What Quiver?

I currently have 4 boards in my garage. Is it a quiver, I guess so. The latest acquisition is my friend's old board that I have yet to surf on. It's a 7'3 slug, which fits quite nicely amongst the other boards I have.

Here's an intro to these boards that give me great rides in no particular order:

First up, the board that was purchased for the small days of summer and those days when I just feel like a slug, a 9'2 noserider. I bought it from a small shaper in Oceanside last summer, but didn't even get it till the very end of the summer season. The colors came out different than my imagination and description, although the color scheme is pretty damn nice, it hearkens back to the days of first polyurethane noseriders. The two-toned board looks like I'm a huge SC fan cause of the cardinal red and gold tints that were supposed to be rust orange and mustard yellow. Memorable rides include one last month that led to my embarassing nose drip in front of a girl. Even though it's a nose rider, and there's wax on the nose to further enforce that perception, I have yet to ride the nose on that board unless you count one step on the nose before diving for pearls shortly thereafter. There's a slight semblance of a dish under the nose, but nothing dramatic. Like many longboards these days, it's a squash tail with a 2+1 set up. There are some dings already on the bottom deck, mostly the result of wind trying to pry it off my little car while the straps strain to keep my board from flying off and leading to a sig alert. One of these days, I'll learn to cross step, nose ride, and do cutbacks with this log. Till then, it's great for just cruising the waves on small and semi-small days.

Next up, the 7'0 hybrid board with red trim on the edges. It has a sharp nose, but a very lean outline. It's super buoyant with a square tail. No problems catching waves on smaller days, but more of an effort on days that are well overhead for some reason. This board has the most amount of rocker out of the quiver, so I drop in later, thinking that the nose won't pearl. The board feels twitchy on turns, almost like I'm Automan in my car that makes 90 degree turns. This board is the one I don't have much experience on and it shows. I bought it with plans as a transition to the world of shorties. It hasn't happened and may never happen cause I like riding on waves rather than struggle to catch waves. I am a lazy bastard, what do you expect? (See first board.) I have gotten tubed on this board, short as it was. I've also been locked really tight in the curl that I crouched down through the whole ride. Can't say it was a tube cause it was more wrapping around my shoulders than a complete cover up. One last thing about this board, it scares me cause I've had the worst crashes. I should have known that it would be a challenge when it popped me in the chin on my very first ride. I am sure that once I finally feel completely comfortable on it, that the wild soul within will give me a shot in the head just to let me know that I always have to be on my toes.

We come up to the very last board that I ride consistently. It's a 7'11 funboard. It's a shortened version of a longboard. My very first board ever was an 8'2. 3 inches and a slight change in shape make a huge difference on the feel and performance of the board. The 7'11 doesn't feel like a huge log like the 8'2 did. This is the board I've had some of my best days. My most memorable day? October of 2003, Sunday. Sunny skies, waves from 2-4 ft, glassy, peaks all over, empty beaches. By 10 am, things completely clean up that you can take rides left or right. Most of the morning crew has left, so it's like surfing on a weekday at a normally crowded break. Every ride is smooth, I go left and make a few turns. I go right and make some more turns. The water is crystal clear that I could see the sand underneath as I'm zooming by. Only bad thing, I have to leave cause of a marketing class project This is the board I've caught my biggest waves and the board I bring out when I'm not sure if it's going to be big or small. It is the complete utilitarian board and has its battlescars. On the top deck, there's a patch where it started to delaminate and I had that repaired and you can tell when the wax is scraped off that the repair left it scarred. There are more pressure dings these days. There are other little imperfections like the stringer seems a little off center at the nose. I've been popped in the mouth with this board, too. I think it's me more than the boards. Has to be cause no one else I know has been hit as much as I have by my own boards. This board inspired a friend to buy the same exact board with the same specs. That board came out looking cleaner and more refined, but it also was more sluggish and felt heavy. Guess those little quirks are what makes this board special.

The latest acquisition is my friend's old board that I have yet to surf on. It's a 7'3 slug, which fits quite nicely amongst the other boards I have. One day, it will be transported to a friend's place so that I can just crash there without ever having to pack a board.

Those are it. My small arsenal of boards. Would I like to get something else? Sure, I'd like to try a retro single fin shortie, like the one Beau Young rides in Singlefin: Yellow. Will I? Probably not for a long while cause I don't even ride all the boards I have now on a regular basis.

Humans are turning things red

That's the only explanation for the foul water. There wasn't much to surf, yesterday, but what made it worse was seeing all the foul water.

I just sat there, looking at the waves for awhile at different points and saw a lot of people bobbing in the water. There were waves to be caught, if you wanted a 1 second ride. The waves would crumble and people would just jump on the broken wave to catch what they could. Wasn't worth the drive or the thought of suiting up to potentially get sick from alll that red tide.

Even my friend didn't go out and he usually goes out in just about anything. I didn't even bother to wake up early on Sunday to save the disappointment.

