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October 2009; Oh How You Are Missed.

Posted in Blast from the Past: 2009, Surfing, User Choice BLog, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 7, 2010| 1 Comment »

Yesterday we ran the top five sessions from this October being a La Nina year. Today I though it would be fun to write about the best five sessions from last October, the El Nino year and compare the two.  Since it is technically a continuation of Devin’s UCB from yesterday (see What a Difference a Year Makes) he will get a half point for his efforts.  My records from last year were not as good as this year so these are the best out of what I had written down.

 

5: Rincon Cove, Wednesday 10/14, 8:30am: 3-5ft Bumpy Glass, No one out!

Wednesday marked the third straight day of torrential down pour, the first time it has rained here since May. In that three-day span I think we picked up at least five inches of rain. With rain comes run off and you can only imagine how dirty the runoff is after nearly 6 months of no rain. The result was near toxic water at all river mouth fed breaks (basically every spot here). Coming down there was plenty of swell, Santa Clause Lane in Carpenteria, usually a small shadowed beachie was solid head high and clean.

When Santa Clause looks like that I know to immediately go to Rincon. I pulled into the parking lot and there were only about 5 cars, a bad sign already that it was not working. I on intuition walked down anyway. In front of me was The Cove section of the point with two guys out and lines running all the way past the call box at the bottom of the point, a solid 100 yard plus ride. It looked a little mushy and disorganized but far from something to walk away from.

I ran back to my car and got dressed. The water was completely brown and there was certainly a healthy amount of garbage and dead animals floating around, but the waves too good to stop me. As I was paddling out the two guy who where surfing got out leaving the place all to me. I surfed the cove alone for a solid hour before five other guys showed up, ten guys at the height of the crowd. I ended up surfing till 12:30pm a solid four hours and my legs burned so bad from the absurdly long rights that I almost could not make the walk back up the trail.

I think it is safe to say that number 5 from last year was far better then 5 this year.

 

4: Little Rincon, Thursday, 10/15, 8:30am: 4-6ft Oil Glass

Manasquan stalwart Kevin Malone decided to make his first winter pilgrimage to Santa Barbara this year and lucked into what I think is the best Little Rincon I have ever surfed. That’s a lie cause number three was the best Little Rincon I have ever surfed. Brook-o actually was the guy who tipped me off on the place although I was rather skeptical since the tide was super high, almost 5ft (Little Rincon barely breaks sometimes on low tide). Not believing his usually overzealous surf reports I had a look at Rincon first, which turned out to completely swamped with the excessive high tide causing me to give Littlie Con’ a shot. Sure enough when Lindsay, Malone and I pulled up I saw a set wave brush the top of the little pier that goes out to this fake little island built by the oil companies for the rigs that created the wave. When that happens you know its solid 6ft at least.

The crowd was light only about 6 heads out and it looked pretty mellow. Sometimes Little Rincon can have a pretty agro crowd and since there is really only one take off zone in front of gnarly rocks 6 guys could be too crowded. This day however that was not the case and there were actually so many waves in each set and good in between waves that lots of waves actually went unridden. I started on my 5’10 but quickly due to the power and intensity had to move to my bigger board, which completely turned the session around.

Before that happened on my second wave I took off super late and deep after this guy sitting deeper then me got hung up in the lip dropping in. I was deep and late but totally confident that I was going to make it. I grabbed my rail and set up for a quick little pig dog off the drop. I guess this older guy sitting a little down the line from me thought that was the end of me and decided to go for the wave underestimating my ability. I ended up coming out of the bottom of the foam ball straight into my bottom turn only to look up at what I expected to be the falling lip I was anticipating on hitting. Instead I see this dude coming right down on top of me. I quickly attempted to torque the section gabbing my rail to cut my bottom turn shorter, but it was to no avail and the guy landed square on top of me. I don’t know what happened but what I do know is someone was looking out for me cause somehow I did not get hurt and my board was fine. Dude was super apologetic and considering the difficulty of the wave I was attempting to make I did not make a big deal of it.

