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.

Driving back from Kelly Ave

The Jetty looked unsurfable this morning. On my drive home it looked a little better.

Though it was pretty much breaking right on the beach -:\

Gray Whale Cove always looks cool though the waves looked a little disorganized today. They look kind of small but my guess is they were easily head+.

Kelly Ave

The waves ended up being pretty fun this morning.


Here is my buddy Eli who I surf with most of the time. I saw him get at least one wave better than this one but I didn't have my camera out.

Here are a few sequences of ED. Click on any of them to see a bigger version.









DOH! Didn't make it out.







Ed caught the most waves and had the best rides. He has also been surfing for a lot longer than us kooks. I only managed to score 2 decent rides today but that's better than some days I've had so I can't complain too much.

Surfers Beach / The Jetty @ Low Tide

This is one of my favorite surf spots at low tide. Normally those rocks in the middle of the picture are mostly under water. It is odd to see them mostly high and dry. It's also good to see them like this every once in a while so you know what is going on under you because a lot of the time the best waves roll right over them. Some times there are more rocks exposed. I think this is the most buried in sand I have seem them. Click to see a bigger version. Oh, if you want to see what it looks like when it's more fun check out this post from a few Christmases ago.