A new year... for me.

December 29th. My birthday, forty-four years of pumping blood and air. Rad.

Just spoke to my media-mogul friend who told me I should be doing these updates in video. Hmmm, maybe someday... could be a good time to try something new.

I took a different route down this time- following a friend who knows where the nooks and crannies with waves are found. I glad we did it this way, I saw places and waves I haven't surfed before. This right is a small but long wave- on a regular surfboard it would be a drive-by wave, on a 10'6 stando it's a playground.

Made it!

The most insanely hot, Mexican girl (who ever invented those tight yoga pants deserves a congressional commendation) just brought me the frostiest Negra Modelo I've had in four days. Jeez, what a trip it's been! Broken axle, side of the road campout, four hundred yard long right pointbreak waves and now the coldest beer ever served by one of the hottest girls I've seen in the last 1000 miles of dusty road. I'm in love... with this road trip! 

Busted axle... made for a great campsite. Beautiful desert, coolers packed with cold ones and a can-do attitude make situations like this a lot more fun- well, the alcohol really helps.

Just a sample of what we found- no you don't know where it is and you won't find it. This one is way out there and it will make you pay.

Paddle Surfing Texas/Tanker Surfing: Chris Koerner's Texas Paddle-Thru

First of all, I've got to apologize to my good buddy, DogPatch local Chris Koerner for taking so damn long to get his story up and posted. I totally blew it. Sorry bro. I had to muck about in the paddlesurf.net archives and find his piece- it's really cool and even better, it's got me fired up to get down to Texas and chase some barges! Check out his story:

Paddle-thru Texas

I had a fun trip to Texas last month for Team ULI. I flew into Houston and met up with my old compadre Ken Brah from South End Surf n’ Paddle in NJ, and we loaded up our race and demo boards and lit off for Austin for the Paddle for Humanity on Lady Bird Lake. The paddle clinics were just wrapping up and the pre-event party was just getting started as we arrived on Friday afternoon. I expected Lone Star and Texas BBQ but instead they had free Kona Lagers and Wahoos so it was all good. 

This was the last of the five-race series for PFH, and if you’ve never done one of their events they are real fun. This year they ran a couple different races at each event: a 5k, a 10k, a Distance Over Time – something for everyone. The real crowd pleaser was the Chuck Patterson Rally (CPR), which started out at the early season events as a serious paddle/beach obstacle course-type race. However, at the beach-less venues (DC & Austin) it morphed into a cross between a demolition derby & American Gladiators on inflatable SUPs complete with luche libre masked saboteurs in the final. Everybody was getting into the act and some of the heats were pure comedy. 

PFH is all about fundraising, and a portion the entry fee goes to charity of your choice like the Ocean of Hope, Navy Seal Foundation, Best Day, Love 146 and more. They always attract some cool sponsors with lots of swag and Ocean Minded even puts on a beach/river cleanup between events. Anyway, we had some good finishes on the ULI 14s and Austin was a beautiful venue with a great paddling community and lots of good food & live music. I believe out of all the PFH events this year the lowest turnout was in Dana Point – proof of how paddling is growing all around the USA.

Paddle for Humanity: www.facebook.com/paddleforhumanity

Next stop was Galveston where the wind was offshore and the surf was a clean two to three inches.
Lucky for us we had a booking in the morning with Capt. James Fulbright at Tanker Surf Charters. He called the night before to confirm and we planned a meet up at dark-thirty so we could get on the water early to catch a very large vessel due to come up the Houston ship’s channel. 

The channel has a series of shoals & small islands formed by years of dredging, and the plan is to catch the wave as it hits the shoal and ride it until you wipe out or when you or the wave poops out, at which point you hop in the chase boat and get in front of the tanker and do it all over again. This can go on for 20+ miles or so and if you’re lucky you can find a ship heading out to sea and ride the waves all the way back to the drop in spot. 

As the sun was coming up we watched a couple mid sized tankers round the Bolivar Peninsula as we sat in the channel but we let them pass. Finally we saw what looked to be a small city slowly moving towards the inlet and we knew that was our ship. I thought we were having a solar eclipse when the behemoth passed and the Capt. ordered us over the side to get ready for the wave. There was nothing but flat water as far as we could see then all of a sudden a chest high wall of whitewater is bearing down on us a hundred yards away. There was a left & a right although at times they’re a couple hundred yards apart but the waves aren’t very top-to-bottom so you can angle off pretty easily. However – they are fast! 

