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April Showers Lead to May Flowers?: April 2013 Surfing In Review

Posted in Surfing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 5, 2013| 6 Comments »

What can I say about the month of April for surfing other then it was yet another month full of let down and frustration.  After a terrible winter I still had a shred of hope that it might be a good wind swell season.  Sometimes I get my best waves in the hard gail force north westerlies.  Wind swell with its shorter period allows certain mysto or novelty spots to come alive for a brief moment.  There are literally dozens of spots up here that only break once or twice a year if at all.  When they do break it is always a treat to surf them.  Of course this year with the exception of one very weak ass surf at Summerland Beach there were none of the above mentioned sessions.

I did my best to stay wet sandwiching in surf time between my work and hectic party schedule.  Here is the month of April by the numbers.  Enjoy my very sick OCD.  As always visit the Surf Log daily for the full scoop on my surfing, party and life in general.

Surf Sessions: 17
Days Surfed: 16
Total Time Spent in Water: 27.5hrs
Waves Surfed: 474
Average Waves Caught Per Hour: 17

Spots Surfed:
Rincon: 4
Santa Clara River Mouth: 4
New Jetty: 3
Emma Wood: 3
Summerland: 1
Cstreet: 1
Pitas: 1

Top 3 Surf Sessions:

3) 4-18-13 AM Session: 2-4+ft, Santa Clara River Mouth
Time in Water: 1.5hrs
Waves Surfed: 24
River Mouth fucking delivered!  What a barrel fest.  I got the call from my boy Ryan at around 7:30 that the wind was off shore down south.  With some small south and fading NW in the water the combo action was just screaming beach breaks. Throw in a lower tide and things were finally looking up.  I got to River Mouth and it looked a little smaller then I was hoping. The sand bars were as I had expected a bit torn up from all the wind the past week.  Still there were some solid chest to head high pits to be had.  There were plenty of guys out, but plenty of peaks spread up and down the beach.  I suited up and was stoked for some fun waves.  I started at the north end of the reeds where I found a sick little left sand bar that was hallow as hell.   I picked off three really fun ones there before running further down the beach where conditions seemed a bit larger and more heavy.  My boy Ryan was sitting on a suck up little A-frame all to himself and I joined.  We traded some good ones although the current was a bit tricky with strange rips and it was a bit lully. None the less I went to work super pumped that morning.

2) 4-12-13 AM Session: 2-4+ft, Rincon
Time in Water: 1hr 45 mins
Waves Surfed: 23
I don’t know what came over me that got me out of bed before 9am but somehow I was up and ready to surf.  I had checked the buoys the night before and noticed a real jump in the swell.  As I was cruising down south I saw that Santa Claus had some waves indicating a possible wave at Rincon.  I pulled off and sure enough the Cove was going off with a very light crowd.  I ran back up to the lot, texted Trevor that he was blowing it and paddled.  What a session.  I can’t remember the last time I had that much fun.  There were at least a handful that went to the high way.  My legs were killing me by the end of the session.

3) 4-30-13 AM Session: 4-6+ft, Santa Clara River Mouth
Time in Water: 3hrs
Waves Surfed: 53
What a fucking session.  Man I am so glad it is finally south swell season and I have a feeling the summer may just make up for the dismal winter we got stuck with.  I slept in a little bit being still a tired from the weekend festivities.  Trevor and I met up in Carp and rolled south with the intentions of checking the River Mouth and if that was sub par possibly running to Malibu.  On first inspection although plenty of size things looked a bit walled with the occasional scattered corner.  We gave The Shores a look over at Fifth St, that was looking more organized but a bit on the weak side.  The debate was then River Mouth or the ‘Bu. I hate driving away from potential thus we suited and charged the Mouth.  As it turned out it was a very good decision with tons of really good left and right corners.  I had some cherry ones and I stuck  the biggest full rotation ally oop of my life.  What a session.

Since the surf sucked and I spent more time at the club then in the ocean here is a picture of my crew and I traveling down the road to Fancy Town.
Cat Party

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Nick the Kook Receives a Hay Maker

Posted in Anger, Surfing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 7, 2011| 6 Comments »

Ridiculously moronic acts of localism in California and my adverse experiences with it has been a reoccuring theme here on SurfingRuinedMyLife.net.  It seems every time we have a fresh instance the ante always gets taken up a notch.  Well today my friends I witnessed at the expense of Nick the Kook one of the most asinine acts of localism ever.  It all went down during a shitty, crowded, closed out sunset session at Pitas Point.

Forecasted  swells out here are always a shit show, the situation becomes even more exacerbated when they fall on a weekend and during a wave starved winter.  All of these entities came into play on this fateful day.  After a great morning session at Rincon (see surf log for more on that) we came back to town and chilled out for a little bit, enjoyed a splendid lunch at the Habit (the best mother fucking burger joint in the world), had an audience with renowned shaper Jason Feist of J7 surfboards, and closed my bank account at the worlds biggest collection of economical rapists Chase Bank.  Things were shaping out to be a remarkable day.

Then it all went so bad so fast.  Expecting a shitty crowd everywhere we headed out with very low expectations.  Rincon had over 200 people, Little Rincon was packed, Hobsons was crowded.  Pitas had a good crowd but over looking around we resolved on giving it a paddle.  Originally I was all for taking a nap in the car while Nick surfed, but then I saw some nuggy looking walls racing through the lower section of the point.

