Mavericks First Big Swell of the Season

Here is the janky ass video I shot of Mavericks. I didn't have any video tapes for my stereo 3d rig so I shot this with my point and shoot. You can see the rig below. Anyway it was fun to get out and watch the first big swell of the season!


A couple of guys getting ready to head out. I love those boards.


A lady with bigger balls than most tough guys getting ready to go out.


This is the view from where I was standing. This is at the top of a 40-50 foot is cliff and is probably one of the best spots you can watch from short of being in the water. That wave in the middle top which is the farthest out is the break. There is actually someone riding it and if you click to view the bigger image you can almost make them out but probably not. The guy there in front of me had a huge lens.


Here is what that barbed wire fence protects. It's some kind of Navy installation. I think mostly weather and radar stuff. It has the prime spot for watching Mavericks and normal people are not aloud in.


Here is the top of the cliff. In this picture you can see just about all of the top of the cliff that you can watch from. I was standing along the very steep back side of the cliff. Not a whole lot of room for spectators. I think only 10-20 cameras could get a good view or maybe 30-40 people.


Here a view from the same spot looking down. It's a pretty steep climb as you can see from the guy making his way up. There are some spots along that edge you can watch from but they are not so comfy and less than the best view.


This is they guy who was in front of me with his huge lens. I bet he got better shots than me.


Here is the super cheap and small gheto lens extender rig I took with me. It's why my video is less than super. The clamp thing cost $20 from B&H Photo and totally worth it for lo-tech video. Though my rig is cheap and less than perfect I actually really enjoy the janky quality of the video I shoot with it.


All hooked up and ready to go. I hand held all of my shots and had to do a lot of post deshake to make it kind of watchable.


This is the end I spend most of my time looking at.

Fun at the Jetty

Got to the Jetty early and had plenty of time to surf thanks to the fall back.


Here is a mid size wave from this morning. There were bigger and smaller waves and most of them were clean and fun.


Shot this video. Just about everyone ended up getting caught inside when the set came through so I didn't really capture the magic that was happening here today but the video was okay so I put it up.

Novembers Starts off With a Bang

Yesterday was small mellow OB.

Today Not so much.


Nice.


And there is what OB is all about. Make sure to click on the images to see them bigger.

Halloween Surf

It was nice and foggy today.


Perfect for a Halloween Surf!


It was kind of small about waist to shoulder high.


I went out and got a bunch of waves a few were really fun.
Watch out for the fog people! Happy Halloween!

Bioluminescent Birthday!

So it's my birthday and I headed out for a birthday dawn patrol. Everyone bailed on me but being my birthday I wasn't going to let that stop me today. I hit the place I most wanted to surf and ended up getting there a little before sunrise. I was watching for waves and noticed that the bigger sets (which weren't very big, maybe waist) seemed to be greenish. I thought it was from a stop light down the road. But it was the wrong color green and the light was pretty far away. Then I noticed it was actually in the wave not reflecting off it. The waves white water was still white in the light but there was a green glow inside the bigger waves. It looked like a green lighting storm inside the waves as they broke. The smaller waves didn't glow or at least not enough for me to see. It was starting to get light so it was probably washing most of the glowing out. I bet it looked really cool about an hour before I got there. Still It was a great birthday present from mother nature. I only had my phone camera on me which wouldn't have come close to capturing it so no pictures. Sorry.

Little Clean OBX Wave

I was back east in the Outer Banks, NC for my yearly week long family vacation. Surfed every day except the day we arrived at 8pm and the day we left at 6am. Mostly knee high waves with a few in the waist maybe higher but pretty clean and fun enough.

This was my only successful attempt at getting a shot of a tiny barrel.

More Love Notes

Ok, ok I feel the love. Now stop stalking me.

Sweet South Swell - July 25

It was a bit bigger today with the bigger sets in the at least double over head size. I have a sore elbow and only managed two waves before I got rolled a few times and decided to call it quits while I was ahead.

I have been taking the worst pictures this weekend but at least I was taking pictures!. At least they are in 3D! Even if they are in pretty flat/shallow 3d. I need to take my hyper stereo bar out with me so I can get more depth. Oh well.

Make sure to click on the images for a larger view.

This was the biggest wave I managed to get a picture of. How big does this look? 2x over head? It wasn't the biggest one we saw but it was the biggest anyone caught while I had my camera out. When I was getting out of the water I saw a guy gut a huge stand up barrel with room to spare and it was about the same size as this wave.


And here is a party wave -:]

Sweet South Swell - July 24

The surf has been pretty good the last few days and here is some proof. I wish I could have managed some better pictures but I think these show off the waves well enough. I would have shot video but I decided to spend more time surfing than worrying about taking pictures or video since I haven't been out on a day this good and bit in over a year thanks to my knee injury(s).

Be sure to click on the images to see bigger versions in stereo 3D!

This is about as small as it was


Look at that wave.


Close up of the same wave.


This is probably the most 3d of the pictures I got.


It was just really good.


Nice.


There were lots and lots of fun waves.


Here is one of the bigger waves from this Friday. What do you think, close to double over head?


This is a shot of the peak where we were surfing. I think most of the waves we got were in this range to a little bigger.

Love Note

Went surfing this morning and found this sweet little love note on my windshield when I got back to my car.

Click on the image to see it all big and tough and proud like.
---------------------------------------------------------
STAY OVER THE HILL, KOOK.
ElVis is DEAD, you fat
WANA BE.

