E's Surf Report

No coma los pescados muertos.

sounds niiiiice. how many miles in how many days??

ahhh, you're gonna make us wait until tomorrow to dish on the other spot??? at least tell us if you scored. we've been waiting so long already.

Quote from the trip:

"We are so scoring right now!!" - e

yeah, you look pretty happy as you're getting your gas. have they still not finished that church up the street? i'm sure it will look as pretty as those other ones once it's done, but for now i guess they have alot of fishing to do. did y'all cruise by the fish factory?

spotted at the beach this morning

One hungry sea lion who munched two large stripers right in front of me and bogarted the whole thing

Two large dolphins who jumped and swam directly inside me before realized this wasn't the way to Sea World and promptly headed right back through the lineup going the other way.

One kamikaze seagull buzzing a little too close to my head.

And shoulder to head high glassy waves not quite right for the sandbar, but good enough to get a little DP session and nasal rinse.

Thx for the pics and words. More, more!

Lotsa sea life out yesterday too, blakestah (except for the species surferinox californianus).

don't worry - they were all with me at the 'secret' spot

Welcome home, e. From the pics and the prose, things are still changing slowly in some parts of Baja.
BTW Kaiser did a GREAT job, along with j, keeping things together here.
email me and we'll see about getting those pedals to ya.

E, et al, welcome back! Hope to hear more about the trip. Details, all the details, no names though.

Gotta throw some props to J who covered for me as the Substitute's Substitute. I think he was angling for my job.

Anyway, I am also back from my Mexi recon trip. I got more thong material then I know what to do with. The surf sucked, it was all glassy lefts, many of which rolled on for like 200-300 yards sometimes. Others just stacked up at OH and peeled fat walls. But hey, it did get good around 6:00 p.m. when the onshores picked up and blew it out. What is more fun then surfing a ripped up left point with 5 or so cervesas in the system?

Oh, damn! Almost forgot. I gotta get some shout out to Aqua Surf Shop....

I was questioning the new shop on Height Street when i heard about it. Honestly, I thought it was pretty much the same road that you would expect out of Wise or Lombardi Sports or the like. Sell out? Well, sure, you could call it "selling out" but these guys put one hell of a store together. The main focus in on clothes,but hey, that is what pays the rent and I am sure the rent is not cheap. Besides, every other shop on that street is far more "sold out" then Aqua. Couldn't help but see that there is another Surf Movie Night @ The Vic. I expect there will be more! Great shop, great vibe, nice work! Good collection of boards, great clothes, great art work (of the little that is up so far...) and I am sure more to come.

Rating: 3.75 Thongs out of 4.

Good to hear that the new Aqua shop is rad. Stoked that there's now a surf shop two blocks from my house!

Welcome back ya'll. Sounds like an exciting trip. So how did the rental car hold up?

At least we had fun waves this weekend. I stayed out for nearly 3 hours on Sat and Sunday. Today I can't quite scratch my head;) I paddled past the crowds on the inside on my 9'er to the outside on Sunday am. Sat out there all alone for about 5 minutes. Then another guy showed up. He grabbed an OH wave, I grabbed an OH wave. So much for the inside. Everybody came out to join me. It's good to have the upper hand with the longboard on weekends. (I can feel the longboards suck comments coming.) It was fun though. Good vibes in the water. A few familiar and friendly faces. Almost zero sideshore current.

Bonehead move of the day. For the first time in well, I can't even remember the last time, I locked my keys in the car in the parking lot. I decided to blame it on the longboard leash cuz it doesn't have a sufficient key pocket for the girth of my Jeep key. I always put the key in my leash pocket. For once I was glad to see a surfer at the beach with a cell phone. Called the wife for rescue.

comment removed by E to protect the innocent

next SF movie night will be July 6-7, and will feature an opening film made by a friend of mine that makes liberal use of my surfing footage (mostly from fall 2002 and 2003). He did all the work after I did most of the filming, hope you all dig it. His work is 6 or 7 minutes long...

Giorgio's sounds great right now. Good Pizza.

Controversy number #1 of the day: I fail to see how for-profit businesses trying to improve their business is selling-out. Almost every business invest large amounts of money, not to mention the sweat equity (work with no income), to get the business started. It's not like they are selling books like "The Secret Surf Spots at OBSF" for profit.

