E's Surf Report

Brian for president.

the legend grows ...

HUELGA! HUELGA!!! HUELGA!!!!!

decent waves sat outside of town, smallish but good conditions and some long rides at a crowded spot.

sunday at _ _ pretty fun, some fun drop but short ride a-frames on the outside, fast and zippy on the inside with many folks stuffing into closeout tubes.

hoping for some swell this week.

Great day of surf yesterday! Fired up...

Anyone out there ride bonzers? I am curious to explore some other shapes. I have a 5-fin egg that is pretty dope. Lemme know.

Great angle!

inspiring!

Who remembers their first OB paddle out? Any stories?

aaa mamory's

First OB wave: September 1996, Sloat. Looked small and fun, 3 or 4 feet and glassy. Was not at all like 3 or 4-foot wave where I grew up. Paddling out at OB felt like paddling through wet cement, the whole novelty of deep, difficult near-shore currents/rips where you can hardly move against them during a ground swell. Got surprised by the power, slapped around like a rag doll and realize 3 foot OB wave feels like 6 foot wave where I grew up. Rude awakening. Immediately begin acclimation process.

what a beautiful weekend! sf was shining in all it's wacky glory. but daaamn...can we turn down the brightness on the sun?

i don't think the brian interview could have turned out any better. such a character.

check out the new mexican drug law about to be passed:
Under the bill, people would be allowed to posses 2.2 pounds of peyote, the button-sized hallucinogenic cactus used in some Indian religious ceremonies. Police would also no longer bother with possession of up to 25 milligrams of heroin, 5 grams of marijuana or 0.5 grams of cocaine ? the equivalent of about 4 "lines," or half the standard street-sale quantity.

The law lays out allowable quantities for a large array of other drugs, including LSD, MDA, MDMA (Ecstasy, about two pills' worth) and amphetamines.

My first surf at OB was at Sloat. After 30 minutes, I swore I would never surf OB again.

That would make the Baja drive way mellower!

Last OB paddle was the most memorable. Socal transplant-surfed OB 80-85. Loved it. Got a job. Didn't surf much for 12 years. Returned to SF on business in 98, paddled out. 1.5-DOH day, got rocked from the moment I started paddling, 30' later made it out, by that time didn't want to be there, arms mush. Went for a medium one to go in, couldn't get into to it, got pasted by a bomber right after it. Saw stars, got beat, humiliated, scared. Knew I didn't have it anymore. Back to Socal, started longboarding, slowly got in shape, back to shortboarding at age 44, getting my mojo back. Will I try again next time I'm up there - don't know.

One of my first experiences with OB, it was totally victory at sea conditions, all you can see is whitewater, seemingly nobody out. So my girlfriend and I take a walk instead. We see a guy come in and we saunter up and ask him how it was.

"It's shittier than fuck out there!"

We couldn't help but agree.

I thought I recognized some “Niceness” in the water yesterday. Beard, Black Beauty, but no Brian. Am I right?

Where was everyone this morning. Smooth conditions, sizable sets, just me and a pod of baby dolphins.

...'76, VFW, single-fin Channin with leash attached through hole drilled in fin. Mid-day, mid-week, offshore, bigger than I expected, solo. One wave and I freaked at the speed. Addicted for life.

yup spiderman.. that was bagel with the beard and black beauty. Which dude were you?

radical!

Saturday in Poo-cifica, there was a guy unfolding his ULI (inflatable surfboard). Me and another guy ran over and watched him inflate the thing like he had just invented cold fusion. Totally looks like a good board for summer crap-tastic conditions.

First OB paddle out was not all that long ago...summer 2002. Right before I moved out to 44th St, I wanted to see what it was like at OB. I called my friend I had taken surf lessons with; we still hadn't been in the water with a surfboard 10 times. Mushtastic knee-high blown out conditions. We did laps (catch the foaming waves, ride them straight into the beach, circle into the rip back out) for about 90 minutes. It was just dumbshit luck we hit one of the 6 days a years that matched our ability level. There was also a headless-tailess seal carcass bobbing in the line-up that we figured was just pretty common place in the ocean, like dead seals gotta go someplace, right? Ignorance is bliss, and that's how I stay happy to this day.