3: 10/23/09 – Little Rincon 6-8ft

The swell went nuts. I was awoken by a call from Dave that Little Rincon was going berserk with the occasional 12 footer sweeping over the pier and cleaning up the entire line up. I grab my 6’1 round tail and I needed every inch of it. It was solid 6-8ft with occasional 10-12ft sets. There were about 15 guys on it but only three of us wanted anything to do with the bombs. I caught some of the best waves I have ever ridden at that spot or even Santa Barbara for that matter.

This is me on one of the small ones from this session

2: 10/24/09 – Pitas 4-6ft+

I got the best Pitas Pt I have ever surfed in my life. It was only about head high to slightly overhead but not a drop of water out of place. Pitas is a very sectiony point unlike Rincon despite its similar proximity in size. Usually if you can bang out three turns or get a quick barrel your stoked on your ride. This session however the lines were just running down the point connecting each section. You still had to be very fast but on the right one the rides had to be close to 300 yards. Did I mention there were barrels too? The crowd at its max was 15 guys and no one was hassling.  My very last wave I rode from the top of the point all the way to the top of Mondos, which is probably close to a 700 yard ride.  To this day it is still the best Pitas I have ever surfed.

 

1: 10/26/09 – Rincon 5-7ft

I had some friends from NJ visiting for this session and it blew their minds.  I was skeptical on how big it would be, but as we began to get in gazing distance of the top of the point I could tell just by looking at the swells hitting La Conchita that Rincon was solid. I was just sitting there in the back of the car saying “We have to turn around, Rincon is really really good”. Then we passed the point from the highway where it comes into full view and everyone was screaming with pure stoke.

From there it was a mad dash into our wetsuits and down the point, despite one salty local whom I surf with everywhere who upon seeing me with four friends shook his head at me. C’mon due its fucking Rincon. It’s no secret spot and there were 100 people out already anyway. What is four more at that point? California surfers really piss me off with shit like that.

As we come out of the trail and behold the line up it was pretty amazing. Everywhere you looked someone was getting barreled. It was almost stupid. The place looked like a beach break but it was Rincon. The crowd was focused between Lower Indicator and High to

Mid River Mouth. I opted to surf Low River Mouth, High Cove where there was only a handful of people sitting and still plenty of great waves to be had, plus on a 5’9 I was a little under gunned for the well overhead bomb sets coming off the top of the point. I still had to grab my rail on some of my bottom turns to keep from maxing out. I did not bring a bigger board cause I was not expecting there to be so much swell.

Everyone got some really epic waves. Charles was in serious awe of the wave. I think for the rest of his trip if not still mystified by the whole experience. The wave can be a real siren for some. It is the reason I gave up my entire life and moved out here. Alex got some good ones but unfortunately had some equipment malfunctions, ripping out one of the fins off his Merrick keel fish. Then he went back to the car and borrowed Dave’s long board which he subsequently lost to the rocks dinging both the nose and the tail. Mark was buzzing on his new J7, no surprise considering it was Keoni’s magic board. That left a very stoked Dave and I who traded super fun waves in the cove practically to ourselves till we could not see anymore. The whole crew was stoked as could be.
Well I think it is pretty clear that 2009 in October kicked this year in the ass by a landslide.

Nothing like the beautiful view of open face in front of you.

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Another Tale of Halloween Mischief

Posted in Blast From the Past: 2008, Life, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 30, 2010| 4 Comments »

As a teen on Long Island like most other places in America Halloween shifts from getting candy to seeing how much and to what degree of senseless acts of vandalism  you can perform before the cops are called.  Also on Long Island you and your crew would be armed with shaving cream and eggs so that if you encountered another crew you could have a pseudo gang fight.  From there most of my Halloween nights cosisted of getting doused in eggs and shaving cream (we would stick a pin in the nosil of the shaving cream lid, melt it, pull ou the pin and it would shoot up to 8 feet)  and ended with atleast one Kenyan track star run from the police.

I think my favorite tale from this era was when I was 14.  My boys Peter, Tom, Vinny, Frank, John, Eddie and I were cruising around the streets since like 3pm causing trouble and reeking havoc on the neighborhood.  We thought we were a pretty bad ass crew and could take on anyone.  Earlier before we all crewed up Tom Vinny and I ran into this smaller crew of seniors and ambushed them with cream and eggs, retreating quick enough as to not get the wrath of their retaliation. They most likely would have beat the shit out of us had we been caught.  Even though we thought so the three of us were not all that tough.

