Meghan and I paddled out this morning for the second voyage of her Cheesepuff Wavestorm. It was small, not TOO chrowded (but Sunday so it was crowded), and there was warm sunshine. That’s a pretty good recipie for a fun beginner day.
I took out my 7′ quad, which I haven’t taken out in ages. It’s still fun! I thought it might help me sit further inside so I could help Meghan find a good spot. We never found the right spot for her, but we got close. 🙂
I totally spaced on logistics, otherwise I would have stuck around to surf with Chris a little. Seems like the rest of the morning was pretty dang pleasant, too.
With a tent filled with snacks on the beach, I spent hours and hours surfing, bodysurfing, snacking, and pushing Meghan into waves. It was sunny, water was warm, surf was decent enough. So much fun. Meghan got three pretty good waves! She was starting to get on the face (with a little push from Chris in the right direction.)
I got some great bodysurf rides. Probably one of the best I’ve gotten without a hand plane. Most of the board rides and bodysurf rides were almost right into the sand. Pretty punchy for little waves!
Following day (after much sleeping in) I did some kayaking on San Pablo reservoir. So swimming here (aww) but so pretty! And perfect weather. Just enough breeze to keep cool. Plenty of sun. Super nice day. Had a picnic on a rock!
Surf: 3.6 ft at 7.7 s from the NW at 307°. Lil windy.
(from Santa Maria 21 NM NW of Point Arguello, CA)
Day two of the surf and space roommate trip. I got up early and scoped out the waves, but forgot that once I left the room, I was going to be stuck outside (no room key) so I watched the surf slowly deteriorate.
Ah well. Worse waves means fewer surfers and more whitewater for my beginner roommates to catch.
Once we packed up the room. I went out for a short surf while Meghan picked up a soft top. I splashed around in my swim fins trying to push her into waves. While she didn’t stand up, I think she’s figuring out enough to have fun with me in bolinas or a cowells. 🙂
Always nice to see someone stoked.
Swapped the fins for my board and caught a few more waves. Chatted with folks in the water. All around, not fun sloppy surf.
The other girls went out with Kaitlyn and each stood up once or twice.
By then our warm beach weekend had turned to wind and puffy jackets.
Surf: Offshore. 4.9 ft at 10.0 s from WNW at 302°
Wow. I was not expecting this at all. Not only was the wind off shore, but the waves were working. Good size, nice long waves. Wow.
Of course, in typical Lindy style it was packed to the gills. I’m not yet comfortable with sitting inside so every wave felt like a firing squad. It didn’t help that in trying to avoid being the the way, I got squarely in the way over and over. John nearly hit me, Mike nearly hit me, dozens of strangers nearly hit me. Yeeow.
I guess it’s good duck diving practice? (Although a failed duck dive resulted in me turning my eyelids inside out. Ow)
I managed to get a few waves, but man did that take effort.
There was a cameraman in the water. I’m pretty sure half his roll is me *not* getting the wave. Ahh well. That’s me in the bottom photo, trying to see in the morning sun.
I got a few drops to remember out of the morning and got to see friends get some really nice ones. 🙂
Back when Sunset Shapers opened, I recalled reading on their site about shaping lessons. I filed that bit of info away in the “Oh man, I’d love to do that” archives.
Just before Christmas, they had a coupon for lessons via Facebook. I got one, hoping it would finally get me to move shaping lessons from the “I want to do that” column to the “I’m totally doing that” column.
It did!
I had a little chat with James about what I wanted to make. The options came down to a proper noseriding longboard and a fish. Feeling like I’d get more use out of the fish in local waters (or on trips) I went fish.
The classes are divided up into two 3 hour sessions.
The first session is about the blank, the tools, the shaping room, the process of removing the outer “bark” from the blank, using the surform to smooth everything down, deciding on templates, measuring, measuring again, trimming the extra foam off.
Gordon was great. He answered all my questions. He walked through everything and was happy to share info.
We started here
A 6’5 blank. Nice and wide for fish.