This message has been approved by the Dukes of Hazard from A-Town. Any dissention will be dealt with severely.

great trip fellas. e, loved the recount. our rental car took a serious beating, but they didn't seem to care at the office. the people of baja are awesome.

kaiser let's see some shots from your trip.

good waves yesterday morning, but that water is cold!

Hey Kaiser -- What happened to Bali? No luck in converting the mainland mex tickets?

Controversy number two of the day: It's probably not cool to post pics of random local people changing out of their wetties unless you know they're cool with it. I'm stoked on the Reef and Wicked Weasel pics, but pics of local people taken and/or posted without their knowledge is a little creepy.

welcome back e,
mucho "scoring"
i just got to kauai last night and of course since i'm here....... the north shore is flat
road trip south side in order
j, already found one this morning, however still searching for a more worthy specimen

Cute or not, a candid shot of a local woman changing, posted anonymously, seems kinda borderline.

oops, should've previewed. i agree with you, mwsf.

welcome back E.

to bad the mysto right point down the beach from the wedding resort wasn't firing. it's can be EPIC.

Kaiser, you had to have scored!!!!

peace to the peeps.

hey y'all..

3to5.. not sure which wave you mean. we scored a right reef/point that sits on the Corridor - glassy, fast and shoulder high one day, that was the closest wave to our resort. It's not really a high-quality wave, but it can be. clear water with a shallow reef and fast/zippy waves. Also scored the left near Cabo pretty good at the end of the day one day. Zippers/The Rock/Old Mans was a zoo the whole time. but.. pretty much every other place we surfed in Baja had good vibes/low crowds.

yeah.. Kaiser-- give us the scoop on your mainland trip. would love to hear about that.

Thanks Steamwand for all your info before our trip. never got to thank you for it.

and thanks to J for filling in all week! niiice.

MWSF, yeah, Bali was waaaayyyyyy to expensive and I couldn't pull of the "miles" route as they didn't have any seats which qualified.

It was better in the end. And to 3to5's point, yes my fellow wave rider, I got very nice waves! I have surfed many places, but I have never surfed a place that put a smile on my face as fat as the smile I had surfing the longest left point I have ever witnessed in person. Unless you count the left point from Impossibles thru Bingin, to Dreamland and connecting with the corner at Balangan. That would be long.

not much time for le blog lately, but gotta say welcome back to kaiser & e and nice job to j & kaiser in e's absence.

kaiser: let me know via email if any of my mainland tips were helpful...

And in case you missed these pics from deni last week:

mig - niice, keep me posted!

what accounts for the water temp diffs between santa cruz and up here? i swear i noticed what felt like 20 degree water temp difference between the two areas yesterday.

reminder to all: click it or ticket. they're cracking down out there.

I live not far from the new aqua and I'm sure I'll check it out and probably spend some dollars there. I'm not really sure what it means to sell out, and I suspect a lot of you would consider me a complete sell out if you knew what I did for a living. But its a living, surfing is for fun. There's something that seems slightly off about putting a shop on Haight to sell roxy crap to tourists because surfing is cool right now. The conflict is inherent anytime you're making a living off something most people do for fun, and especially if that thing is something that a few take way too seriously. I guess I hope those guys make a lot of money and that it subsidizes more movie nights, barbeques, beach clean ups etc.

I've had this water temp conversation a bunch of times, never with a real conclusive answer. Methink the two main factors involved are: warmer air temp makes water temp easier to bear, and as it's a bit more protected, there is somewhat less exchange with the colder open ocean and more potential for the greater amount of sun to heat up the surface water. Compare with Alameda, where the water temp is disgustingly warm for someone used to OB. OB just doesn't have a whole lot of sunshine compared to SC or even Alameda.

e,
there is a mysto point/reef just east of the resort beach. they don't advertise it, nor does it break rideable unless it's BIG. since my home base in Cabo is that resort, one of these days, hopefully I'll score it.

Tule can get awfully good when the wind blows offshore.

On selling out, no one loves selling out more than hippies except maybe their Gen Xer children, with the center of their universe being the 3 chain stores on Haight-Ashbury and the fourth store which sells overpriced crap to tourists. The Hot Topic on Telegraph in Berkeley is also another great place to buy your counter-culture values that have been mass-prudeced in overseas-sweat shops and repackaged at low, low prices.

On the sell out tip, I think Dennis and Eric have some good takes. Someone is going to sell people this type of "clothing", whether it is the GAP, Macy's, Wise, Aqua or the like. I would much rather see the guys at Aqua make a buck and run a cool business then someone else.

