malibu madness

So California......

This is pretty much my favorite photo from the whole trip and it was one of the first i took, although i guess the composition is hardly original. The owner of these two was pretty much the standout that afternoon, super smooth and stylish.

I took it just after my first surf of the trip on a 9'4 anderson breakwater (nice log!) i rented from Chad Marshall at Mollusc in Venice while i waited for Dano to finish my board.

It's hard to describe quite how excited i was when we pulled up to see flawless waist - chest high glassy waves peeling down first point with only about 15 people out. It's such a good logging wave, not too fast not too slow, fully justified of all the hype, so easy to perch on the nose, cutback once you outrun the section and perch again. Makes you wonder how good we could all be if we got waves like that more often.

The rub, of course, is getting a few to yourself without getting in a fight! Even with so few surfers in the water, it was carnage. There was a pretty wide range of ability (weirdly the most aggro person being some of those well down the ability order) and with very little general drop in etiquette. Even so, just one of those waves would have had me ready to spend the airfare again......