We get out there and with in the first ten minutes of the session I look back and I see Nick paddling for a stretched out one.  I knew he wasnt going to get far but let him play it out.  I guess this old guy in his late sixties, total geriatric was paddling for the same wave but a little farther down the ling.  Nick as he was about to stand up for the wave got sandwiched between his board and the old guy’s.  Before Kook got a chance to get free (all the while the wave peels by unridden) the old guy wound up and cracked Nick the Kook in the back of the head with an opened palmed Hay Maker!! A mother fucking open palmed hay maker!!!!! Who does that kind of aquamarine assault?

I will tell who: Old salty guys who are no longer able to keep up with the pack as a result of their withered body and take their frustration out upon others they feel to be weaker then them.  All I see is nick rubbing his head completely dumbfounded while the old guy is yelling at him.  “You must be from down South trying to pull a bullshit move like that.  Your from LA are’net you? Well Im from here”.  Nick completely confused and slightly maimed mumbled an apology and paddled over to me.

Initially I wanted to go get the guy and smash his face with a cobble stone, but then not being a person of value at Pitas and him knowing most of the other geriatrics out there we would have been ran out of the water and then embarrassingly had our asses kicked by a bunch of guys who were most likely sporting false teeth and Viagra.   Needless to say we let it go.  Poor Nick ended up with a ruined session and a nasty dent in the top of his head.  I felt bad for him but in another light found it to be one of the funner Nick the Kook and Chris Lisanti Misadventures to go down.

Below is a dramatized photo re-enactment of what went down:
(The part of the old man is played by Chris Lisanti, Nick as himself)

"Go back to LA Kook!"

"Go back to LA Kook!"

Smack!!!

"Why would you do such a thing"

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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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I hate Idiots

Posted in Anger, Life, Surfing, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 26, 2010| 4 Comments »

I hate Idiots, but I especially hate idiots that surf and surf badly at that.  All day at work today while I was in the midst of making 75 pizzas by 11am and then from 11-1:30 while I was serving them and from 2-3:30 while prepping for tomorrow’s rotisserie the only thing on my mind was getting out of there to take advantage of the NW wind swell/groundswell combo.  Finally when quiting time came I was out of the kitchen faster then a fat kid runs to eat a piece of cake.

I went straight to Rincon where I was let down for the second straight day in a row (read Surf Log for more on that session).  From there I cruised to Pitas for a hopeful repeat of yesterday.  It was a little bit bigger probably around chest to head with even the occasional bigger set.  There was a little cross chop on the face but from the looks of it the top of the point had some solid killable walls pushing through with only six guys on it and it appeared they were missing more waves then they were surfing.  I was on it.

I got out in the lineup and was having a pretty decent time hitting beyond vertical backside reo’s.  After an hour of this about four other guys came out, two of whom fit into that bro, I think I surf well but I look like shit category.  My least favorite of all the surfing genders.  Of course these idiots come out and immediately start paddling every one too deep.  I was having more fun riding the inside double ups anyhow to be bothered with the set waves which were mushier and I could not be bothered with jockeying with average surfers who think they are in a world tour event or something.

While Im sitting on the inside relishing this section of the wave a good size set most likely overhead came in.  Mr. Bro decided he was going to take off on the biggest close out of the set.  I paddled deep to get out of his way but sometimes at Pitas the bowl shifts back deep, backs off and then doubles out and closes out like something you would expect to see from shore dump.  This was the case with this particular wave.  All of a sudden bro was dropping in right on my head.

Now he had plenty of time to see that A) this wave was going to dump and not be worth his while, B) even if it was not a close out the drop itself was well out of his personal skill set and C) there was a surfer directly in his path (me) and pull out of the wave.  Of course “stupid is as stupid does” brostapha air drops right onto my head.  Luckily as I was about to duck dive I realized I was more likely then not about to get decapitated by inferior surfing ability and ditched swimming as deep as I could to save my own skin.

I knew I would come out unscathed but my board on the other hand took the full brunt of the hit.  When I surfaced I found my relatively new board sliced clean through in two places and a third hole half way through as well.  The two worst slashes measured longer then four inches a piece long.  My board was trashed.  Bro looked at me was like “Dude are you ok”.  I responded “Im fine but my board is trash”.  He retorted “duh, sorry but I got stuck and could not turn and had to take the air drop”.  I looked him square in the eye and said “Its kind of hard to do anything when you paddle for an obvious close out, FUCKING DONKEY”.  Upon which I splashed some water in his face and took my next wave in ending my session an hour early and ruined what was turning out to be a great board.

I hate bad surfers, but more then that I hate stupid surfers.  Sure I have had a few collisions in my day but those were more or less due to poor paddling decisions on a paddlers side or miscommunication in a game of chicken.  In most cases with the exception of one everyone came out alright anyhow.  This is like the fourth time since I have been out here in California that I have had a board destroyed by some jack ass.  There was a time when the line ups used to be full of only competent surfers and were run and dominated by the elite.

Back then shit like this rarely happened.  These days what can one expect in the era of the kook.  The sport of kings has been degraded down to the sport of clowns.  FUCKING DONKEYS, BROS, YUPPIES, RECREATIONALS, WHATEVERS, SHOULDNT YOU GOT BACK TO PLAYING GOLF OR TENNIS OR TOUCH FOOTBALL OR WHATEVER YOU MEATBALLS DO THAT IS COOL ACCORDING TO GQ MAGAZINE AND LEAVE SURFING ALONE.  YOU DONT SEE ME DONNING A POLO SHIRT AND TRY TO GET INTO A COUNTRY CLUB DO YOU? GO FUCKING HOME.

 

The first picture is before the incident the other two show the extent of the damage.

 

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