How small did the inflatible pack down to?
Other info?

sweet spiderman. those waves were suprisingly fun..

OB '97. Just got my first "real" board after my learner egg board. It was a used 70's Froghouse single fin 6'6". My buddy took me to Montara in the morning, got worked and cold but fun. Then out at Noriega for an evening session. Remember it pounding me but not that hard to get out. then the bombs showed up and scared me shitless. Didnt look that bad from the bluffs. Got a small left screamer, paddled back out, got more scared and pretty much got cleaned up trying to be a pussy and paddle in. Loved that night over beers though feeling VERY alive.

1st OB experience was on a weekend day back in the late fall of '89 (yes, before all of you CA tranny's moved here from outside the bay area and East Coast and the Slugs invaded the line-ups of northern SC county). After 5 years of learning and surfing SC on an almost daily basis I was absolutely blown away - 6ft, offshore, freight trains, with minimal guys out (see my thoughts above on the subject of crowding). I got some great waves, but also took some punishment. I'd never seen anything like it at the time and probably won't again (see my thoughts above on the subject of crowding).

yo dude any more info on the uli?

I have been thinking about getting one for my girlfriend because its a hassle bringing her longboard on trips when she may only use it once. She doesn't need a high performance board, just something that's easy for a beginner to ride in mellow conditions so I thought the Uli might work. Seems lame though - inflatable surfboard? I am worried it would be like sending her out on a rubber raft.

1989 the year surfing came to acean beach.

I was the dude on that ridiculous 11’6’ Lance Carson Powerglide sitting outside laughing and licking his eyebrows. I spent most of the session at the north end with the local crew but slipped down your way sometime after 10am. You guys really seemed to be having fun, it was exceptionally beautiful day out there and from your description it’s clear you understand why we all love that place so much. Who were you?

1st OB - Fall of 1980.
4-6' offshore/glassy.
6'9" Haut round pin single fin.
Grew up surfing beachbreaks. OB was not like
those others. Currents and relentless inner bar hammers where no easy task.
I finally made it out and scored some great waves with just me and my bro's on our own peak.
I got a pretty legit barrell for my skills that day, it made the 90+ mile ride home to SC in the back of the pick-up more tolerable.

First time at OB was probably around 95 or 96; OH+ to close to DOH, November mid-day glass, crazy warm, oily smooth, tubing A-frames. Scattered crowd, and I really lucked out on the paddle. My friend was not as lucky and never made it out. Some of the best beach break conditions I've ever experienced.

I was on the way to Sonoma for the weekend at the time, and I got OB just as good with the exact same conditions two days later on the way home. Stoked.

Surfed it 'prolly once a year since, and while I have lucked out often, I've never seen as good as those two days around Thanksgiving.

First OB experience January 1996. My buddy slug came over from Berkeley, he and I used to surf in SoCal, I hadn't been in the water in a few years. It was maybe 10-12 ft on the faces. I got denied and felt like I'd been pushed through the ringer. I sat on the beach and watched. Slug made it out quickly. He caught one wave, rode it as far as he could, and tried to paddle back out. He tried for an hour before he made it back out. Stubborn, that one. Then he caught another wave. Missed the drop. Broke a brand new leash and had to swim in.

After coming in he was super pissed, and we went to End-of-the-line where stoney-store-keeper couldn't remember selling us that leash 2 hours earlier but exchanged it just to get rid of us so he could go back to paranoia stonedom.

Slug said his first wave was the biggest cleanest most powerful wave of his life to date. And the 5 years before that he was a RA in the UCSD dorms closest to Blacks.

