up, and we walked down to "the beach". Urban surfing at its finest, it was pretty fun and a lot different from my Santa Cruz surf walk...as for surf itself, nothing great but there were waves to be had, normal OB style though, tough to stay in position, find the right spot, no shortage of waves that looked makeable but they were always about 50 feet from where I was at...no matter where I was at. We also actually drifted pretty far north, current pulling us that way, to the point we went in and walked back down the beach maybe a quarter/half mile to get back to where we started...pretty crossed up, mixed up surf out there, as I guess is typical. But it was fun to go to a new spot and I'm sure I'll be joining Colin for more OB sessions as this spring/summer progresses. Especially if I can use the shower at his place afterwards which is pretty awesome, they recently remodeled their bathroom and the shower is pretty sweet.

Pop-outs

When you spend as much time on the internet as I do (entirely too much) you get to read a lot about the debate between locally made, hand shaped, more traditional surfboards vs the influx of mass-produced, foreign made "pop-outs". Lots of outcry against the pop-outs...cheap, mass-produced, where's the soul in that, putting your local shaper out of business...I'm not going to get into it and go on and on but I do like to support the local custom guys. I'm glad not to own any pop-outs. Not that I don't think they don't have their place, but when you have the choice and the knowledge, I'd just rather get something made locally or made by hand, the traditional way. Plus it's not like I'm buying new boards or anything -- local and used suits me juuuuust fine thank you very much.

Anyways point of this post was here's a list I found tonight of all the different (and always expanding) companies making pop-outs. Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

Taken from this blog here, where you can read more about it if you feel so inclined.