We had a little chop on the first couple rides so we decided to go for distance and a couple of them took us 4 to 5 miles. Later on things cleaned up a bit and one of the shorter waves (3 minutes or so) ran right next to an island peeling perfectly like a point break. This setup is the perfect test lab for board shapers/designers, or somebody that just wants to check out the characteristics of a couple different boards. We used an ULI Lopez and Steamroller model with the new Wikirails and they performed great. 

I was pretty amazed how well Capt. James has the whole place dialed-in as there’s not a whole lot in the way of landmarks out there and other than the depth finder I didn’t see him checking out any navigational aids. He did a great job describing each wave’s characteristics and really shared the stoke if we had a good ride. I’ve surfed a lot of places and paddled a lot of races but I can’t say I’ve ever experienced anything like tanker surfing before, of felt that beat-up after a five or six hour session. Lucky for us we had some of that free beer leftover from Austin. Special thanks to ULI for the great travel boards, Wavecation, Tanker Surf Charters, and Watermans Applied Science.

Check back and I'll pull up some of Chris's photos from the event and the tanker surfari.

Emerald City Surf Shop, Coronado California... come on, come all!

Big sale at a killer surf shop! Go check out their giant stando section, Kelly's got it stocked!

The Part I Hate: Getting the Tourist Card/Waiting in Line

If you're traveling deep into Baja, you're supposed to have the proper visa. In this case, since we'll be leaving the state of Northern Baja and will be in Baja for longer than 72 hours, we needed a tourist visa also known as a tourist card. Usually, you'll go through the hassle of getting the thing and then never get asked for it the whole time you're there. And then once in awhile, you'll roll up to a checkpoint and the officials will demand your papers. If you don't have them you'll get even more hassled and fined and then you'll be told that you have to get the visa at the next city and then pay for it at the nearest bank. The fine is about a hundred dollars making the whole visa-ordeal cost you about $125. It's not a crazy huge fine and jail time but it can be a stressful situation and you never one give the officials any legit reason to shake you down. 

So I bit the bullet and walked across the border and handled the paperwork. It's easy at the Otay Mesa crossing; you walk over and ten feet past the border is the white Immigracion office. Always bring your own pen- they detest loaning out their ballpoint. I filled the papers out and got my visa officially stamped but would have to pay the twenty five dollar fee at a later date. Here's the problem,  since the Otay crossing doesn't have a bank branch on hand like the much busier San Ysidro crossing I'd have to pay somewhere else (we used to handle this at San Ysidro but since they built a new crossing area, we've had mixed reports of being able to get the paperwork done there).  

In line to walk across the border back into the U.S. - halfway there... wishing I skipped that large cup of coffee.

How's this for a taste of Mexican logic: I was told that I can either pay the fee in Todos Santos when I get there or I could wait and just pay the fee once I got back to the border at any bank in Tijuana. Huh? Then why pay the thing at all? I don't quite understand it all but I'll pay the fee in Todos once I'm down there since it's a quiet, nice bank and I could probably withdraw some pesos there as well. We did learn something too. If you already have a visa and it will expire while you're traveling down there, just throw it away before you ask for another one. If you don't, they might just tell you to travel with it and then to find a place to re-apply for another one while you're down there. This might be a huge hassle if you can't find an Immigracion office or if you just don't want to deal with the hassle while you're on the move. My buddy Kiwi was told his whole family would have to travel on his soon to expire visas and that he would not be issued replacements at the moment. This would be an inconvenience for him- so we did some quick thinking, stepped outside of the office, tore up the visas and caught a cab to the airport. At the airport, Kiwi was able to easily get visas for his whole family, pay for them and be on his merry way in under a half an hour.

In all, it was a simple process. The biggest bummer was crossing back into the U.S., especially since it was a Sunday (I'm no rookie, I knew it would be nasty on a Sunday but we had no other free days to get the deed done). Even on foot, waiting in line it was an hour and a half wait to get to the other side. A couple of words of advice for that: 1. Hit the head before you hit the border, there are no bathrooms and it can be a long wait. 2. Apply for the Sentri card and it's a quick stroll to the front of the line. 

I'm out of here in a couple days, the preparations continue- check back for updates!