I got the microwave!

Talk about some pretty small stuff out there. It's always a bad sign when you pull into the parking lot and most of the crowd is standing on the beach, looking forlornly at the water while their boards, even the ones that span the length of some of the cars they are riding on, are getting sun damaged. The sun was out, which is a good thing, about the only good thing yesterday.

I met up with my friend who was just here for a few days. I should have brought out the log, but I took out the fun board, all 7 feet and 11 inches. Surprisingly, I was able to catch a few short rides. Paddle, paddle, paddle, get up, jump off into knee high water. The saddest part of this brief sesh? My hair got went after I jumped off a wave, standing in knee high water, when a wave breaks on top of me. Not because I was duck diving some head high wave, not because I wiped out of a steep wave that was too big for me to handle, but because of a wave breaking on the inside section after my 2 second ride.

I'm hoping that Saturday will be much better, even though they are projecting cloudy skies.

At least the water was a dirty shade of green rather than red or brown.

Catch One In

After a few hours of being in the water or just getting a bunch of fun waves, "I'm going to catch the next one in," is a phrase that everyone will use. I may use it, but whether I actually "catch one in" is another matter altogether. Case in point, yesterday was sort of small, 1-3 feet, nothing bigger than that. I brought out the 9'2 knowing it was going to be small. I catch a bunch of waves before things started to slow down. My friend yells out, "I'm catching the next one in!" To which, I reply, "Me too!"

He goes on to catch a bunch more waves before riding one in. I sit out there trying to catch anything in. Anything at all! I'm just bobbing like a buoy more than anything else. after each attempt, I drift ever closer to shore. It just got to the point where I paddled a little bit and walked the rest of the way in.

The water was nasty yesterday, too. The sun finally broke through the remaining clouds, but I could tell, right as I walked in, that the water was not pretty. When the waves were crashing in front of me it looked reddish brown. The water right on shore was clear! It just started to darken as you walked out. The dolphins were out in force, which means the water is semi-decent, right? Right? Good thing I didn't wipe out much, just a quick dunk in the water a few times after a few waves and sometimes when I was paddling out.

Here's to cleaner water!

Too Much Water

I went out on Friday morning and the high tide just killed everything. Sure, I could have attempted to catch the waves on the inside and risk breaking my neck, but I decided to pass on most of those. If I stayed in the water long enough, I'm sure the tide would eventually back off, but I had other things I needed to get done.

It's a damn shame that some lousy pizza ruined me for the whole weekend. I wanted to go out today, but haven't the energy for it. Food poisoning sucks ass.

I sure picked a lousy time to become a surf bum, too much crappy weather and not enough good surf days.

Nose drip

Surfer's nose. I know of other people who have it, but I don't know if anyone else has had as embarassing a situation happen to them like I had yesterday. I was getting a girl's email address when I bent down and my nose decided to drain right then and there. The girl ignored it and I tucked my tail between my legs and left asap. Does this happen to anyone else or is it just me and my friends? It doesn't just drip out... it gushes. Don't get me wrong, when it does happen, it feels great, but that's either A.) while still in the parking lot of the beach or B.) in the privacy of my own home.

What caused the surfer's nose? A great session yesterday. I brought out the 9'2 cause the waves haven't been all that big these days. Friday was pretty small and I heard Saturday was smaller. It didn't matter to me cause I've lost a little bit of nerve on the overhead waves these days.

When I got out, the waves were coming in pretty consistently in the waist high range. Every now and then, a chest high wave would sneak through. There weren't too many people out at the home break, probably cause of the recent rainfalls.

First wave, I popped up and had my front foot slip. I'm not used to surfing without booties and it completely threw me off. In fact, I caught a few waves, but didn't do much with them. I was kooking out most of the time. It wasn't until I switched boards with my friend that I get in tune with things. He has a shorter board, a 7'0 egg shaped board. It's a drastic difference, but I was able to catch a wave, pop up, do one turn before the wave fizzled. Couldn't really catch any other waves cause I'm not used to surfing a 7'0 board anymore and the waves were really small.

After I got back on my own board, that's when the fun started. I popped up with very few issues. Right placement of the feet, balanced weight, knees slightly bent, etc. I started catching more and more waves. The wave of the day was a right, which started off small. I paddled, caught the wave, went straight, looked back and felt the board slow down. I made a slight bottom turn and that's when the fun started. The wave caught up to me and I was back towards the top. I could see the wave wall just rising up and normally I'd start to bail out on the wave, fearing I'd get crushed by the lip. I just kept it there and started to catch a lot of speed. I started zooming down the line before it petered out on the inside. I turned back to the curl, but it was clearly dead. I paddled out and one of the locals said with a smile, "I guess you can go home now." I wish I could have caught a few more like that one. I caught another wave which started off the same way, but hit a chop and went tumbling. It's okay, cause I got the wave of the day.

Thus, the surfer's nose event, though embarassing, was well deserved and a small price to pay for that great ride.