3to5 - made your world famous shrimp tacos again last night for some friends and the meal blew them away! i'm tellin you, man, you gotta put together a cookbook.

first ob - i feel like we've done this before, but...95. i was 18 and could not surf for shit. had only really surfed juiceless waves to that point. paddled out by myself on a decent sized (maybe head high) day with really marginal, frumpy conditions. almost drowned, held down numerous times, and totally lost my cool trying to paddle in against the rip at the north end. felt really lucky to make it in alive, knowing then this was not a surf spot i should venture out at without quite a bit more experience.

First time surfing OB occurred after my friend Jack, from Fairfax, took a huge shit on the asphalt in the parking lot. Then we paddled out into the hyper-crowded, head-high blue peaks. Was fun. Jack's turd was still there when we came in, swarmed with flies. Was gross. Jack just laughed.

First OB experience, paddled out on a 20' longboard, with two Marina hotties, one on the tail, one on the nose. Full-on threesome south of Sloat, it was awesome.

1990. Antman and I learned to surf at Lindamar for maybe 3 months during the summer and fall. One day we braved a paddle out to middle beach OB when it was solid 5-6 foot and wind blown. Nobody was out. It was scary. Neither of us caught a wave. So we proned in by catching a large white water wave to shore. The thrill was the power of an already broken wave. Such force! We were kooks, still are, but I think that day we caught the OB bug.

My first OB day: 1/15/05 - yup I'm kinda a beginner and OB was very sweet to me that day. I got bit pretty hard by the surfing bug the previous October 04' and was surfing about 2 to 3 times p/week. It was pretty small, overcast and glassy - a really mellow day surf-wise for OB. The paddle was longer than what I had experienced at that point having only surfed Bobo and Poo-cifica. I was on my new (and first board ever), 8'6' Roger Hinds. The most memorable thing about the day was that people were really cool to me. It was pretty clear to anyone paying attention that I was new to the sport and instead of being heckled, guys were really helpful and supportive to me in the line up and in the parking lot. They gave me wave judgment tips, told me about spots and tide conditions that would suit me and my equipment, one guy even offered: "stick close to me, I'll help you get a wave out here" - and he did! My guy friends say it's only because I'm a chick, but I prefer to think it's because there are still genuinely good hearted people out there who get stoked when they see a fellow surfer/human in the water trying to improve their skills and having fun. Isn't that what this here "NICENESS" is all about?

Been back to OB many times since and have never had the same experience in the line up as that first day. That day also happened to be my birthday, so I tell myself that it was a birthday gift I received from Mother Pacific. Surf y’all!

Late 90's sometime, maybe 98? 7'4" mini-gun. Size around 6-8', clean. Mid-beach peaks to ourselves. The one thing I remember most of all is a set looming, first one breaks about 5' in front of me as I go deep as the board will dive. I got rattled, pulled up over the falls and pinned to the bottom for a full second WITH THE BOARD STUCK TO MY CHEST! I never let go and I floated back to the surface, upright and paddled away from it. OB is like shore-pound where ever the wave breaks.

yeah #3 I remember that day...That was one of my first days out there as well. I remember a screaming left and taking some beatings on the paddle. nice

1977: On "hiatus" from 10th grade. Flew to Oahu with 1 yr of saved busboy tips. Surfed Pipe, Sunset, but mostly lesser known reefs. Over to Maui. H-bay, Windmills, etc. for 3 months. Hooked up with a guy named Mike Neil? Big wave rider, black coral diver. Looked out for me. Said he grew up surfing OB with a homemade rope leash "as big as it got". Anyone heard of him?

sorry to tell you "still new" but the nice treatment was definitely because you are a chick.

but I don't mean to take anything away from your efforts, you sound stoked - keep on keepin on!

cool OB stories!

I'll echo the realist's assessment, but with a caveat.

Women have made some inroads, but surfing is still a male dominated sport, and a lot of the problems in the water are due to an abundance of testostorone IMO.

