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Posts Tagged ‘Santa Claus Lane’

La Nina, Why: October 2011 Surfing In Review

Posted in Surfing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

October is usually a crazy month for surf around here.  This one was rather average, although there were some choice days.  I had a few keepers at Rincon and plenty of beach break action.  I think this may the be winter of the beach breaks unfortunately.  October marked the return of Kooky Kyle to Lisanti Land, this time joining the court at the Palace for an extended stay.  You can check out Kooky’s Korner for his take on things from time to time.  Kooky and I went on a 24 hour idiot mission up to San Francisco to surprise our boy and UCB all star John Mauriello, surfing a few spots on the way up.  Besides that I kicked a second heroine addict roommate out of my house.  Third time is a charm I guess.   Business as usual here in the Land of Lisanti.  Here are the stats and yes I know I am posting October’s stats in December.  I am month behind.  Always a day late and a dollar short.

Number of Surf Sessions: 21
Days surfed: 20
Time In Water: 34hrs
Number of Waves Surfed: 497
Average Waves Surfed Per Hour: 15

Spots Surfed:
New Jetty : 8
Rincon: 7
Waddel Creek, Santa Cruz: 1
Moss Landing Montery:  1
Surf Beach: 1
Santa Clara River Mouth: 1
Emma Wood: 1
La Conchita: 1

Top 3 Sessions in October:

3. 10/27/11 AM Session: 2-3+, New Jetty
Time in Water: 1.5 hrs
Waves Surfed: 25
You know those sessions when you feel like  God? I had one today.  It was only about chest to head high and a bit crumbly with the wind on it, not to mention a larger then optimal crowd.  I was on and that was all that mattered.  Every good wave seemingly came right to me.  All my turns were crisp. I stuck a bunch of airs.  It was just one of those days.

2.  10/18/11 AM Session: 2-4+ft, Surf Beach
Time in Water: 1hr 50mins
Waves Surfed: 27
Ahhh, Surf Beach and just about the one year anniversary of the fatal shark attack that happened there. With minimal swell and a need for adventure Kooky and I threw caution to the wind and went up to the wild north.   Upon pulling into the lot we were greeted by fun looking glassy chest high plus bowls with out a person in sight.  As we got changed this crazy old man who had to be over eighty and was born in Lompoc in 1924, lived there his whole life, began telling us all these gnarly stories of way back in the day.  He lost his wife of like thirty years last year and found himself a bit lonely these days.  I always find it really sad when old people lose their spouse after all that time.  I could not imagine the heart break.  Turns out he should not drive cause he has dementia but does anyway cause he does not give a fuck.  First thing he said to us was “I’m 86 years old and lost in life, maybe I always had been”.  Those words always win me over.  Then as we were about to paddle out this lady whom I have surfed both there and Jalama with claimed some guys saw a 12 foot great white there yesterday. I told her “well that was not today now was it” and paddled out.  Turns out the session was super fun and both Kooky and I scored some sick waves.  I got a few barrels.  We stopped at the Jalama Cafe for Lunch,  my favorite eatery in the area and ran into that same old guy.  What an awesome day.

1.  10/13/11 AM Session: 4-6ft, Rincon
Time in Water: 2hrs 45mins
Waves surfed: 27
Oh man, Rincon.  Today was the first day I have to say Rincon really cooked for me this season.  Kooky and I got there and the lot was packed.  I was going to drive away, but my rule of thumb is that if I can get a space in the front lot then I will surf the place regardless.  I ended up snagging a spot and was stoked I did.  The place was on.  I started up at River Mouth and surfed from there down three times.  I had some sick ones.  Out of the 27 waves at least twenty had no less then 9 turns.  I got two from high River Mouth to Low Cove and called boxed one from high cove.  Killian was out and had some guy filming him with a 35mm.  I had so many sick ones it was incredible. I love Rincon.

Well there you have it the month of October in surf sessions.  As always if you enjoy reading these little session reviews check out the surflog where I post some type of insanity about both my life and surfing every single day.