Later on that night we were chilling in the front yard of Tom’s house waiting for another crew that might dare pass by our “turf”.  We were kicking it when these three cars loaded with dudes come racing around the corner and slam on the breaks in the middle of the street in from of our camp.  12 guys jump out of the cars armed with eggs, shaving cream and paint ball guns.  Turns out it those seniors we hit earlier regrouped and spent the night hunting us down.

It all happened so fast that we had no time to escaped.  I ended up jumping into a bunch of hedges and as luck would have it found a piece of plywood to use as a sheild from the paint balls.  I could only sit their and watch in horror as my boys got pelted with eggs, shot with paint balls and forced to eat shaving cream.  When the seniors finally cleared out Vinny (who had also took to hiding) and I came out unscathed only to unbelievingly behold the carnage of our friends terrible misfortune.  Tom got the brunt of the paint balls, which left welts all over his body.  Peter was covered in shaving cream in the middle of the street and Eddie completely in shock by the whole orccurance jumped on his bike and rode home nearly in tears.

Turned out Frank and John whom had left our company earlier got jumped by a few of the guys we thought we so craftily ambushed and were forced to sell us out or be beaten.  I dont blame them I dont think I would have held out either.  We were 14 year old pampered rich kids not Israli green berays.

After that tramatic experience we all decided it best to call it a night. Vinny and I lived near each other so we decided to walk home together.  I guess we were about half way there when we saw a car that looked to be one of the ones in the convoy that hit us not long ago. Thinking we were just paranoid we picked up our pace but stayed on the road.  When the car came up next to us our fears were realized.

It was the same car paint balls in hand.  Basically we got hit by a drive by paint balling.  I got hit twice in the side and once in the leg.  Vinny took two in the back.  That shit hurts fucken pretty bad.  The welts lasted for like 2 weeks.  We figured we were in the clear and afterall it was only fair since our boys got the brunt of it ear;ier.  We sat there on the ground for a moment to gather ourselves on what just happend but before we had the chance the car pulled a U-turn and was coming back for a second round.  Deciding not to stick around to see what was in store for us next we bolted.

Vinny and I took off down the street in the oppisite direction with car hot on our tail.  We had like a good mile lead on them and then we came to a fork in the road.  It was here that we made the call to split up allowing one of us to get away safely.  Ofcourse who do you think they followed.  You guessed it; Yours truely.

At this point dude is out the window shooting paint balls on almost rapid fire.  He must have had that double pump thing down.  Some how though matrix style I managed to avoid the shells and ran into the woods unharmed.  I knew the a short cut through this vacant spell of pine trees and then trough one of my neighbors back yards which would bring me only a few houses from mine.  When I get in the woods I thought I was sitting pretty (keep in mind there is nothing more scary then being in the middle of the woods in the gloom of the night on Halloween.) and slowed my pace all out of breath from the previous chase.

All of a sudden I hear foot steps behind me and I bolt into the darkness running full speed through pine branchs, jumping over under brush.  I had not been back in the woods in a few years and it was pretty dark so I was kind of winging it.  Some how my spidy sense got me to my neighbors backyard and ofcourse he had just recently put up one of those wood fences that are impossible to climb.

You know how people say that in moments of extreme adversity the human body can perform rediculous feats of strength, like a man lifting a car off a child sort of thing.  Well I was hoping that this was one of those moments and ran full speed at the fence and went for the jump.  I jumped grabed onto the post which was a solid 6 feet up and attempted to catapult myself over it parking meter style (when you jump a parking meter with nothing but your arms pushing you over it).  As I was coming over somthing hit me square in the back of the head.  It was an egg from the seniors.  As it exploded all over my hair (which was long, actually it was the first year I grew my hair long) it threw off my momentum and as I as about to clear the fince my left foot got hung up and I went down on the otherside of the fence head over heels

God must have been shining a light on me that night folks cause some how I managed to not break my neck although I did manage to tear the leg nearly clean off my jeans form getting snagged on the fence post. I took a minute to take stock in my current situation, paint balls welts, egg all over my hair, cuts, scraps and bruises all over my face and body from the woods run, but I was alive and how alive I felt too.  I took a deep breath and took a victory lap home.  Sure I got the shit knocked out of me, but I survived and at that moment felt like I could do anything.

