What I left.......and what I came back to........

We surfed the little point-like sandbar in the cool gray of Wednesday morning, just 3 of us. Super smooth, waist high fun peelers just off the sanded in crab pots. Then after a couple of hours the south blew in, within 10 minutes the wave was done in. After 5 days it finally stopped blowing, a complete anomaly in our summer conditions of north winds, it felt like winter with the south wind traced sand trails except for the warm muggy marine air it brought in.


No surf for the next 3 days while I was away fishing,but Friday morning dawned with a brushed clean swell that lasted 2 days in the head high range. Long rides from the outside peak with an inside round section that offered a little sun protection in the cover ups.
Photo: KevinP

Longboard and fish sessions, 6 in total kicked my ass, welcome home!

Fishing Part 1.

Fisherman:Kerry.
This is where I spent 3 days last week, up the canyons. Part of a trout catching and measuring boondoggle masked as competition. As the organiser described it to us, "the worst time of the year to fish the river, during the worst part of the day, missing the bite at dawn and dusk combined!! He was to prove passionately attached to both the river and the fish within her.

Photo: PK.
The water is in theory too warm for the trout to survive, but they're there. Anywhere from under 8" to well past 18", and they fed throughout the day. Some of the fly fisherman had counts of over thirty fish per day, others satisfied with their first two days efforts just went out for big fish on the third. And were rewarded with hookups that broke off flies and leaders. All in a river hardly wider than a street in your neighborhood and as shallow as a bathtub, but not a full one.

Next; some of the characters who fished the derby

Feathers....

I really liked the dead bird next to this pile of seaweed but missed the shot. A fresh looking plover or something like that, whole too, this morning all that remained was a few feathers in a rough circle.

I couldn't quite get over it's vanishing, so cleanly done. The bow hunter noted that there were coyote tracks on the beach and that got me wondering too, we never hear them in town, they must keep quiet to avoid being found.

At the trail head there is a new sign and it warns of bear. As we encroach with more homes it seems the animals are playing a little "quid pro quo" and leaving clues that they are not yet done with the terrain.

Between the rocks on the freight train of a reef wave a bobcat breaks open shellfish for a meal and I've seen a white tailed deer charge into the ocean to escape a startled dog.


And an eagle fending off all comers as it tried to talon a duck laying hapless(or so it seemed) in the shorepound, but it never managed to get the wounded bird and eventually gave up. Not so a seagull I saw torn apart by a pair of squabbling baldheads about a week later.

Repaired, re-waxed and waiting.

A makeover, from forgotten wallflower...........


to buffed beauty............



now for a little clean swell........

Eastside.......

Home to a bunch of surfers, stuff I heard in the lineup and surrounds.......

"Fuck that place, they have no respect for the community!! I told the foreman that if he was going to start working before he was legally entitled to, his workers were going to have a problem leaving for home with waxed windows and flat tires! Total disrespect for the people who live here!" (This guy looked like Micheal Chiklis of "The Shield")

"I sold a house I bought in the late 70's for over a mill, paid less than $100,000 for it then. Now I live on the hill, I'm over the beach scene and all it brings....(laughing)" He still surfed every day.

"I dropped in on my kid and just burned him. Me on my longboard and him on his shortboard, the crowd was checking us out wondering what the result of this would be. I told him that as I had paid his college I got to take the occasional wave off him too, everybody cracked up and we went back to catching waves." Older group of mellow guys going over how their kids are doing............

Good surfing, people ripping their wave apart as if they hadn't gotten decent waves for a month(and they hadn't). Inconsistent? Sure, but the wind ripping the coast for hundreds of miles had no effect on these glassy walls. Home was taking a beating at the time. I'll take this.......

Jack's place

One of the images that lured me to the West coast was a shot taken through the windows of this house. I was a teenager and the O'Neill ad showed a perfect right peeling down the point and some lithesome girl getting out of a bed. Eye level to the surf a wetsuit hung over the deck rails, probably off that upper deck. Pure surf porn.



He has a new place up the hill now, the Dirt Farmers still hang out next door on the vacant lot, probably one of the more $$$$ free hangouts left in SC. And the gargoyle keeps an eye on the surf while Jack's away......

The Slot.

Up tight against the cliff, not much margin for error. Tell it to the kids, who are all smiles and description to each other when going over the last set. 14 and surfing till 9p.m. Smiley girl on a longboard sprightly dancer taking a lot of shoulders that the boys were missing.

An invulnerable teenager fell in here earlier in the week, sadly there was no timely rescuers......

Glug glug glug....

Surfed two sessions starting at 7a.m done at 5 p.m. Done, really done! Faces fried and arms aching. Haven't surfed with this many in the water in years. Got a low wave count but better than the usual summer home fare. Fun reef waves, head high on the sets, friendly people in the water despite the #'s. Kooks aplenty somehow everyone co-exists, some regulating going on, but not unjustifiable and not unexpected.



"Do I have to get in your face?"

We're tourists..... we could screw up your commute.

Just a'fore the Golden Gate Bridge, we pulled alongside this fuel truck. Al Queda surf terrorism? Not before a surf mateys!! Four boards for fun and malarkey. Sonja cutting the air with the fin that means business, fish on top drafting for smiles.

WHEEE!

Off to S. C. for the newest south swell, with TFD aka S.S. 552 miles through the Redwoods. Loaded with camping gear for the holiday week what will this road trip bring? The two Mikes keeping an eye open for sneaker waves.