The Locals
==========
---------------------------------------------------------
So if I was from over the hill and there had been good surf and a crowd and I was dropping in on people and all that I might have a little sympathy. But the surf was just kind of okayish maybe and me and a friend were the only ones in the water the whole time we were out at Kelly Ave / Have Moon Bay State Park. So I am guessing they were just jealous of my super awesome big puffy side burns.

And how can you not be!

Right? If you saw these you would probably want to write me secret love notes too. Did I mention that they didn't stick around to chat about my lack of surf skillz (I was in the water catching waves, where were they?) or my burns or my fat wanna be a sumo wrestler physique? Maybe I'll post something in the missed connections section of the HMB paper.

3D Fathers Day Solstice Skate

What better way to celebrate the longest day of the year than with a Fathers Day Summer Solstice Skate! This was my first fathers day without my Dad. And I was a little extra sad because Dad always got so excited about the Solstice. He loved the longest day (well day light) of the year. I needed something to cheer me up. So I went Skating with Eli and his stepson Steven -:]

Here is Steven working on his hospital flip. I think there is a varial flip in there as well.

The stereo is a little out of sync but it mostly works. I need to bring a better video rig next time.

Here I am doing a frontside air. I needed to do some flying in honor of Dad -:]


I tried to get my frontside on video but I guess the pressure got to me because I didn't quite make it. Still the air is pretty clean and I think the video is kind of funny.


I like this picture because you can tell it's not a 2 foot section I'm airing in.

I did land this one and the air in the first pic -:]
Now it's time to start adding some height!

Sick Sea Lion(s) -:[

Some friends (Eli and Todd) and I were meeting up to surf this morning. I stopped at one spot around 5:30 am to check it and it was looking pretty bad so I called Eli who was driving buy another spot that I thought might be good (it was) and said he should stop there instead of meeting up with me since where I was sucked. Then I left to check another spot on my way to meet up with Eli and Todd. When I was checking the other spot Eli called and said there was a sea lion on the rocks that looked sick and asked if I had the Marine Mammal Rescue number. He thought I had it because two weeks ago we saw another sick sea lion and I called the Marine Mammal Rescue. I gave him the number so he could call it in. When I got there this little guy was laying on the rocks not looking so good.


He was looking pretty sad but was still kicking and managed to keep an eye on everyone checking him out.


Right as we finished up surfing and got out of the water one of the local Marine Mammal Rescue people showed up to get the little guy. She had a BIG net and that got him all excited but not that much. She caught him with very little effort.

Click on the image to see it bigger (works with all the images)

And here is the hero of the day, Eli, helping her get him to her truck for transport.


Poor little guy stuck in jail. I hope he pulls through.

So this is the 2nd sick sea lion pup we have seen in two weeks. When I called the first one in the guy I talked to said there have been a lot of sick sea lion pups this year. He said they think the sea lions are having a hard time finding food. The Marine rescue lady was telling Eli the same thing. Bummer.

Update: Here is an article about the current increase in sick sea lions.

Nice flip trick

Shot this last week at Menlo Park. This guy (don't know his name) was there playing S.K.A.T.E. with a couple of my friends.

Whale Tale

Went out surfing with some friends Wednesday morning before work at Kelly Ave in Half Moon Bay. The waves were so-so. A few fun waves but nothing to exciting going on. I was paddling back out after catching a little ride and one friend, Adam, was pointing at our other friend, Ed, who was 20-30 yards away and I thought I heard Adam say, "whale".

I paddle over to him and ask, "Did you say whale?"

He said, "Yeah, right over by Ed."

I looked over and sure enough there as a whale about 20 feet from Ed but a little closer to shore than we were. As we watched it looked like there were two of them, a bigger one and a smaller one. We figured it was probably a mother and calf. Oh and by smaller it was still huge. The part we saw was 15ish feet of it's back which probably put it in the 20+ foot range and the other one was bigger. They ended up swimming around us keeping about 20-3o yards away gently surfacing and blowing out of their spouts but not really splashing much. Once they were around us the moved in closer to shore again and seemed to keep heading up the beach. I think as we were leaving they swam back by but further out looking like they were heading back out to sea.

To top it off the night before I was thinking about taking one of my water proof cameras out but decided I would rather focus on surfing which is why there are no pictures of whales but I figured I had to post this story.

I have never seen a whale before let alone been sitting in the water right by them. It was crazy cool. Probably the coolest things I have ever seen.

I Heart Pads!

So here is what happened to my knee pad after failing to stick a frontside air.

Notice the plastic shards.

Take a closer look. Pretty right?


Now here is what my leg looked after taking the pad off.

I have a big fat scab on my knee now and that was with two inch pads! I don't want to think about what my knee would have looked like without pads -:\

Skate Junk

I almost grabbed this stuff. Then I figured I already have enough skate junk of my own.

I actually saw it last week. When we walked by the same place this week the wheels and truck were still there. Funny because those are the things that seemed most useful. The deck was for sure soggy and just about worthless. Diffrent stroks for diffrent folks I guess.

Skate Week

My friend Mike who I have been skating with since 9th grade, some 23ish years now, was in town this past week. We mostly skated and took pictures and video of skating.

Here is Mike busting an ollie over a recycle bin at the Menlo Park Skate Park.


And here he is holding on to the picture frame to help him land this rail slide.


Here is Steven busting an ollie over the same recycle bin.


At the Pacifica Skate Park we met this kid named Shane who was tearing it up. That's Mike taking a picture.


Shane kept doing these big ollies out of the bowl and onto this platform. He was pulling all kinds of grabs and 180s and stuff.


You can see how big the ollie is better from this angle.


At Menlo Park there was a biker pulling some nice airs.


I like this shot a lot but it's not as 3d as the first one of him.


More pictures and probably some video coming soon.