Turns out one of the other cars caught up with Vinny too and he was forced to endure 10 minutes of getting pelted by eggs and shaving cream before ultimately getting sent home beaten and dejected.  All and all one of the most exciting Halloweens ever.

 

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The Costume Parade

Posted in Blast From the Past, Blast From the Past: 2008, tagged , , on October 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Here is a tale from my early years experience with Halloween.

As youngin Halloween was as it is to any kid one of the most awesome days of the year.  I got to dress up in these sick costumes my Mom used to sew for me by hand.  These were not your ordinary k-mart plastic pull over costumes that every other kid would wear.  The shit my mom made was pretty bad ass.  I remember one year (probaly her best work) she made this frog outfit for me cause at the time that was my favorite animal, think I might have been in like 2nd grade or somthing absurd like that.

This costume was crazy.  It had both webbed hands and feet and the head was tight all stuffed.  I actually looked like a frog. It must have taken her like a week to make the thing building her own custom patterns and picking out the right fabric.  You think I have bad OCD where do you think I got it from.  My Elementary school had this costume contest every year and I always came close but that year we thought I was a definate to win (see even Halloween was a contest).  To my mother’s dismay I got 2nd to some kid in a high priced rented gurrilla costume.  I actually think she still has that frog costume some where.

That parade was a bunch of bullshit anyway.  I think it was rigged.  Certain kids who won seemed to always be those kids who get the breaks in life.  Whatever fuck’em I did not need the box of candy or whatever first prize was.  I got mine every year on the trick or treat beat anyway.  My mom was all about efficiency in that case as well utilizing the car in order that we hit several neighborhoods besides our own to maximize our candy potential.  It was like an after school job, from 2-3 we hit one section of town, then 3-4 another and finally the last sector from 5-6.  It was bizarre but we always had candy almost till Christmas from the whole ordeal.

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When Halloween Mischief Goes Wrong (Blast From the Past:2008)

Posted in Blast From the Past, Blast From the Past: 2008, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 27, 2010| 8 Comments »

Every Halloween I like to post a tale from a Lisanti Halloween Past.  For me Halloween has always been one of those ridiculously insane Holidays where I have almost died, been arrested, made trip to hospital or a combination of all three.  I have a few Halloween blogs from the old Myspace Blog and over the next few days I will post them up here as blasts from the past and then on Halloween post a brand new Halloween tale from the Lisanti Archives of gnarl.  As always any text seen within the blog in the color red is a commented added for this edition.

Halloween of my junior year of High School I was running with the artsy crowd.  A group of musicians, artists and alternative thinkers.  Basically it was our excuse to think we were better then all the “cool kids” and gave us an excuse to smoke pot and drink on a regular basis writing it off as helping our cause.  Now unlike in NY where trick or treating and vadalism all go down on the 31st in NJ the day before Halloween is called Mischief night and that is when you go out, break shit and cause trouble. I grew up in NY and moved to NJ at 15 for those of you who are new to this blog.

We did not go out on Mischief night opting to get high instead.  So Halloween was going to be our night.  We began this night as any other in my buddy Matt’s garage crowded around the bong while doing shots of Smirnoff (plastic Handle, of course, classic high school).  After getting good and baked we headed to Wall’s favorite health and recreation spa located in South Wall (I wont give the name of it so as to not find myself in trouble later, but you should be able to figure out where I am talking about) to relive a Halloween past time for this group.  It was only my 2nd Halloween here in NJ and I spent the first one with my girl friend at the time so this was all new to me.

Turns out the last two Halloweens this crew would go down to the aforementioned health club and knock over the three outside vending Machines near the pool before bolting from security. I am always amped to get into trouble was down for the challenge.  The thing we forgot was that the previous years no one got as baked. I in no means condone drug and alcohol use among minors, but I was young and dumb as you will see as you read on.

