E's Surf Report: lots of driving, no surfing..

Things are starting to get painful for bay-area surfers. The summer doldrums are here, in full force. With the exception of the illustrious Cron in the AM??, bay-area beaches have been bombarded with and brutalized by constant, spirit-draining onshore wind... for weeks!! OB and Pollutica throwing up hacked, regurgitated nasties this morning. I stood at Sloat for a few minutes, watching as one wave out of ten offered up an immaculate, high-performance section.. the other nine out of ten crumbling or closing or just disintigrating into nothingness.. Maybe if you have the right mindset and gumption you could mastermind a session at OB.. but.. the duckdive to ride ratio will be tilted heavily to the side of duckdives. Down at the P. Jetty things looked more promising.. the jetty itself blocking the pesky NW wind from blowing things out.. too bad the biggest waves were about 9 inches tall.. seriously. Maybe the tide was just too high when i checked it at 6:50? dunno.. maybe things are a little better now? or will be after 1:08 when the tide begins to push back in? No surf for me..

Saturday i took the SF-SC challenge.. woke up at 4am.. "Nightmares on Wax" establishing the groove on my 80mph drive down. Running down the trail to a santa-cruz-county pointbreak at 5:15. still dark.. Eastern sky *just* starting to lighten. wind isn't too bad and i can barely see the telltale signs of white-water peeling along. Sampled a bit of the sensi before paddling out solo in the dark. Immediately i'm stroking in to head-high pointbreak niceness.. nobody around.. barely light enough to see, not really light enough to gaze out toward the horizon to watch for incoming sets.. As the light increases two more wave-riders paddle out.. and the south swell makes itself known. Every 7 minutes or so 4 or 5 thick/juicy south swell lines voyaged in and cracked and peeled along the reef. Because of their steep angle (210 degrees) they would often wall up severely, sectioning and barrelling down the line. My best wave of the session i took off from really deep on one of these south-swell bombies. I kind-of got caught up in the kelp while paddling for it but the momentum of the wave just before it broke ripped me through the kelp.. then i just stood up and elevator-dropped down the face.. bottom turned and held my line for a second as the overhead wave rifled along, giving me a fantastic view.. then it began to slow down and i carved a big fat turn into the face, back into the whitewater... then another bottom turn and suddenly the wave was jacking back up and reforming on the inside bowl.. i just stood there, holding my position right in the pocket. foamball behind me, svelte conical cylinder ahead of me.. i pumped along and then traced another cutty.. then jumped off my board right near the beach.. exhilerated. I probably caught almost 30 waves during the session (2.5 hours).. 15 or so during the solo and then three-man super-dawnie. Getting in the water at 5:20 is a sure way to beef up your wave count. no doubt. then i got home at 11 and slept until 2! Felt like i had a mini day in between friday and saturday.

Yesterday i had a super-frustrating session North of town.. not too many waves coming in and all of those taken by the "crew." Oh well.. take the good with the bad..

soo.. there is a chance that Kaiser caught waves at Mandalay bay.. any report on that?

also.. word on the street is that Robme and Lerm enjoyed an exploratory Grey Whale Cove session yesterday.. Details gentlemen?

andy irons won yet another ASP contest.. geez..

umm.. yeah..

Gary sent me a few great OB shots.. check em'..

Can you say, "DUuuuudge!"
deep gauge

Bagel painted this for me.. i look at it before i leave my apartment and it gets me pumped up for barrelage..
bagel barrel