The Basic Idea: Southern Baja Stand Up Paddleboard Trip, 2013

Well, we've hashed out a basic plan for our trip this year. I've done the road warrior charge across the border so many times that I'm looking for something new this time. Usually, we cross at San Ysidro (Tijuana crossing) early in the morning and make a mad dash through Ensenada traffic, we don't stop until we hit San Quintin which is about five hours south of the border. The idea is to get the sketchiness of TJ into our rearview mirror as quickly as possible. If anything bad is going to happen, odds are it will happen driving through the border zone of TJ/Ensenada so that's why we form up into a caravan, top off our fuel tanks in San Diego and just book it through until we can take a breath of relief further south. 

Our fears are reasonable. It was a group of my friends who, after crossing the border at four in the morning, were boxed in by a two large SUVs, forced from their vehicles at gunpoint and completely robbed of everything they had. This is not one of those, "I know a guy, who knows a guy, who heard about some guys getting held up on the Playas road." This information I obtained straight from the source; talking it over with my friend who shivered as he told me about it two weeks later. He chillingly told me about being forced to walk into the darkness away from the highway by a guy hopped up on drugs, sporting a black mask and the largest handgun he's ever seen in his life. Kneeling in the dirt with his back to the gunman, my buddy thought it was over when the dark figure told him not to look back. He almost jumped out of his skin when a shot cracked in the night, luckily it was a shot fired into the air and when he finally looked back the guy was gone. The story was actually published in a surf mag a few years ago-the guys still won't go into Baja. 

But we will. So it will be, next Thursday night, when we cross over at Otay Mesa (the smaller of the two south San Diego crossings) late in the night (and bad things happen at night along the border) and jam up into the mountains beyond Tecate. Yes, the late night crossing has me nervous, especially since I'll be a particularly plush target with fancy, shiny 4x4, boards on top and cool looking dirtbike hanging off the bumper. But it's the plan we devised and life ain't nothing if not a grand adventure. We're taking a different route, bypassing the big cities and heading up along the Sea of Cortez. I'm looking forward to seeing some new Baja sights- even better, I'm looking forward to getting the hell out of TJ that first night. I'll keep you posted.

Southern Baja Paddle Surf Trip: Watch Fish Die

Check this clip out- it's all about my friend's Southern Baja spearfish/kitesurf/fishing/paddlesurfing resort just outside of La Paz. I'm going to spend a little time here hoping to whack a wahoo with my Riffe (wanna see what that looks like check out 1:57 in the clip), blow up my 10m kite, drink mango magaritas and hopefully get a surf in with El Timbo while I'm there. Tim's actually got the whole stand up paddle surf thing dialed with boards, paddles, trucks and boats at his disposal. Wanna set up a trip? Talk to me! Check his place out:

Southern Baja, New Contributor: Welcome Manny Vargas, Getting Ready for Southern Baja stand up paddle trip!

It's that time of year... my three week long Southern Baja stand up paddlesurf trip is on the horizon! If you've ever dreamed of driving the whole Baja peninsula with a quiver of standos, a DRZ400 dirtbike, kitesurf equipment and a cooler full of beer, you're going to enjoy the next couple of months.  Of course I'll be updating and posting photos and content about the trip the whole time I'm down south so be sure to check back. 

I call this one, "Even the Dog". This is the pointbreak just down the road from my place in Southern Baja... it can get kinda fun sometimes.

Also... Get ready for Manny Vargas to join me here on paddlesurf.net. Manny is a guy you want to tune into- he's always got something going on whether it be a Baja paddlesurf excursion (he organizes and runs paddlesurf tours of both southern and northern Baja), snapping some insane surf photos (check out his site) or flying all around the world as a professional bodyboarder, Manny's always in the mix. And now he's killing it on his 9'4 Stamps stando. Look for a whole new take on the world of wave riding when Manny comes online this week.

SUP Factory in Puerto Rico: MHL Shaping Warehouse

My good buddy and world traveling surf voyager Manny Vargas (check him out at mannyvphoto.com) just sent me this little clip of the MHL stand up paddle factory in Puerto Rico. I've always wanted to check out Puerto Rico, it's cool to see stand up paddle has taken root there in such a big way.

Back to racing: Winter Series

I hope you have a "Winter Series" where you live. Here in Southern California the Winter Series is a set of races each one hosted by a local outrigger canoe club. The races are really fun- there's still all the competitiveness but much less of the crazy hype. It's a chance to reconnect with racing friends and get out on the water. The cost to enter is usually low. This weekend, for example, the San Diego Outrigger Club is hosting the first race of the series. The price to race is $25 which includes lunch and a teeshirt. I'll be there- hope to see you as well.