We got to the back of the health club via the woods and hopped over the fence by the soccer fields and stealthily made our way to the Pool.  The lay of the land was there were three vending machines spaced out along the grounds.  One next to the pool, one near the tennis bubble and one up against the side of the racquetball courts.  To accomplish this imbecilic ask we had to break up into teams of three or so in order to make sure we tipped them all at the same time cause when the shit fell down it was super loud.  If we attempted to do each individually we would definitely get clipped.

Stew, Hugine and Jay took the one near the Tennis bubble, Ellen, Fisher and Shelly took the Racquetball one and Matt and I got the Pool.  Everyone got into position and when each team was ready we quickly shined a flashlight in the air.  When all three were seen we would count to three silently and flip the machines.  Everyone had three people but Matt and I so we had our work cut out for us but were up to the task.

As we knocked our’s over Matt’s sweater got caught on something on the front of the machine and he ended up going over with it.  At that moment all that was heard was the crashing of vending machines that had fallen over with a loud bang  followed by the shattering of broken plastic and to my dismay Matt’s scream of sheer pain.  I look down and his arm is now caught under the vending machine crushed by the weight and there is blood everywhere.  I guess the broken shards of plastic shrapnel must have cut him up good.

I looked toward the other side of the compound and saw the other teams retreating off into the woods unknowing of our situation.  I quickly was able to pick the machine up enough for him to get his arm out.  When he pulled it out the shit was mangled.  I’m not going to lie dude’s arm was definitely broken and the lacerations from the plastic definitely needed stitches.  Matt sat there in shock for a moment, but before we could take stock on the situation a security guard was hot on our trail.

I was like “Matt we go to run”.  I ripped my shit off and made it into a make shift sling for him to hold his arm with as we took off running.  Security was on us from all angles.  They even had the golf carts out chasing after us. We made it to the fence and I could tell by Matts eyes he was not going to be able to flip himself over the fence.  I cradled my hands and boosted him up and over the fence.  He fell to the other side flat on his face landing square on his good arm.  As I would find out very steadily would no longer be a good arm.

I made the hop over the fence, pick up Matt on his feet now with two broken arms and we took off running through the woods as fast as we could till we came out on the street.  By now I figured security had to have called the cops and they would be out patrolling for us in the surrounding streets of the perimeter of the club.  I pulled off my jacket and put it over Matt so as not to bring attention to ourselves.   After all a kid shaking from shock with two broken arms and blood all over might alarm some people. Then I grabbed some decorations off some guy’s front lawn and made ghetto costumes to pass as trick or treaters.

It was good we did too cause the next block we came to there was a cop car eyeing up everyone around.  By the time we made it back to Matt’s house he was just about ready to pass out.  The crew was not there either.  I figured they probably went out looking for us.  I had to drive Matt to the Hospital in his car with just my learners permit, an act that if I caught doing would make  me not able to get my license till I was 18.

We arrived at Jersey shore and Matt was fucked up.  He ended up with 2 broken arms, casts all the way up to his shoulders, surgery on both and 133 stitches combined.  It was pretty funny.  He could not do shit for himself for around a month or so.  Worst part was we had to tell everyone he fell down a flight of steps in order to not get busted for the health club thing.  Everyone at school thought he was a retard.  It was classic.  Another epic Halloween in the can.

Imagine getting crushed by one of these.

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Back In Time (Blast From The Past: 2010)

Posted in Blast from the past 2010, Deep Thoughts, tagged , on October 10, 2010| 3 Comments »

This weeks Blast from the past is from the rather recent past, March of 2010, but being that I quoted it in Groovin’ High I felt it prudent to repost the blog here at SurfingRuinedMyLife.net as opposed to just linking the Myspace since I am trying to eradicate that link all together.  This was originally a UCB requested by none other then Kooky Kyle on my thoughts about time travel.  As always anything in red I added to the blog for this most recent posting.

