Highway Robbery!

tone~ providing today's update at Rincon and Illegals... This morning was flooded, but you could still see signs of lineage in the horizon as the waves smashed along the rocks. Tide dropped to a reasonable level by the lunchtime sesh and was producing some solid head high sets from Rincon to Illegals. Rincon was firing with a pretty good pack in water and growing by the carload. I'm positive that tomorrow will be packed all day long and I hope the Sweepers don't bother... We paddled Illegals and found some solid surf, a bit walled and plenty of crash tubes to be had. It was really warm and sunny out there, but there was something different-strange about the water today, there was a ton of floaters, mostly debris, driftwood and ash scum, we figured it was from the extreme high tide this morning that dragged all that crap out into the water. Good day overall, until I got back to my car... As my buddy and I surfed I noticed a faded blue, boxy type Jeep Cherokee pull over to check the surf and I thought nothing of it. But, when I got back to my car these kooks had picked off my water bottles from the side of my car. I place my orange tide bottle full of warm water on the side of the freeway to help keep cellphone talkers from drifting into the bike lane and then in the parked car zone. Long story longer, these kooks had snagged both of my water bottles... KOOKS! I know the car and it's a small world... it's not about the bottles, it's about surfers rippin off surfers... beware punkasses, I'm looking for you thiefs and it's not about the bottles, its about what you're about. tone~ out

New diamond tail quad in Holloween orange...

My wife and son did me huge a favor over the past weekend and picked up our new boards from a friend of mine's shop in Puerto Rico "La Ocho Surf"; sick shop that you can sometimes catch a good used Pavel off the rack or a Trinx Hawaiian Pig. The day before and the morning of the pick up, I had been hounding them hard. I hounded them to send tons of pix from every angle they could possibly come up with and send all the shots. One of the shots was this tail shot that I thought turned out pretty sweet! The shot was a bit fuzzy, but it was the best shot of my first, custom diamondtail. As the pix came through my phone, one by one, I got cell phone color tweak and the board started looking bright periwinkle/pink grapefruit. I started to freak at that point, thinking I just got my first custom HIC quad - diamondtail and it's bright pink!

Of course when I texted my family asking for a confirmation that the board is not pink and it's just my cheap-ass phone... they said "yup, it's pink alright"... my wife and son were howling with laughter after each text message I sent yelling "NOOOOOO!" I don't have anything against pink, but, pink boards were hip in the early eighties, but now? I then sent the pix to my computer and pulled them up and finally saw that my new board was Pumpkin Orange, a lot easier on the eyes than pink... Anyway, here's a shot of the latest tail to join my quiver. Sidenote~ my son picked up his new board and it was day-glow Christmas tree colored quad with black ornaments (Stars). The caption of that pic with both boards read... Merry Holloween Dad! Sweet!

tone~ out.

Blasting offshores!

Now that's what I call pelting offshore winds! I got out over the weekend and specifically on Sunday I stopped at Hueneme Pier and it was an offshore sand storm, but, what a sight! It made for some incredible photos. Peaky and blowin large flumes of spray of perfect A-Frames with not a soul around. The left corner photo is of Hueneme, just north of the plant. I ended up just north of this spot and it also was firing! I've added additional pics for your viewing pleasure... Lunchtime up in SB wasn't clean enough to paddle; smaller, wobbly-tripled up peaks. Didn't look good enough to get wet and the stench of smoke even made it worse. Hopefully manana will be better. tone~ out.

Stop with the emailed Surf Reports already!

It's getting better out there in terms of clean, peaky glasslove. Illegals had some fun rights and lefts and pretty glassy this afternoon. Rincon was looking pretty tempting, but, again on a time budget, Rincon can be a the difference between 2 to 5 waves during a lunchtime sesh. Waves were waist/shoulder at the sets and super fun. Grabbed as many as we could and headed back to the office.

More and more emails pour into my ebox letting us all know that Sunday will be (a super crowded) epic day and continue to triangulate the sources for us. They say WNW + SW + offshore wind event will equate to some epic head high or bigger waves for Sunday, again, watch out for the urban masses out there and play nice.... What I really look forward to is MONDAY! Most everyone will be of the mindset of "the swell shrinking or gone and besides, I have to work", I think that Monday's sesh is going to be super clean, dead calm, glassy and head high - SWEET!

My weekend recommendation would be to search airfares to Mazatlan and get down to Cardon Surf Resort (Northern Mainland Mex) to see what this late season SW will do down there and besides, I heard they have a tropical storm/hurricane hitting Mainland Mexico about now - there's the triangulation that's actually pretty scary. My buds and I were down there last year in October for some really fun left point break action. tone~ out.

Today...

Beautiful day out there @ La Conchita ("Illegals") today; however, the surf is still recovering from yesterdays chopness and a bit walled ~ had a few more fun little fishable corners to snap off today than the other day... I was lucky enough grab one during the lunchtime sesh. Just my buddy and I and then as we were leaving, two others paddled and a couple of more cars pulled over to check it. Rode my 5'9" Zippifish with a single channel today, was a good call for today's condish.

[pod of Zippifish pictured]

Received the Surf Alert along with a million of my closest surfin buds, that a late season SW'er is heading our way and should bring some head high waves and the urban masses out too... nonetheless, it sounds like a Mandala day!

Posted up some more pix for fun - tone~ out.

blowin' cloudlines...

Blown out from C street to Rincon... a no surf day for the folks up here. The only notable lines were skyhigh. Fairly clean lines were passing through Santa Barbara today at about a mile high. I tried to capture them as they rolled by today and have posted them for your viewing pleasure. Until the next ridable day or surf thought comes to me, tone ~ out.

La Conchita Nooner Sesh...

The tide was big and the spot had two other fellow surfers riding traditional thrusters ~ rippers! The overall condish was less than optimal and a bit walled, which was atypical based on the last month of swells and condish history.
We paddled anyway because it was Taco Bell Bean burritos or get wet; we chose the later and were stoked just to catch a few shoulders and a ton of walled air drops for fun. Sets were solid shoulder high and more or less walled. Should've hit Rincon @ shoulder high sets, but time being the limiting factor and with stickin my legs through my wetsuit sleeves in true chinese fire drill fashion trying to get suited up, board bag pulled and a quickie wax comb; there isn't much more time to spare and still get 6 to 8 waves for lunch and keep my job.
Overall, the sesh was fun, but, I've had it so much better and all to ourselves. We actually call the spot "Illegals" because it's all posted up with "Emergency Parking Only" signs. We called the CHP and they said that it was okay to park on the side of the Freeway as long as it's 100 ft from the last "Emergency Parking" sign.