Alright this was not taken in the month of October. My boy Dave's girl Roo shot it at Santa Clara River Mouth back in March. Its still a sicky though.


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Hit or Miss: February Surfing

Posted in News From Lisanti Land, Surfing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »

It has occurred to me that I missed the January version of my monthly surf recap.  That is a little sad considering it has proved to be the best month in surfing of the winter season, which is about to close shortly.  February was a crazy and rather frustrating month to be a surfer in Santa Barbara.  It seemed that for every great day there was a flat day and for ever good run of swell it was followed by a flat spell.  Plagued by bad weather, diligence was key.  There were plenty of days where a great session went down but only for a short period of time at a certain location.

I found myself surfing a wide variety of spots and even a few rather unlikely places.  We had a head high SW wind swell that is unheard of anytime of year.  Overall though compared to last February this one was a bit unfortunate to say the least.  If you notice, in this surf summary there are a few more stats and that is because I have diligently been keeping track of the number of waves and amount of time of each session.  Im not going to get into that here.  Look for a blog all about my new wave to time in water stats soon.

Number Sessions Surfed: 21
Days Surfed: 21
Actual Time Spent in the Water: 32.5 hrs
Number of Waves Surfed: 556
Average Waves Surfed per Hour: 17 waves

Spots Surfed:

Rincon: 7
New Jetty: 5
Emma Wood: 2
Santa Claus Lane: 1
Stanley’s: 1
Solimar: 1
Bates Beach: 1
Oxnard Shores: 1
Mesa Lane: 1
Santa Clarita River Mouth: 1

Top 3 Sessions:

3: 2/18/11 PM Session – 3-5ft, Bates Beach
Waves Surfed: 30
Time in Water: 2hrs
South East wind swell in Santa Barbara?  And Rincon of all places!!!  JD and I sat around all day waiting in vain for the wind to change.  Finally by 2:30pm we set off on a wing and a prayer to check every semi north facing spot I could think of.  After three less then stellar surf checks in the pouring rain we ended up at Bates Beach (the top beach at Rincon).  Turns out there were solid chest to head high lefts peeling down the beach and barreling.  I was all over it.  JD however was not enticed opting to stay and nap in the car.  I however went out there and snagged a hand full a great barrels sandwiched between some pretty shitty beatings.  It was a classic New Jersey side shore day although it also reminded me of North East wind swell Frisco.

2: 2/19/11 AM Session – 2-4ft, Solimar?
Waves Surfed: 19
Time in Water: 1hr
This morning was another surf I had not planned on.  I thought I would have been too hung over to even get out of bed in time for work at 11, but thanks to things not going as planned I ended up making it an earlier night then expected.  As a result I was up early and since the sun was out and there still a bit of that SW wind swell on the buoys I figured I would just head to Emma Wood.  JD was awake for some reason even though he got home way later then I did and we gave it a go.  On the way down there were some fun looking waves at both Santa Claus and La Conchita.  Part of me just wanted to stop and surf either one of those, but I really had faith in Emma.  Turns out Emma was terrible, too bowly with the mix of NW and SW swells.  We were cruising back to see about the top of Pitas when I noticed that the north side of Solimar right before the houses start if your coming from Santa Barbara, looked punchy as hell.  We pulled over and saw a few dumpy, heaving shore breaky nugs with one guy on it.  Out of time we decided to give it a go.  To be wholly honest I did not think much of the wave while putting on my suit but as soon as we hit the beach we saw this wave wedge up, A-frame and then heave over spitting both left and right.  After that we were full on frothing.  I ended up getting a bunch of sick left hand barrels and hit a super clean backside indy grab air.  It reminded me of the grinds in Buxton, NC on the outer banks.  JD had a ball also.  It was so good I ended up being ten minutes late to work, but a lot of me thought of not showing up at all.  Sometimes you can find waves in the most unlikely of places I mean technically that is not even really a surf spot.  Soooo Stoked!!!