This week’s UCB is won by Kooky Kyle despite my irate feelings towards him for not showing up to his scheduled Chris Lisanti Adventure Tour and subsequently causing me to miss an all expense paid trip to Costa Rica (for more on this you will have to wait for this week’s week in review blog) the kid still manages to throw down some of the best and most frequent submissions of topics. Him not coming out to SB was his loss anyway Im sure it was much more fun for him to sit around Wrightsville with his thumb up his ass on spring break instead of running wild in Santa Barbara. I was planning on banning Kooky from my home here for life, but then he put down a healthy deposit on a J7 for me thus rightfully atoning for his impetuousness. Ironically the board ended up being to robust for me forcing me to sell it Mauriello for a deal and a half. Kooky asked if Doc Brown showed up in the Flux capacitor laden Delorean and offered me the keys to car when and where would I travel to in the many folds of the time travel nexus or maybe I would just settle for a time traveling phone booth and George Carlin (props if you know what I am referencing in this last part).

To be honest as enticing as time travel is the complexity, dangers to humanity, damage to the time space continuum and overall responsibility involved is way to much for me. If we are based in a single universe time travel is impossible as a direct result to causality. Say you travel back in time and prevent your own personal conception, then you would have never existed to travel back in time in the first place. Yet if you wish to think of the possibility to the existence of an infinite number of universes as proposed through quantum physics stating that for every situation encounter each possible outcome is played out thus splitting that one instance into as many sub-universes as possible and then those will branch off and so on and so forth making an infinite number of universes existing at the same moment. In this case then you would be able to travel in time and prevent your own personal existence cause it would only be in on possible universe that would not exist.

If the latter example then technically are you really traveling in time or just another out come of your original decision to travel through time in the first place and then what is the actual reality of the world you have traveled too? Lost yet. Time travel is pretty fucking complicated. That is just the little inkling of research that I have done on the topic over the years considering it is a topic that has captivated me since I was young.

Science aside lets for arguments sake go against the above idea of multiple dimensions and look at time travel in the pure Hollywood sense of things. Using “Back to the Future” for example where you type the date and time in and are then transported in that very spot to whatever time you plot.  If you were to do this haven’t you already drastically changed the course of history? We don’t really know how very little change can eventually kick off a catastrophic event. Look at a fist size rock for example sitting on the edge of a cliff. Maybe when your time machine lands and taps that rock over the cliff. That rock hits into other rocks, which hit other rocks and next thing you know you have landslide.

Once you step out of that time machine you have already changed history. How drastic completely depends on circumstance. Then what future would you be going back to if you could even get there? Our universe is wholly based upon causality and the cause and effect to the time travel that we speak of may take a heavier toll then we can even imagine. The whole business is a little too much for my feeble brain to get a handle on. Sorry but I think I will keep my feet firmly planted here in 2010 and hope that humans never decide to travel in time, although if we are going with the universe based on causality then time travel could have already happen and this is the result? The whole the thing is an endless web of mind fuck.

Doc Brown Says it all right there.

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A New Great Adversary (Blast from the past: 2010)

Posted in Blast from the past 2010, Surfing on September 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Last night I posted a blog regarding a video clip of me pussing out in Dane Reynolds latest Marine Layer Down Load.  This weeks Blast from the past is the actual blog from that session posted on 4/23/10.

I have in my now almost 3 decades of living in the lore of the surf experienced a wide range of waves at home and afar.  It was not hence this week that I was put in front of a wave I had absolutely no vocabulary for.  Mix in some serious size and power and a challenge of immense propensity arose.

For over a year now I have been enticed by the idea of a seemingly mystical and very exclusive wave located south of Santa Barbara on a highly secure naval base.  My photographer Dave has a pass, veritable “Golden Ticket” so to speak, being that his father is in the service.  Up until this time we had made several attempts none successful at getting this wave to work.  He had long dangled the idea of a wave most consider too heavy to surf in front of me since our affiliation, I was yet to experience such although had gotten inkling of such from prior recon and a brief clip of Dane Reynolds there (although at the time had not idea it was the same spot).  Most I have talked to about said spot claim it as one of the best waves in California.

On Monday (4-12) there was forecasted south activity to move in towards the end of the week, banking on this we had made plans to make another attempt at the base.  Conditions looked best for Thursday (4-15) and the stage was set, whether for a tragedy or a comedy still unknown.  Given the distance south from Santa Barbara we struck out early just before the sunrise and headed on the fifty mile trek south.  There is nothing worse then waking up at 4:30.