To me, it seems these guys have worked pretty hard to make the store happen. Shit, I bought some OP shorts there yesterday. So, I am really the sold out one who went to a surf shop on Height street. They wouldn't be there is I didn't shop there.

Once again: 3.75 Thongs out of 4.

Strong northerly winds cause upwelling. The deeper the water to draw from, the colder the temperature. There's a very deep underwater canyon just south of SC with plenty of bone-chilling water to send to the surface. We've had plenty of strong northerly winds this past week. My wife's new gladiolas blew done and she was very sad about that.

welcome back boys! glad to hear that everyone made it to the mainland relatively unscathed.

mswf - did you use any of the medical stuff i gave you guys to get the urchin spine out?

I can't believe people are actually hating on surf shops? WTF?

I think Aqua made a great decision to put a store in there, someone was gonna do it, might as well be some super stoked, very nice fellows. Plus they did a really good job with the store. Wife bought a pair of pants yesterday, they fed my dog chocolate pretzels, all good in the hood if you ask me. Those guys get all my business and referals. Funny how the boards are more for show in there though.

May I ask what you people did growing up? I spent every damn day after school either surfing, skating, or hanging at the shop. To me a good surf shop is more than a place to buy your goods and not many shops can pull off the good vibes that Aqua has.

bienvenidos a san francisco compadres! sandy bites. looks like you guys scored! good job! the beach has been really crappy, lovely day out yesterday though. ill say this about Aqua, they've always had the best vibes and there showing some smarts, i think its a strong move putting a shop on haight, expecially with the hipness of surfing right now (which is kind of a bummer but it happens like every 15 years or so) and theres nothing wrong with trying to cash in on the fad right now. i mean isnt the point of a retail store too sell out? glad they beat wise to it i think they deserve to cash in, good carma. they've been around a while and i think they represent a good attitude especially in this land of johnny youngbloods and bvbs and "hard-nor-cal-core" sf local whining ninnys. good onto them.

to all of you who point the finger at sell outs...look in the mirror.

if you ain't volunteering to end cancer or aids or world hunger, you are a fucking sell out.

now reach in to your fat fucking pockets and send these guys $5 bucks.

Hello Mermen Friends,
Thank you everyone for the support we've been receiving from you.
Here's an update on our stolen equipment. Jennifer flew back out to Vegas for a
few days and met with the detectives from Metro Pawn Detail, went to music
stores and pawn shops, and had a meeting with the management and security of the
Flamingo hotel/casino, Unfortunately nothing has turned up yet regarding our
stolen gear. If anyone has any information or is willing to help in the search,
let us know.

We have had many requests from fans wanting to help us out
financially so we have set up a donation link for credit cards and an PO box
address for checks on the Mermen web site. http://www.mermen.net Our Insurance
is only going to cover about 1/3rd of our loss so any help is deeply
appreciated. We are also offering a $3,000.00 reward for the recovery of our
gear.

MERMEN will be performing in Santa Cruz at the Catalyst this Saturday June 18th
. It is a benefit for OCEAN REVOLUTION. Also on the bill are MOTHERHIPS and
APE. The MERMEN are going on first about so get there early.

Sincerely,
Jim Thomas/Jennifer Burnes/Martyn Jones
MERMEN

Sounds like you guys scored down in Baja& Mex- sweet! Props to Kaiser &j-

After much internal conflict I guess I'm now embracing the wind- sort of. It's a weird internal conflict- wind bad - wind good

Oh well Here's Jeff Kafka busting out bayside

drdy -- I forgot that we had the kit until I had already removed most of the spines. I used my Leatherman, a sewing needle, and some tweezers. A scalpel might have been a little better than the unwieldy Leatherman but no major problems overall. I had my booties on when it happened so it wasn't too nasty. The deepest one was only in a quarter inch or so. It was a bummer but if the worst injuries of the two weeks were a handful of urchin spines and some reef rash, it was a good trip.

Is capitalism a sustainable economic system? Will there be enough natural resources 300 years to manufacture the goods needed to handle three times the current world population? Will technology save capitalism? Will Benji marry Sally on the Days of Our Lives?

hellllllp me! heellllllllp me!

freekatie.net

Last time I surfed Zippers was in 1989. I stepped on 10000 urchin spines getting out of the water, barefoot. Upon looking at my foot it resembled a pincushion, like Yosemite Sam after getting slammed into a cactus. Many of the spines went all the way through. A fever I don't like remembering followed that night.