1: 2/17/11 PM Session – 4-7ft, Rincon
Waves Surfed: 23
Time In Water: 3.5 hrs
See blog Big Name Pros, Stupid Car Surfing and Aggressive Line Up Tactics

This picture of a kid sliding into a cheese grater pretty much sums up how February worked out for surfing.

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Oh What Happened!?! November Surfing In Review

Posted in Surfing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 5, 2010| 1 Comment »

Yeah we all knew not to expect much from this coming NW season, but then fall kicked into high gear with plenty of although not epic very consistently fun surf.  November opened up strong with a handful of days at Rincon and the first signs of town breaking.  The first half of the month I found plenty of surf to entertain myself with.  Then in the back half the flat spells from summer we all thought were past came back.  It was not just Santa Barbara that was flat, I mean that is a given since SB is the only water front town that might as well be surrounded by land as far as surf goes.  The whole fucking state was pretty much flat.

Hopefully December will pick things back up a bit and with the incoming forecast at least it looks like the week should be rather fruitful here.  Maybe it will get the ball rolling and we can get a few more fun days this season and I wont have to kill myself. Here are the numbers for the Month of November and the top sessions.

Number of Sessions – 20
Days Surfed – 19
Average Wave Height – 2-3+ft

Surf Spots

Rincon – 8
New Jetty – 3
Emma Wood – 3
C Street – 1
River Mouth – 1
Santa Clause Lane – 1
Oxnard – 1
Little Rincon – 1
Hammonds – 1

Top 3 Sessions:

3: 11/10/10 PM Session – 1-3+ft, Santa Claus Lane
Local wind swell in Santa Barbara is so aberrant it makes finding the right place to surf a little mission.  One day Rincon will be head high the next flat.  The thing about wind swell is that the angle is always changing making certain spots that never break fun and the standards poor.  It all comes down to how hard you want to search.  Today I was not in the mood nor did I have the time to go on a proverbial goose chase.  I headed straight to Rincon after observing some solid swell at Santa Claus yet when I got to Rincon the wind was South although it was NW and offshore up at Santa Claus.  I decided to just drive back there and see what there was to surf or if it was just a freeway mirage.  Turns out it was offshore/side shore three heads spread along the three mile long stretch of beach, waist to stomach high with the occasion chest high nug. Overall it was mostly walled with some racy corners.  I had one really fun Backside tube and brought down a good backside air reverse and a front side ally oop that I was pleased with.


2: 11/5/10 PM Session – 2-4ft, Rincon
As I was driving back from the previous session below I saw tons of waves peeling down Rincon with a very light crowd, maybe fifty guys along the entire point.  Needless to say I pulled off the highway got dressed and powered a second session.  The cove although fun looked pretty long boarded out and smaller then the top.  I went up to Lower Indicator/high River Mouth and snagged a bunch of great five to six hit waves.  I even managed a back door barrel through lower River Mouth.  Then after about an hour and a half that south wind caught up with me and so did the crowd.  It was all good I was pretty much over it by then anyway.

1: 11/6/10 PM Session – 3-5ft, Rincon
What a day.  I could not believe my eyes when driving by Rincon this afternoon that it still had waves and better waves then the day before with better conditions.  I started up top at River Mouth looking for the barrel but although I found some pretty ridiculous ones that I managed to connect from River Mouth through middle Cove I did not find that barrel I was hunting.  After an hour up top I made my way into the cove which courtesy of the negative tide was pretty much flawless with plenty of consistency and only about forty heads out. Most were visitors giving me the local edge.  I only got about a little over an hour and a half but my legs were spent from all the long rides anyway.  As I got out of the water towards dusk I contemplated the fact that every wave I caught this session even my throw aways (meaning I only got eight turns on them) could probably have been the best wave of someone’s life, but for me it was just another day at Rincon.  Im pretty fortunate to have the life I live.

November was all about getting Skunked!!!!!!!!!

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