The way down felt like it took an eternity although less then an hour.  Both of us were rather apprehensive on what we were to discover.  We joked the entire way about getting skunked yet again, the base being the biggest lie in southern California, of Dane and his filmer being there and challenging us to a duel, anything to calm our nerves.  I brought two boards, my standard 5’10 J7 and this Simon Andersan 5’11 round tail I have been carting around since the fall of 08’, still a trusty soldier despite its age and being broken through the nose by a careless airline baggage handler.  The great boards of man are always seemingly ruined by the hands of the airlines, I believe almost every traveling surfer can attest to that little adage.

We get on the base undisputed by the guard and cruise up to the parking lot.  Already there are more cars there then we had ever seen, a very good sign.  Stepping out of the car the booming of breaking waves became prevalent and spray could be seen just making it above the sea wall (it stands a good 12 feet or so above sea level).  Dave got over the top of the wall first and let out a yelp with a huge grim across his face.  I climb up and all I could see was perfectly oil glass overhead bowls throwing out as wide as one can imagine with four guys on it and a crowd of body boarders charging some disgusting triple up practically breaking on the sea wall to the south.

Then a set came and it was solid eight to ten feet, sucking up to solid double overhead, I have not seen that much spit from a tube since my time at Pipe.  Needless to say I was back at the car, into my wetsuit and out in the lineup before you could drop a hat.  As I climbed down the seawall to beach level Dane’s videographer was on the beach tucked into the rocks.  I was about to paddle out to the middle peak to get my bearings but he cat called me to paddle to the main peak with Dane.

I jumped in and though it was between sets just ducking under the little one’s I could tell that this break had some serious force to it.  I get out there and I was completely dumfounded.  There were waves coming in from every direction, south, north, west, parallel to the beach.  On top of that there was side wash, back wash and contradicting currents between both the inside and the outside.  Basically there was a ton of mother fucking water moving around.

Dane was going ballistic doing no paddle take offs into deep below sea level pits finishing off with an array of eight-foot airs.   As for me I found myself absolutely at a loss on what to do with this crazy left bowl/wedge thing that was on set sucking up to solid double overhead.  Basically I kooked it shoulder hopping most, bailing through the back on sections I was not confident about and I even pulled back on three waves, one of which was one of the best waves of the session and in front of everyone in the lineup. Now immortalized thanks to Dane and the internet.

After that one Dane paddled up to me and told me to get my shit together and everyone else just had the dirtiest stink eye for me.  What can I say the place was gnarly and I had no idea how to surf it, not to mention where the waves were breaking was no more then knee deep.  I was tested and was beaten failing miserably.  Since that day I vowed to learn that wave and master it so that next time its on I can surf it to my full potential.  I still am far from mastering it feeling like a kook the most recent time I was there.

Funny thing is I went back there Saturday (4-17) and it was smaller around chest to head with the occasional bigger set and it still kicked my ass, although I did feel as though I was beginning to understand it more.  I guess it is finally time for a new surfing challenge to be brought about in my life.  Usually summer here is all about the grovel but I guess this year its going to be about the charge.  We only surfed and filmed there maybe a dozen times at best this summer and never saw it as good as this day was.

 

One of the bigger ones I caught that day.

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Blast from the Past: Best of 2006, “February 2006 In Review”

Posted in Blast from the Past: 2006, Skating, Surfing on August 30, 2010| 1 Comment »

Considering the recent move from Myspace over to Surfing Ruined My Life I began to feel some remorse leaving some of my best writing behind.  So I decided that once a week I will feature a blog from the Lisanti Myspace archives and repost as part of a segment I would like to call “Blast from the Past”.  I will introduce the old blog, maybe give a thought or two on it, some hindsight even?  Let me know if you fancy this idea at all (not that I give a shit either way)

Title: February 2006 In Review
Date of Original posting: 2/28/2006

I love this blog after perusing it again after four years.  It is a perfect example of what a pessimistic Debbie downer I am. I mean my life was not all that bad, but I always wanted to more.  Maybe that is one of my biggest flaws my “Macbeth” like ambition for a title that is not meant to be mine?  It is also funny to think about what a different mindset I was in back then, still with wide eyes and hopes that I could amount to something in the commercial surf world.  I wont take up any more of your time with my finger words, your not stupid and can read it for yourself.  I will add the occasional note in the actual text in red!