I'd rather buy a box of It's Its with my $5. And then hand them out to hungry dudes on Height as I walk to Aqua.

I'd rather keep my 5 bucks for myself.

I'm getting kevlar lined reef booties. That sounds unbelievalby painful Blakestah.

it sucks, but shit gets stolen all the time, welcome to life!

Aqua Haight is the high water mark of the over-exposed popularity surfing is currently enjoying. It will leave a stain of used resin tint fishes and longboards when it recedes in time.

don't the Mermen have insurance????

Damn E! I haven't read the posts yet, but your post was awesome! Very inspiring! I especially like
"Madmax Beyond Thunderdome.
Cobblestone reef goodies.
Super-remote possibilities to the south.
Cactus forests."
SOLID! Sounds like you guys had such a sick time!

This morning for me -> Get ready to charge to SC with a buddy to ride some 10' long boards. Stop into work real quick at 5:45a. Management says "No way you're going to SC 'bro' you're scheduled to work at 7am." Think to myself at how F'ing stupid I am for reading my schedule wrong. Bumming all morning long. Oh well.

Anyone know more details?

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/news/061305_nw_rescue.html

It started with three surfers caught in a riptide near Grey Whale Cove. One made it to a cliff, but couldn't get out.

A bystander tried to help, but also became trapped.

Then a firefighter made his way up the rocks in a rescue attempt. A Coast Guard helicopter was called in to airlift all three out.

Police say alcohol was a factor in the incident.

Swimmers from the Half Moon Bay Fire Department pulled the other surfers out of the water. All those rescued were reported to be in stable condition.

FREE MICHAEL!!!
(Send $5 to the 'FREE MICHAEL' c/o Aqua Surf Shop)

i have a co-worker who has been kite surfing reefs lately on his standard 6'6". he was glazed over the last few weeks. frothing on a few days. i'm pretty much sold now. next spring..........

not guilty

Kloo - it's things like this that give alcohol a bad name. OK. You're a surfer. You're on a surfboard. You get stuck in a rip. What do you do? Maybe same thing a swimmer does. When I think I'm in trouble out there, I just bail.

The same thing happened there last year although I thinks it was a girl and guy swimming and a surfer rescued one of them--the girl of course. She was probably naked! Something like that but not real accurate.

I couldn't help but notice the rips at OB this weekend. They were everywhere.

No guilty bitches......

hey kaiser, i hear MJ is looking to groom his next batch of party animals, wanna drop your little one by?

E-
great prose as usual!

SS7 and i tried in vain to surf a mysto reef, way way off the beaten path and after driving north endlessly had it all to ourselves...unfortunately it was tiny and crumbly so we drove back to surf a crowded spot with a bunch of greedy Mercedes driving marin county kids! shoudda stayed at good old beach!

nice, congrats to mj! the guys tweaked but i dont think he touched any little boys dillys

wow you can get barreled kite surfing? thats crazy

kids get molested all the time, welcome to life.

A quick comment on the sell out thing. Who is more of a sell out? A couple of life long surfers that open a shop that sells products associated with their favorite activity and probably enables more extra surf time than most jobs...or someone that is a life long surfer working a standard office job and usually only surfs the internet during the week.

Just a thought. And I have been to the new Aqua and I think they did a good job.

Working in retail sux, give me a cube pls.

You ever had their wings?

Funny to hear about the urchin spines. Got at least one still in my foot from my last session in Kauai on Friday. Managed to ding up my board pretty good during the same session. In all, I was glad to bring my 2 favorite boards as I needed a small wave board and my short board and was happy not to deal with rentals and repairing the rental etc. Luckly no damage occured to either board during transport and the wife didn't get pissed at me for being in the water during a majority of the sunsets.

Whoever said Aqua gave their dog chocolate pretzels, you need to know that chocolate is poison to dogs. That's right, it can kill your pooch.

I got the one on the left

dogs die all the time, welcome to life.

my take on aqua selling out.
I need clothes for warmth, fashion and to cover my pasty, hairy white self.
Aqua sells cool clothes.
I willingly exchange my money for their goods.
Ok with me.

girls rule!!
i love women!
thank you Kaiser!!!

Grapes! Grapes are poison to poochie too!

e-willkommenn Sie!

but all dogs go to heaven

so is bacon (poison to poochie)

i'll take three beers
a shot of whiskey
2 lines of Coke all around
those two hooters girls
a hotel room
pent up sexual energy
oh my.