This has nothing to do with stand up paddling: Is College Worth It?

I'm a teacher and I get asked this all the time, the best (and admittedly lame) answer I could give is, "Yes. Why? Because it's fun." Well, I stumbled onto these guys and I'm blown away. I know, I know, you're going to tell me how lame they are or say something like, "Duh, everybody knows about the vlog brothers." I'm highly impressed, these guys are truly funny. Actually, it was meeting people like this that made college worth it for me- that and the hot chicks.

Here it is, "Is College Worth It?" check it out:

La Jolla Shores Sistas stand up paddlesurf Southern Baja!

Water photog and world class traveler Manny Vargas just got back from his Southern Baja stand up paddle trip with the La Jolla Shores standup paddle crew... the Sistas- check out their surf trip video:

Stand Up Paddle Tanker Surfing: Chris Koerner on an ULI

Okay- this wave is on the list. I've got to do this someday. Hopefully, more info coming on this little stand up paddle surf adventure:

If that's not enough to get you fired up to give it a shot, check out Chris's little video clip:

Surf Magic... ever heard of it?

Penned something about a little session I just had- surf magic. Check it out.

I'm enchanted by this place.

I've got a list of five waves I want to surf in the next ten years. I had this spot on the list but after checking out Surfline's spot check on it, I'm realizing it may be more of a mission than I'm ready for- the place is insane. Surfline did a great job getting audio commentary as well as stills- take your time and check it out it's worth it.

Olas Escondidas

There's surf but you can't see it. Here's the deal, the water is warm so there's lots of water vapor in the air. It cools at night and forms fog. The land warms during the day and sucks the fog from offshore over the beach. Result: surf's hidden.... but it's there.

Get Ready for Winter Stand Up Paddle Racing

I remember my first race: Hennessey's one and only, river race from Laughlin to Needles (I think that was where we ended)... they said it was only 11 miles, it was actually 26... three quarters of the way through the thing I swore I'd never race again. 

Five frosty beers later, at the finish line, I was planning my next race. Racing's fun and if you haven't given it a go yet, the best way to get into it is in the Winter Racing series put on by SoCal Ocean Racing. See the piece I wrote about it here.

Alternative Lifestyle

Cheap gas is now $4.65 a gallon. Which means that filling up my truck now costs me $120 bucks and a round trip ride to the DogPatch will set me back $60- you'll be seeing a lot less of me at the 'Patch, boys. A normal week of twice daily surf checks (that's a ten block round trip), once a week grocery runs (4 miles round trip) and maybe three errands (15 miles each) will see me burn through three quarters of a tank or about $90. I'll fill the thing just about 3.5 times in a month which adds up to $315 not counting that up the coast run to the DogPatch. Damn, life just got expensive- and I don't even drive to work; I make my one block, daily commute by beach cruiser every morning! 

Or.... 

I could fill up my Suzuki DRZ400 once every two weeks (that thing get's 50 miles per gallon around town) for about $12 and do everything I described above, except go to the DogPatch. So in a month, on my street plated dirt bike, I'll spend $24 or I can cruise the 4x4 and spend $315. And let's not forget the cool factor... dirtbikes rule!

A quick side topic. I've got a minor problem: getting my 8'4 Stamps stando down to the beach on the dirtbike. I don't have far to go- just five blocks each way on quiet residential streets. I guess I could look into the ready made (but far to wimpy) bicycle surfboard rack options or, and this is what I'm really going to do, I could get a custom rack fabbed up in aluminum for the DRZ. I figure if I can keep the fabrication cost under $300 I'll already be ahead of the game. Standby for some cool, custom board rack photos!

I never thought it would happen (famous last words) but the plain economic realities of living here in Kalifornia are going to force me to live an alternative lifestyle. All you have to do is check out the milkcrate-grocery-box I ziptied to my moto-rack to see that I've made some changes.

Read 'em and weep...

I used to think that I'd always be able to fire up the Ramble Beast and charge up and down the coast at will. It seems, however, that the intersecting trajectories of gas prices (upwards) with earnings (somewhat static) have finally triggered a lifestyle tipping point. Don't worry, I'm not getting a Prius. But, there will be fewer spur-of-the-moment road trips up the coast. No more, "let's just take the truck" spontaneity and a lot less of me at your break. Maybe that's a good thing.

A Paying Gig: 5 years, 573,00 hits and 1200 posts later....

