Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Paddling and Surfing with the Boga Boys and Gals (in the land of the great white toothy guy)

Got a chance to snag a few bumpy ones with the Boga crew up in Nor Cal. We've been having our own white shark problems here in Southern San Diego- these guys live with it on a day-to-day basis. The spot we paddled felt sharky (oh, that's right there've been confirmed shark attacks there) but that didn't stop the gnarly water filmer from hopping right in and swimming around in that living pot of seafood stew. Anyways, I am amazed at the what the put together here- I mean I really dig the vibe of this clip. Pretty rad what real pro video guys can do- damn cool. Check it out:


Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Ummm- whoa.

Check out what my friend Jeff Wallis photographed yesterday:

Jeff snapped this guy lurking right outside the break at my home beach... a few local guys in the water saw it too.
This was posted on the beach today... made me think twice about paddling out. Did anybody hear the dinner bell ring?

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Kelly Kraus King of the Cobbles

Poached this shot of Kelly Kraus- northern Baja spot we call Cobbles...

Friday, January 20, 2012

It's cold...

I live in San Diego, land of palm trees, golden sand beaches and girls in bikinis. Well, not lately. Yesterday, I got into my truck, 5:30am, frickin' sheet of ice on the windshield. I hit the wipers and they just shushhed and grated across the thing. WTF- am in Fargo for god's sake? There's good surf in the winter but it ain't easy.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

That J.O.B....

Anybody else get the Solspot So-Cal short range forecast for tomorrow (Friday, 13th)? I'm getting the feeling that it's going to be FIRING at the beach... sounds like a crossed up swell, the right tide, low wind... hmmmm.... sometimes you just get that feeling.

Solspot's a great, free, surf forecast site... check it out.
Problem is always the J.O.B., fortunately I live and work about four blocks from the beach so when I've got a little sneak away time I always make a run down to the beach to check it out. Yesterday, I scored four super fun, head high, beach break grinders... had to wait a bit for a corner among all the closed out walls coming through but I got those waves and that made my day a winner. I think it's going to happen tomorrow- if you've got a little window of opportunity to sneak away... do it and don't tell me how it was, I don't want to know!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

All is not quite lost... (but most of it is!)

First of all, thank you everybody for the tips, offers of help and sympathetic thoughts about my hard drive disaster. Yep- I'm the bonehead who will now go right out and buy a back up drive for everything on the thing once I get it back. Promise. 

But in the spirit of the New Year (you know, a fresh start and all...) I'm just gonna get over it and move on. On the bright side, I did find that I had a couple of photos still on SD cards that I hadn't downloaded yet. And, I'm going to take my GoPro SD card and see if they can pull any of the clips off of it. I mounted up the good ol' paddle cam (remember that from way back when?) and shot some cool clips of the wave at the Point. You'd laugh at how long of a ride that wave offers up. So we'll keep fingers crossed and see what happens. 

A lonely left and right. We actually bypassed this spot on our way to the main event peak (this is a mainland Mex wave)- in retrospect, I think we should have charged it. Damn, that wave looks fun.

On the paddle surfing side of things: Damn, did everybody score waves these last ten days? My email and phone were popping with reports of giant bluebird swoopers all up and down the coast. At our own  big wave spot, I was told that Kelly Kraus was killing it on his custom Rusty stand up paddle gun. Local boys Kiwi and Stuki reported that Kelly was waaaay out the back hunting down the biggest, nasty ones and then legitimately tearing them apart with surgical slices and gashes, Hannibal Lecter style. Steve King had his fingers humming, texting me like a madman about how good the Cliffs have been and with reports of all the phantom, Northern Baja reefs coming to life. That was a good run- can't wait for a bit more... anybody got their crystal ball warmed up?

Monday, January 2, 2012

Ah! Meltdown... !

Well it happened- lost all of my photos (and some damn cool writing projects I had partially completed) to a hard drive melt down on my MacBook Pro. Thing just stopped working- now all I get is the little, spinning thing with a prohibited sign above it on start up. SUCKS! I ran the diagnostics/start up disc that came with it and it says there's a hardware problem so I'm off to an appointment at the local Apple store to see what can be done (it's not even a year old). 

Really hope I don't lose everything off the drive. What? Of course not. Who backs things up these days? Oh, yeah... everybody does. Someday I'll learn. Some great stuff could be lost: photos, go-pro footage and a play-by-play guide I'd been working on for surfing mainland Mex. We'll see what happens- keep your fingers crossed for me.

On the plus side, I found my new favorite fin set up for head high and under surf: Nectar Thruster set from Futures. It's in their 2012 line and I'm fired up on it. As you know each board and each wave has their own set of demands- for the 8'4 I'm on now in fun, little waves- this set is it. More to come. I hope.