So, while other surfers were nice to you because of your gender, at least some of them were not trying to get into your wetsuit, they just were hoping to improve the balence in the water.

BTW, I can't remember the first time I surfed OB.

I did avoid it for many years thinking that the waves broke too fast for me.

One of my first surfs there, I was taking off on a wave and as I start to get up I see a dark mass in the water below me and all of a sudden I am staring face to face a huge female elephant seal (no long nose). I just freaked and lept off the back of my board.

In my minds eye, that seal had a very human face, kind of like Seabert.

Maybe not my first time, but still, my first summer surfing ever. Went out @ Sloat on a OH+ day...dumb dumb dumb. My buddy & I start the paddle. 30-45 minutes later, I make it out. No sign of my buddy. Try to take off on a big 'un & went over the falls. Got worked & held down so hard, I lost a contact & a frickin' bootie. Scared shitless, I paddled in & laid on the beach, one eye & one foot, catching my breath. A short time later, my buddy walks up. He'd spent the entire time trying unsuccessfully to get out. After resting a short time, we went back out, but were denied...thankfully.

Can't remember my first OB experience but my first surf in CA (another east coast tranny) was at the Lane in 1997 - it was the only spot I had heard of (blame the magazines). Hop in on a 5'10 modern fish having a ball in 3-5 ft slot waves - no clue to the localism of the spot, picking off my share without too many grumpy faces. The swell proceeds to triple in size over the next hour or so and I'm trying to drop in on solid 8-10 ft middle peak bombs on this tiny board (the only thing I owned at the time) getting the ass whopping of my life being dragged across the reef but having a great time. Ignorance was bliss back in the day - now I'll only surf the Lane on very rare off-times.

With about a year or so of surfing experience my buddy suggested we go longboarding at OB. This was in the pre-internet hype days and no one had told me that it was brutal or that the paddle was bad. We got in the water at the Beach Chalet (I was so clueless I didn't know its way cool real name) and I paddled out no problem. The crazy thing was It was about head high and I had my 10' singlefin noserider. So there was one guy on a shortboard near me who was clearly annoyed by my massive log in the water and he told me to watch out with such a long board. I promptly took off on a massive closeout with the same guy shouting behind me. Knowing then what I know now I was a total kook and dangerous but I still think it was pretty funny that I got out on that board no problem. I've been denied many times since then on much smaller boards and I wouldn't dream of taking that board out there now.

I am sorry guys but Brian is a complete fuck up. Typical irresponsible kid, a little like I was but he is a really spoiled bodega bay bratt.

Uh, I had a great day... I had just started to surf 3 months ago, then some friends took me to OB. I was on a 9 ft log and was pretty freaked out. Well. Waist to shoulder high A-frames at Sloat, caught 3 or 4 great waves. The waves just seemed to find me that day. Dry hair paddle out almost all the time. No kidding. Sunny, warm.... Wasn't my birthday, but felt like it. I fell in love with OB that day.

first day at OB (spectator)

january 2 1990....biggest goddamn waves i had
EVER SEEN in person. 3x overhead. 1 maybe 2 guys
out at north end of the dunes. A frame barrels. sick.
could NOT believe it... jan. 5th back to n.c. none of
my buddies there believed a word of it.

first day at OB (surfing)

september 2000.
fun beach break waves. stoked at how warm the
water was.... i had just moved down for grad school
from oregon. great fall, fun chest to head high day.

agreed #1, I am happily married and am not trying to get in anyone's wetsuit but I like to see more women in the water and am way nicer to them, especially if they are out alone. I find a couple women in the lineup improves the vibe, makes everyone mellower.

I find women in the line up are way less aggressive when paddling for waves than their male counterparts. So its pretty awesome when they're out there, cause I get way more waves cutting them off and dropping in!

