Sheeple

"Surfers make sheep look like independent thinkers" Quote from Patrick King surfer and author.

I pulled the major Jedi mind fuck today. An off the cuff moment that wasn't planned......I have tried it before and it's never worked as well. This was the one for the books though.

To set the scene....I changed into my wettie next to the truck and as I pulled the board out of the bag Troy sauntered over from the other lot. We shot the shit for a few seconds as we looked over the beach. I told him where I planned to go. A peak far to the south beckoned, only one person on it and she had just paddled out.

As we spoke I saw a carload of surfers checking it out and also me as I was suited up, so instead of heading out in the direction of the peak I wanted,I drew a clear beeline for the cove to the north. Troy went over to his car and I kept north and disappeared under the dune still holding the line. Sell it! Sell it!

When I dropped out of sight I turned south still hanging under the protection of the dune and walked as far as I could before re-emerging on my way to the peak. I was probably 100 yards from where I had dropped into the beach. Fully thinking that at some point they would see me and start the lemming like rush for the same spot we are all subjected to. But not a one was in pursuit, damn it worked!

Sylas came out a few minutes later but he was the alone. Later Hannah his girlfriend paddled over and complained about the shortboarders who were all aggroed on the teeny cove waves that I had faked toward. A knot of 10 people were now all over it. Shoulda been strictly longboards only.

I started laughing and explained what I had done, Sylas giggled that he had seen the same 4 guys all headed to the cove while he was headed the other way.

3 Crosses

The bar across the entrance here is a treacherous bitch, they stopped dredging her a few years back, something about this harbor not being of a high enough usage. The fishing industry suffers due to many influences, some of her own making, some not. Crews come inexperienced, hung over and high or old, tired and burned out. This ocean is unforgiving of either. The stump of wood in the center is all that's left of last year's memorial to tragedy, the other two might have been erected in response to the burning of the original cross I have no idea.

Right now we are in the middle of springer season and I watched a few boaters play footsie with the bombie at the head of the south jetty, it's a dangerous game in a building swell. A kid came over to talk surf he had already gone out that morning to help with a capsizing, luckily this time nobody was lost. He left to surf elsewhere and I couldn't help think of the low adrenaline rush surfing must be in comparison to the regularity of sea rescues he encounters.

Arrow

I touch this rock every time I paddled out, no matter what. There isn't a true rip through the gap, sometimes the force of incoming waves washes you backwards, it can be a little squirrelly but I reach out and touch the rock no matter. On a high tide wash it's not hard to imagine being swept onto the top of the long flat slab.It reminds me of an aircraft carrier in that is immense and stands out from all the others for that reason. A forced landing is not entirely out of the question. I play here at the base of a sand dune that moves massive quantities of sand every year, paddling out to surf where for thousands of years, thousands of others had eked out an existence from the sea's bounty. Trees precariously cling to the very top fighting for life, quite isolated from all other flora, somehow making a life in the sand.
Sometimes the roots of those trees kick out a reminder from the past inhabitants here, those who shared this view. And before it's covered up by a footstep a lucky find is made. Whales and waves both meet at this cove and there is a symmetry in the arrowhead and the surfboard for me. One set of eyes scanning for seals and a home for the arrow, new eyes scanning the rocks and horizon for a telltale bump of the arriving sets and a slot for a sleek glass board.

Minus2.1

Dali-esque is gravity's pull on critters who feel more comfortable with a little more support, like water. Lowest tides of the year expose some of the beauties usually left to dance alone, playing with their blue eyed centers sends them in retreat.......
Some of the younger ones drool at the sight of their sexy neighbors.........such poor form gets you thrown out of the pool apparently.

I got the blog-fog

Just don't have anything that I want to say or for some reason can say properly............I got the blog fog man! Thank god I've been surfing.........

World Heritage Surf.

Pic courtesy: http://foulweather.blogspot.com/
Some places deserve to be spared either man's rapacious nature or his thoughtless exhaust, the tailings of our daily life. While it may be more romantic to save far away places, we should be working closer to home. I can't imagine this place without this wave. All because of nitrogen run off from neatly mowed grass. Acres of a water sucking foreign mono culture leaching extra chemicals through ancient lava. A reef has to die so that people can pluck a ball out of a metal cup.......?

http://www.savehonolua.org/

Think of all the trails you have walked to get to some out of the way spot, many are used by few others. Surfers are sometimes the lone eyes in little corners of the coast, the first to be aware of intrusions.

Shitting Bricks.

This mountain shits bricks, still alive after all these eons, it moves and drops. Assaulted by the wind and waves, winter blasts it with gusts around 70 and 80mph being routine. Driving rains measured in inches every few hours, saturate rocks and cracks. Freezing nights complete the face lift as small rocks litter the shoreline, slides sag and take out vegetation with them. There is a sweet little spot in the trees that holds a little bench and a view.

At the beginning of the winter a huge chunk of rock fell off the face of the mountain, hit the slopes below and shattered into millions of pieces. If you had been there at the moment this happened I think you would have come close to dying if not death itself. None of the bigger chunks or boulders like the one shown pierced the trees, but it was littered with fist sized chunks, they must have been flying through like shrapnel. Think of a special effects scene from some meteoroid shower sequence in a movie.

Unlike similar headlands north of here, which are extensions of Eastern Oregon lava (now basalt) this was formed from coast range lava flows millennia ago. It's daunting to imagine flows this high and so long that they extend hundreds of miles. The ocean depths hide the full tale of these giants as they drop into the sea.

The sand holds all these deposits from the cliffs above. They fall and break apart and then crumble further as they await the tides. As I wait for tides. Changing into a wettie I wonder how, with this much debris I have never seen or heard a rock being expelled. How close would be too close? This mountain is taking a crap regularly, it's a matter of time till someone witnesses, at their peril perhaps this natural function in action.