retail therapy

Being the assiduous student of surf culture that i am, and secretly enjoying shopping more than most blokes, we visited plenty of shops on our trip. Probably the raddest was "the captains helm" in Oceanside. Owned by Mitch Abshere of captain fin fame, it's best described as newquays revolver on a US scale with motorbikes instead of tattoos!

A little further north in Laguna is Thalia Street Surf shop, somewhere i was keen to visit having ordered boxes of t shirts on a couple of occasions in the past. It's a cool little shop with a friendly owner, Nick and stocked to the gills with todays cool brands of clothes & boards. In pride of place on the counter was Dan Crocketts "the kook" surf newspaper. Really cool to see something thats pretty english in it's inception and style being loved by the so cal locals

a little bit of sam's magic

9'4 Anderson Breakwater model with C street in the background. I rented this board from mollusc in venice for the first three days of the trip. It's a classic paralell template noserider 19 x 23 x 16 x 3 ish with a nice foil, plenty of foam but not too big and blocky, pretty flat with nose concave and a decent kick in the tail. Really pretty similar to my favorite gulfstream and a board i really enjoyed surfing.

Interestingly (to me at least) was that it came with a 9.75 inch greenough 4a fin. Not the template i would instinctively put in at home on a noserider, but one that worked really well, held on the tail but loosened the board up nicely especially in the slightly faster point style waves.

Really i shouldn't have been so suprised, after all, greenough is a genius and the 4a is pretty much the template he encouraged Nat Young to use in the famous magic sam, the board he used to take the 66 world title and usher in the whole involvement school of surfing that led to the shortboard revolution etc.

over sand under grass..

Just post dawn patrol glass and pre pancake breakfast at San O. Sadly the perfect little waves at old mans are burnt out of the background. We were so lucky to spend a day with the Threadgills there. They used up a precious day of annual leave to show us a classic san o beach day of surf, cookout and stomp rocket fun. I've already thanked them on here once but, thanks again guys, you showed us an awesome time.


San O was definately somewhere the average level of surfing was pretty high. Plenty of my surfs in California left me feeling pretty good. I left San O feeling distinctly average having witnessed some really great logging by pint size rippers, Josh Baxter put on one of the best displays of prog longboarding i've seen in real life and an unamed hero hang ten like i dream, of on a soft top!

Course they all have some super good consistent waves to get good on. One interesting thing about San O is that SUP's are banished to their own peak, way south by the (slightly pornographically shaped) power station. A pretty good thing in the opinion of everyone i talked to.

toontown

it's all pleasure...(sort of)

My 9'5 x 17 1/4 x 23 x 16 x 3 Dano Old Pleasure lying in the parking lot at Doheny State Beach, just yards away from where i dumped it a couple of days earlier after limping out of the water with blood pouring from my foot........

Doheny, depsite it's detractors, is a fun wave on a log, a mellow lined up point style righthander though of course we all know it's a shadow of Killer Dana, the wave lost when the harbor was constructed. I'd just enjoyed a mellow dawn patrol getting to know my new board, chatting with friendly locals. As i walked out of the water i suddenly felt a sharp stabbing pain in my right heel.

A number of choice expletives left my mouth as i quickly realised that i had done something pretty serious. It felt like i had stepped on some kind of spike or nail and i thought that may have been my last surf for at least this trip and maybe longer. I limped back to the car and changed with difficulty, leaving a puddle of blood on my board bag and drove home trying to concentrate as waves of pain pulsed up my leg. Believe me it really f****ing hurts!

After staggering into the condo in proper melodramatic fashion, i steeled myself to wash my foot, expecting to reveal a huge gash requiring stitches, flaps of skin etc. Instead there was a neat puncture wound seemingly out of proportion with the ever increasing pain. Turns out i had been properly skewered by a sting ray and let me tell you it's not an experience i'd like to repeat!

In this situation it is not possible to understate how much putting your foot in a bowl of hot water helps, denaturing the venom and taking the pain down to a manageable level as long as you keep the water at just below scolding temperature. To cut a long story short, it took us clueless english people a call to 911 to belatedly find this out and a trip to the hospital for x-rays to confirm that there was none of the barb still in my foot.

The weird thing is that by the 4 hour mark, the pain is gone and you are left with a pathetically small wound to heal. I'm not even going to have a scar to impress ladies with!

Not a part of the California experience i was looking for but a good story now.

number 3

lifeguard hut number 3 Mars............well Del Mar actually

the forgotten master..

When i really got into surfing, joel tudor was my first surfing hero, a beacon of smooth style amongst a sea of flapping shortboarders on impractical equipment. I know that some people have reservations about his personality, i've never met him. (i must admit to hoping to see him surf in California but no luck!)
What you cannot deny is his influence on the direction of non-mainstream surfing over the last 15 years. From ushering in a return to traditional style and heavy single fin logs, to prompting a re investigation of forgotten shortboard designs, his influence cannot be understated. In recent times he has stepped a little away from the spotlight, devoting much of his time to taking care of his son. His surfing is still as good as it ever was, smooth understated with a casualness that belies the technicality and positioning of the lines he draws.

This section, from cyrus sutton's riding waves was one of my favorite bits of footage for a long time. i still think if you wanted a short segment to show someone the grace of good traditional logging, you'd be hard pressed to find a better example. Slightly forgotten it's back in rotation on my dvd player this summer.

rincon

Rincon was pretty much flat while we were close (being more of a winter break) though even with the tiny windswell you could see the potential. The beach itself is smaller than you would imagine and covered in driftwood. There are a few huts out on the point made with the wood. This one would have easily seated three or four people.

the skipper

Tourmaline, despite being designated an "official surfing park" is never going to make headlines on it's wave quality alone. In fact on an average day it bares a very close resemblance to my local spot being a lined up mushy beachbreak. It is, however, a lot of fun on a loggy board and has a pretty vibrant local scene, with friendly talented locals in the line up.

It's also Skip Frye's local beach and i have to admit that sharing the lineup with him was one of the highlights of my trip. He's still a REALLY good surfer, always in the right spot to take off with minimum effort. Lithely bounding to his feet with a grace that belies his age. Eaking every last moment of trim out of each little peeler before paddling back out with a smile.

I'd love to say that i managed to pick up one of his boards as well, a nice Eagle or something, and i did see a couple for sale, but at $1500 - $2500 second hand, even i couldn't justify it.

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......

so long and thanks for the fish!

Sadly i'm leaving california today after a great trip, some great fun surfs and a few rolls of film in the bag. Assuming US security didn't fry them i'll start posting some over the next few weeks.

I want to publicly thank Graham & Cathy Threadgill and their boys for opening up to us & helping us to experience the real california. You showed us a fantastic time. We'll be back to see you & i hope we can return the favor in the future.