I started coming over to surf OB from Berkeley when I was an undergraduate in '78 or '79. I didn't even know how to get there, so it would take me about an hour just to get across SF because I'd go south on 80 and get off on Army St. (later to be called Caesar Chavez) and then somehow pick my way across town. I not sure why I did this, but I happened to be looking through my old copy of Surfing California just the other day and I noticed he's got the SF breaks all wrong - on his map from north to south it's Kelly's Cove (ok), Fleishackers (old name for the zoo, right?), VFWs, then Ocean Beach down about where I would call it Fort Funston. So maybe that's what I was aiming for. Anyway, I don't remember paddling out the first time, but I do remember one day in particular. It was late afternoon, maybe 3-5 feet, nothing serious, handful of guys out scattered up and down the beach. But out of nowhere this big set comes through, and I'm caught inside. I don't remember how big it was but what impressed me was how powerful it was. By the time it was through, I had been dragged all the way in to the beach. I remember standing in knee-deep water, looking back outside and seeing the sun going down and thinking oh well, no time to paddle back out before it gets dark, I'm outta here. Then, turning to head for the car, I see the entire beach is littered with all the other surfers, who, just like me, had been washed in by this set, and were also calling it a day. I look back outside and sure enough, not a single surfer out, the entire lineup "cleaned up" by a single set.

nothing says 'loser' like dropping in on a chick. especially at lindy or bobo.

surfing..

Mid 90s. I had just moved to CA for grad school and was stoked to learn how to surf. Used wetsuit and dangerously heavy and waterlogged board. Paddled out on a fall day- same story as Thom Cruise- no idea OB had any kind of reputation and no problem paddling out on a head highish day. First wave I tried to catch I went over the falls and smash landed on my board. An apprenticeship at lindy ensued.

e and Bagel - No way ....you described my drive perfectly out to my local! It was a beutiful weekend, and when those bars work (which they have been this year), well you gotta taste of it. Next time you're up that way let me know.

Plus this season just seems to be still hanging on by a thread. Hasn't been completely wrecked yet.

cheers,
Jack

Summer '94 went out on a tiny day. Only other surfers were two other kooks who insisted on being within 10 feet of me.

chicks in the line up = women on a sailing vessel Can cause lots of bad juju.

If they can surf fine, let earn their place. If not they should be treated like every other kook out there. You spin and paddle for a wave you better go. Pull back twice and expect to dropped in on, period. Too many times, women expect different treatment. Treat everyone fairly good or bad.

I'd rather look at women in the lineup, not men.

1977. 7'2" Brewer Pintail. Tubed.

A few photos from smoke-a-jay. Click on any photo and hit the slide show option.

http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/album.jsp?aid=768a5498cf45718c30c6

p.s. no leash

I got hit by a bad kidney stone while visiting my mom in Ohio. In between attempts to get it out I kept having vivid, hyper-realistic dreams of being deep inside the barrel and getting blasted out the exit by the spit. The day I got back to town, stone still in place, plastic tube in the ole urethra, my buddy, without asking and without being told about my dreams, dragged me to wise for the wetsuit sale. Pulled up and the beach was firing, glassy, offshore, head high peaks. Bought the second suit I tried on, walked across the street with his second board and spend the next 90 minutes eating shit in the shore break and coming up smiling. Shortly thereafter I lost the stone and picked up an addiction.

1st OB 1971, can't remember. Still there.

first ob for me was in 1986 on a 6'4".

oops! that's '04. what millenium is this, btw?

the first time i hit a man in the ass was in the cove in 93. Ever since then its been about a lot of strong men, lost of cock and tight assholes to get deep in.

Uli Details:

The guy inflating it bought it mail order. Said it was the second generation, which made me feel good that some of the kinks were worked out. It was the 7'5" and easily rolled up into a duffle bag. The pump, however, was not like a kite-surfing pump, but long and looked more like it was homemade from PVC pipe. Not sure if a kiting pump would work on it...the valve looked like it had a smaller screw-on top than what's on a kite valve, I believe.