Well, I finally did it- I cracked the glass ceiling, I'm being paid to write. Why am I telling you this? I'm letting you know because I've been sensing some tension in the interwebs, a trembling in the ether... a warble in the Force if you will. Or maybe that's just the digital rumblings of a bunch of faithful readers pissed off at me for not posting anything lately. Sorry guys and gals, I've been distracted chasing a little supplemental income. In an uncommon step away from what we both love (stand up paddling in all of its forms), let me take you into my personal life and explain a little bit of my situation.

I've got a great job, my real one that is; I'm a science teacher here in one of the coolest high schools in San Diego. Why is it so cool? Because, we've got great kids, with huge hearts and mostly empty pockets. The school that I teach at qualifies for what is known as 100% Free and Reduced Lunch- in short, it's not the type of place that I went to school at and, if you're buying your own standos and paddles, I'm betting it's not the type of place you attended either. I love it, for the community around it and for the kids who find a way to make it here every day. I also love it because it's five blocks from, what can sometimes be, the grindiest, gnarliest left hand zipper for miles around. In a weird twist of all that I've known about California beach property, homes here on the West Side (beach) are not as highly valued as those on the East Side (inland), so we're kind of the black sheep of San Diego which is perfect for me since it allowed me to buy a home walking distance to the beach. Even better, the school that I teach at is a two minute bike ride to work from my home- so I'm set up, $5 gas be damned. 

Now, I think I may be an anomaly among educators (I know I'm going to piss somebody off here- sorry) but I'm the guy who never complains about our salary. In fact, I hate it when I hear my colleagues complaining about what they make- for two reasons: One, I've always felt that this was the choice I made and if it was not working out for me, I should find another way to make my living (the beauty of living in these here United States). And, two, dude- we only work 180 days per year! I'm afraid the second that fact is widely known, the gig is going to be up and our sweet deal will be gone. Don't get me wrong, we need the time off. By the time summer rolls around, I'm cooked; working with kids all days (who come with different abilities to act like good citizens- that's code for "act like a human") takes it out of you and a break to recharge the batteries and get fired up to do it all over again is a necessity if you want good teaching to happen. That being said, it's expensive to live here in San Diego and (I promise I'm not getting into politics here but I don't think our school funds are  managed very skillfully... just sayin') this year, our pay was cut by 7% and the school year cut short by 14 day! I know, that means more surf trips- I get it, but really that's not so great for kids and learning. As far as the paycut, I wish I could say I'd skip a latte now and then to make up for it but if you know me, then you know the coffee I drink comes from the bottom of the coffee food chain. 

So what have I done? Well, of course, I've been out hustlin'... which I believe is the American way. And it's been fun. I do have advertisers on this site who have been great (with the exception of one deadbeat company who has stiffed me completely and whose tile shall soon disappear from this site): Stamps has made me excellent boards and kept me in them for years, Boga - these guys have become good friends and their boards and customer service are top notch, Isle - my longest running sponsors have made it possible for me to teach stand up paddle lessons by giving me equipment, Bic and their SUP exec Jimmy Blakeny are a class act based on integrity and professionalism with good equipment that's just getting better and finally, the new kid on the block, Creed SUP and owner Randy who have believed enough in me to give me a full time writing job (I write their blog, here's an example of what I'm up to click here). Which brings me completely full circle as to why the hell there hasn't been as much new content this year: I'm fucking busy teaching during the day and writing at night! 

This site is my baby, however, and this baby needs to be fed (new bloggers would always ask me for advice and I'd say: Feed the blog- it's always hungry). And I shall feed it because it's been a life changer for me. Seriously, committing to this thing has changed me for the better, forced me to develop a writer's discipline, allowed me to meet some of you guys and, damn, finally allowed to develop some type of writing clarity (Miss Oakes, wherever you are, thank you!). Writing, I've found, is a passion and it's here that I get a chance to practice it, on you guys who've stuck with me all these years. So Thanks folks- I'm still here, I'm still contributing and I'm still stoked. Talk more soon.

Paddle Surfing San Francisco: Fort Point

Stand Up Paddling Fort Point in San Francisco: These shots were sent to me by a friend in the city.



Photo: Yep, that's the Golden Gate in the background.



Photo: I hope the stand up paddlers were acting reasonably, it looks like one of them may have shoulder hopped a prone guy.



Photo: It's good practice to consider that your actions as a stand up paddler affect all who come after you- don't ruin it for the rest of us!