February 2006 In Review

Well here we go; since there is like only 20 minutes left in the month of Febuary for the year 2006 I thought it might be apropos to give some what detail of the highlights and despair for this month in my life.  This may be a bit longer then my usual entries but trust me it will be totally worth the ride.

First let me tell you that Feb is a shit month for straight out of the gate cause my birthday is on the 4th.  Now I know this should seem like a good thing but truth be told after 18 its all down hill.  Some may say that 21 is the turning point for which all birthdays will suck after.  The main belief being that you can drink at 21.  Well Ive been drinking since I was 14 years old and was pretty much over it by the time I was 21 any way(at the time I had quit drinking for almost a year).

So This year I turned 25 which is a really shitty age.  Do you know that Kelly Slater already had 3 world titles by this age.  Not to mention that I am now classified as a masters competitor in Amatuer competition basically forcing me to only surf in pro events inorder to keep some semblance of dignity.  For those who dont know the masters division(in the CNJ/ESA) is one heat usually shared with the grand masters where you compete with the same 8 guys who basically pull the usual 3 to the beach format for points stifling any chance of creative surfing.

On my birthday I had to go to this winter Pro-Am contest in the rain on the beach air temp 35 water temp 41 (it was fucking freezing) . The surf was mini Vas conditions with shitty tides and fog.  Somehow I managed to pull off one of the best contest plays of my life winning every heat to the final by a margin of 3 points or better a heat.  Then I clowned the final cause of my whole loser complex (see “Olympic Realizations blog“).  But whatever I won a case of Red Bull which I gave away to a grom (Mike Scheoning, who was my former roommate and now joined the circus) but should have sold on ebay (I have never sold anything successfully on ebay).

As far as waves go Feb was a flat out skunking besides super fun super bowl sunday (check out the pics onwww.surfnjamnj.com)(surfnjamnj.com was the precursor to this site and is now long since defunct) and one really epic day at Jenks.  Luckily I discovered a Skate Park in Moorstown with a 12 foot half pipe to help ease the pain.

Mentally Feb was a tough month for me.  My Hawaii trip that I have been looking foward to all winter long was shot down no longer then a week ago.  I called my boy who lives out there who was all like “yeah cuz you come out to rock and Ill put you up no worries”. Right?!!! The I call him and he is all like back peddling sayin maybe I could stay for like 2 or 3 days and that not to rely on him to get me to some waves.  Great invite next time your back home in dirty Jerze see what kind of hook ups you get from me. “Here on the North Shore we treat our friends MO betta Bra”.(I ended up scoring Costa Rica and California on two separate trips later that winter)

So with no winter training in my sights you can see how bummed I am.  So all I have to look foward to is a Shitty ESA Pro AM at Casino Peir and that Sayreville opens up at night again tomorrow. Not to mention that I cant open up Crazy Chris’ Skate Land (Skate Land was this pipe dream I had thinking I could open and run a successful skate park, there were some potential investors, a business plan was drawn up, but then as usual I got lazy on it) in the old Wonder Bread Factory cause there are too many cross bars in the ceiling.

Overall Febuary gets a 3 out of ten making it thus far the shitiest month of the year.  But At least I got my health.  Truth be told I probaly dont even have that cuase I got this gnarly rash on my neck that is probaly skin cancer slowly killing me for the outside in (it was not skin cancer just an allergic reaction).  We wont get into my hypocondria now though for that can be a topic for another day.  If you dont see me tomorrow it is because I most likely hung myself from my shower curtain rod. (Dont worry I doubt it is strong enough to support my weight plus the length from the ceiling to the floor is only 6 feet. So it will just be another task that I will fail at) (I really did try and hang myself, first from the shower rod then my closet rod breaking both of them, not only did I fail at suicide but I had to fix my shower and my closet, that was a joke please no sympathy “dont kill yourself Chris” messages).

There you have it a bonified blast from the past, speaking of Blast from the past, here is a really fun clip from the movie “Blast From the Past”.

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