The material seemed acutally very tough. And it came across as stiffer than you'd expect from an inflatable. Probably not the difference in stiffness between an popout and tradition foam, but more like a board with a small stringer. I didn't see the guy surf on it (he went down to too near to Toilet Bowl Creek), but as he was a beginner, I don't think I would have gotten much of an idea of how the thing performed.

The one thing that really struck me on the ULI was that the fin was also inflatable. I shoulda flicked it to see how stiff it was, but I didn't think of that at the time (probably woulda been more creepy and invasive). Gotta say though, if you want to keep a spare board in the house for when non-surfing friends come town, it seems like a good idea. Definetly better than a coleman raft or inflatable aligator.

Last piece of news is my mail-order bicycle surf rack came today ($55). I'll include a product review next week, I hope.

Look at this foto i dug up

and the OB legend grows again.
it's fucking crowded folks, how "heavy" "gnarly" "fast" "rippy" do you need to make believe it is so that you can feel like a "OB surfer"
what a joke.

Frist OB experience -- bodysurfed a sunny 4ft day in late Sep '98. Saw some 40 yr old get fully shacked for like 3 seconds. Damn. Just moved up from SD and was wearing my 2/1 spring suit . . . dudes were gawking at me like I was an alien. Almost stepped on one of those bigass crabs when I was headed in.

First Lindy experience?

the contempt I've felt for so many of you has now turned to pity. what eluded me in my attempt to understand how so many could be so clueless is now painfully obvious. with very few exceptions you all missed out on gromhood. with no one to guide you, you've all fumbled along with no foundation, making it up as you went. the blind leading the blind.

3yrs after my first time but: 1st weekend In Nov. of '89- 2 weeks after the quake. Saturday, 8-10', offshore, Sloat. Me and Tom A.the only ones in the lineup all afternoon. WhoHoo..........

leave your cameras at home.

stop writing up surf reports on the internet.

thanks.

1st time, 2nd time, etc at 'the beach':

Inside has a funny paddle out. Kinda swirly.
Outside is a little scary. Kinda out there.

Have fun!

hey anon if anyone (male or female) pulls back twice then it's all clear, it doesn't count as dropping in.

haha someone called me an irresponsible little brat. thats kinda cute knowing that he doesn't know jack shit about me. all you guys know is that i love surfing and smoke pot sometimes. isnt that true with about every fucking person on here? I go to school every day and I just got a 98% on a huge project in an Advanced Placement course. I am learning with my father how to create a Sole Proprietorship business, and I will do the landscaping for bodega harbor. I own my own truck, pay for my own gas, and attempt to have a good time in my life. So if you really think you every thing about me, maybe you should shut the fuck up and get a life, other than talking shit to 16 year old kids on a surf forum...

Stay on the porch 16 year old....the big dogs run to rough.

First Ob experience in about 1969 -me and three buddies paddled out in a rubber raft. Junky conditions. I couldn't swim and was pretty concerned about falling out,which one of my buddies did. He could swim however, and made it back into the raft even after we paddled away just to mess with him. I was happy when the ride was over. 35 years later I paddled out there with a board for the first time, caught some good ones, and drank up the memories of growing up in the sunset, seeing it from a new vantage point. A few weeks later, I tried it again, the surf had come up, I drifed north from Sloat, and I was looking at some maybe eight foot bombs rolling in, bending around the bars, coming after me, trying to get me caught inside. First time I saw waves as living creatures. Damn, these things change directions to come after me! Cat and mouse. As I clawed my way over one, looked up and saw a guy sliding down it from the peak. He looked like he was on top of a mountain screaming down at me. Ultimatley, I did get caught inside and for the first time ever, intentionally bailed my board. Wasn't the worst dragging by any means, but I called it a day.

HUNTER YOU'RE A KOOK
KELLY'S COVE LOCAL KOOK!