Pretty darn small but hey, I’ve got a single fin demo I want to try and if I were in New Hampshire I would be all over waves this big with this little wind. I’m out there!

There’s still some waves on offer but it’s packed full and could e aggravating.

When I was up at the factory yesterday I grabbed a board that is called the “BS single fin”. The board just looked and felt so good that I had to try it. Not to mention I had never seen a single fin in a size I would ride. This one is 5’7″x19″x2.2″ and was made for Kerr.
I rode it last night in some glassy knee to thigh high reforms and I was blown away with how high performance the board felt. It had tons of drive and you could project like you would on a tri fin. I can’t wait to try it in a little bit bigger waves.
For now though here are some pics of it I clicked before waxing it up for the maiden voyage.

I figured in an awkward way this would be a very fitting post for today. Here in the northern hemisphere we are celebrating the summer solstice. However, all of our Australian friends and anyone else who lives in the southern hemisphere is celebrating the winter solstice. I saw the above picture today and having just moved back from my winter in New Hampshire it really made me miss it. Especially after yesterday’s surf, where at one point I had to stop and paddle parallel to shore a few yards just to find a gap big enough to continue to make my way back outside. And even though I really enjoyed the long day and comfortable water temperatures today, it’s really hard to beat empty beaches and surfing with a select few other crazies on the coldest days of winter in locations like this.
So today starts my official countdown to the winter solstice. Below are a couple pictures of me from DEC 21st this past winter. Nobody else out….hard to beat.

So, I think they are going to have to change the name of international surf day to, international you can’t surf because there are too many people in the way day.
Now I don’t get mad and yell and people because I know or at least assume that we are all there to have a good time. But boy did this evening test my limits. Two times I collided with people!
First time a guy decided he was gonna go in front of me. I had already gotten in several pumps and had a lot of speed, so when it looked clear as day that he was headed straight to the beach I decided I could just do a floater on the foamball he made when dropping in and fly around him back to the rest of the lined up right. NOPE! He lost his balance right as I was going up to pass him and came way back up the face with no speed right in front of me. All I could do was prepare for impact. Luckily all equipment involved was spared. He was a nice guy and apparently had no idea what was going on.
Take two. As I was speeding down the line on a left which had a rare air section for the day, I watched a kid stand up. He then decided to come right, which was at me. When he saw me he looked like he was going to pull straight and I’d still be able to hit the ramp. Then at the last second he kind of turned up the face and leaned back like he was going to shoot his board over the back/at my face! I decided to not put my face in front of his dagger…wait, I mean board, and jumped the other way, which turned into a sort of top buckle macho man randy savage body slam on the poor kid. Luckily enough all equipment was spared again.
After that I was kind of over trying to predict the unpredictable and biked back to the palace. Here’s a few pictures before the mayhem.
Happy surf day everyone. I hope yours was less eventful than mine!

Check out these two hot sticks. Rusty worked out a trade to get these two boards back in his collection. I believe the yellow board is a 6’3″ and the other a 6’1″. Both have “v” bottoms with very flat decks, turned down rails and obviously some sweet colors and graphics. It was cool being able to check them out. Here’s the pics I took.

I’m pretty sure that I was in the perfect geographical location yesterday.

32° 50′ 50″ N / 117° 16′ 27″ W

It was sunny almost all day and there were still some shreddable little waves on offer. It’s so rare to get beautiful sunny days like this during this time of summer so it was especially great. Here are some pics I took from La Jolla Shores. It was needless to say “a beach day”. Feel free to have a field day and leave comments about anything funny you see in the beach photos.

(click to enlarge)

I had a surf at the shortez bank this evening after work. I didn’t take any pictures though since I worked til six, did a favor for my neighbor after and then hustled to get in some surf time with my amigo Garrett. There were some head high sets and an awfully shreddy little reform though.

There were some super fun waves on offer in San Diego today. I surfed a couple times near my favorite institute of oceanography. The second time was much more fun as the combination of the rip current and the sandbars was just right for a while. Long walls allowed for lots of airs! Here are some pics I took.

(click to enlarge)

I really try not to flap too much on here. I like to keep it simple with photos and some video etc. However, I had a great surf the other night and it got my brain thinking.
Before I paddled out I had been watching some innersection video parts, and my whole thought for the session was to only do grabs with my front hand no matter which rail, frontside or backside. Long story short, I wound up falling on a couple airs that I would consider gimmie airs and had to do a few 50 meter freestyles to the beach and retrieve my board. And on those swims all I could think of was “damn, the kids now a days make all these different grabs look so easy. Am I really this old school?!!”.
So today I thought of some good facts that indicate that you are probably(and by probably, I mean definitely) OLD SCHOOL, but I wanted to check with the kids. And conveniently today when I was sitting at rusty some of the groms came in. Not only did Michael and Joel help verify some of my ideas, but they also helped me think of some other key facts. Here is what I came up with.

You ARE old school if:
-You’ve owned surf videos on VHS

-If you’ve owned a leash that wasn’t double swivel.

-No one under the age of 40 has complimented your surfing in years.

-You’ve ever purchased a Sunny Garcia pro model anything.

-You’ve owned a traction pad made by Trac-top.

-If you’ve still never tried a removable fin system.

-If you still use original formula mr. Zogs sex wax.

-If you enjoy the soundtracks to movies such as Focus or What’s really going on.

-If you have a “pray for surf” or “one god, one country, one fin” sticker on your car.

-If you’ve ever called 976-SURF for a surf report.

I hope you’ve at least laughed at a few of these. And please leave comments with other dead giveaways that somebody is “OLD SCHOOL”. I have to approve the comments so don’t worry if it doesn’t show up right away. I’ll approve all the worthy ones so everyone can see.