Occasional reader, 1st post...
RE Kloo's post & the San Mateo rescue:

I stumbled upon major emergency vehicles in front of the beach. There was 1 board on the beach, sans surfer. Several minutes later another surfer appeared in the water next to a board-less swimmer -- making very little progress towards the beach. 2 rescue divers then appeared and slung the swimmer w/ a floaty device and dragged him in. I thought that was it. Then, I talked to the guy who lost his board. He informed me that his friend -- not a surfer but a strong swimmer (you be the judge)borrowed a wetty from another of their friends and tried to 'help'. After getting caught in the rip, he ended up climbing rocks to get out. Apperently, getting pretty beaten up on the rocks in the process. The heli then flew in and plucked 3 ppl off the rocks. Pretty impressive flying skills, US Coast Guard!

"Whoever said Aqua gave their dog chocolate pretzels, you need to know that chocolate is poison to dogs. That's right, it can kill your pooch."

Are you fucking serious? Anonymous Mom police over here, so lame. You don't know all the facts so keep your mouth shut. THAT'S RIGHT, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.

Good work Traut, now let's see if the wife is all good with the nastiness that will go down at Tahoe and the Greek next month. So lookin' forward to that!

not related to anything... buy why do kite dudes wear boardshorts over their wetty? Pretty stupid.

Cold water is why, cooooold water, and it's effects on the male anatomy. You see kids in Santa Cruz do it too.

E just a slight correction they are not "sea hawks" but Osprey. They can be found in both fresh and salt water bodies.

dudes, those baja pix are nice. looks so fun.

Chocolate WILL kill dogs. At least that's what the vet said when our dog ate my wife's box of chocolates, so we had to take the dog in and have the vet get the dog to puke it all up. WAS HE RIPPING US OFF?

But gee, does ANYONE know all the facts? Not me, do I have to keep my mouth shut?

i NEVER see kids or anyone else in santa cruz wear shorts over their wetties and i'm quite sure it would have next to no effect on warmth. definitely dorky unless it serves some purpose with the harness or other kiting gear.

my parents basset hound pretty much ate anything he could get a hold of. including a few boxes of see's candys. he was overweight and died of heart faliure at the ripe old age of 5. i was super pissed at my parents. true story.

im not buying the boarshorts over wetsuit=warmth bit

board shorts over the wetty demystified for those quick to judge:

Yeah it looks silly, but it provides an extra layer of protection between the neoprene and the sand on the beach, the abrasive material on most harnesses and even the water surface itself. Wetsuits are so supple and soft these days that just about anything tougher than it will, over time, wear the neoprene ( and seams and/or bonding agent) down to nothing in a few sessions. Additionally, some shorts have a "sack pad" which protects the bathing suit parts quite well when free falling from 15ft up. Image doing a belly flop in to cold water, balls first, from that high.

Who cares what you look like -- most of the OB regulars can agree with that, no?

where in the haight is the new aqua? no mention of the address on their website. bad mktg

i gotta mean red spider,
spreds her web all over town.

i gotta mean red spider,
spreds her web all over town.

gonna get me a mean black spider,
to tear her cobwebs down.

Aqua is in the new string of shops where Truly Med used to be. Near Cole.

I think another bonus of the boardshort are pockets? Holds your crack pipe while you kite!

Cheers to that!

jesus kookdumb, google chocolate and dogs, dickhead. i thought this bloggy thingy was all about niceness? thought i'd let you know before your fucking smelly hippy dog dies. bitch.

Anonymous Mom Police?

Like everyone knows who the fuck a Kook dumb is?

Post your pic and address kook dumb or else just post under anom.

and other anom. go kick his ass if he does and feed his dog more chocolate.

I used to have a chocolate labrador and she was very healthy. What a sweet dog.

Oh. NOT guilty.
Sorry.
send the $5 to the Aqua Surf Shop anywho.
New business needs more cash flow other than the surf wax $$$'s.

Kitesurfing with clothes on the outside of wetsuits:

Primarily fashion statement
Abrasion/padding not an issue
Pockets can hold some safety stuff like knife/scissors
Just more gear for a gearhead sport (great for the retailers)

Sander

i don't have a dog. i have a kid. she fucking loves chocolate.

boardshorts over wetties = Punk Rock

Looks like a great trip E - jealousy abounds here in hot, sticky, grimey NYC.

how to post a pix?