We measured here:
Overall board length: 6’4
Width 1ft from the nose: 15 3/4″
Wide point: 21″
Width 1ft from the tail: 16″
We round a combination of templates that made a smooth transition between all the points of measurement.
The act of shaping is all about creating a craft with smooth flowing, lines through smooth, flowing strokes. The template needs to flow so the water can flow, right?
Tim reminded me of this scene:
At the end of the day, we had a square railed, fish shaped block of foam:
Day 2 was all about the finesse. Bottom contours, rail shape, tail details, nose details, basically everything that gives this board it’s character.
We started with lots and lots of passes with the surform to trim the board down to the thickness we wanted (2 3/4″) I got to do a lot of this work (since it was harder to mess up, ha) and was getting the hang of using the surfom correctly.
Here’s Gordon trimming down the stringer so I can do more surform passes on the bottom:
Next we worked on the bottom concave. Single to double concave. This took lots of very small movements, checking and rechecking the depth, and plenty of eyeballing.
So much of this is by feel or by sight that Gordon had me look at things in progress so I could see what it looked like if one side was less concave than the other, then showed me how to fix it. We did this with the stringer too, I’d look to see where the stringer was too flat, then Gordon would get it nicely into a smooth shape again.
It was really interesting to see how everything evolves. The board isn’t ruined if there’s a little more foam here, it is still in progress and can be brought back into check (within reason, you obviously can’t add foam back in.) The point being, every stroke or step doesn’t have to be perfect, but the change has to be slow and symmetrical so that the finished board is perfect.
I had so many questions answered. So many thing I thought maybe were aesthetics, actually had real reasons behind them. Like the swallow tail, there rails on the tail are very square on one side and rounded on the top, allowing the water to release under the board for speed and turns, but hold over the top to keep the board in the face nice and snug for more control.
Rail work was super delicate. Gordon did all of that work. I mostly said “yup, that’s even” or “looks a little rounder on this side”
The finished board:
Next steps: cutting fin boxes, cutting the leash plug, and glassing!
This part’s really exciting. I don’t get to sit in on it, but I’ve done a ton of sketching, holding boards, and talking to James about options. I sketched so many MANY options, dozens at least, before settling on this guy:
Now to wait for James to do his magic.
I highly recommend this class to anyone who wants to know more about what goes in to hand shaping a board or anyone who wants to be able to better read how a board will perform. It’s a great class.
I’d love to shape another board. Gordon said the best way to do it is to find a board I want to copy, bring it in, and book some time with him of James to help. They’d leave me to do more of the work myself and help guide in the hard parts.
We haven’t taken a family trip since 2005. This year for Christmas we spent the Holiday in Costa Rica. I’ve been looking for a good excuse to get my family involved in my surf life so I arrange for some classes in Playa Grande from Point Break Surf. They set us up with surfboards (softies for Dad and Wes and a proper board for me) and made arrangements for a van to pick us up.
The road out to Playa Grande was rough. Three water crossings, steep gravel hills. We got to see a lot of nature, but wow…we were pretty relieved to be out of the van and on the HUGE beach.
At low tide the beach is massive.
Grande indeed.
While waiting for the tide to come in, we body surfed for a while in the warm water. Got a few fun rides and a few beatings. One of those beatings took my wallet which, for no logical reason, was in my board shorts. Oh well!
Once the tides were right and the instructor had pulled up with with the boards, we hit the surf. Lots of great little waves for Wes and Dad to learn on. Dad got lots of long rides on his knees and a few stand up rides. Everyone cheered for him. Wes got some nice ones in too and is getting better at turning. The instructors were great, they kept everyone motivated, safe, and happy.
Mom braved the hot sun to take pictures of us.
I had fun picking off little corners. I got a few tips from the instructor and helped push some little groms into waves.
It was a lot of fun watching the little fish scatter as I swooped in on my bottom turn. Wheeee.
All around great day.
Surf: 3-5 ft. waist to head high and poor-fair conditions.
This morning’s dawn patrol: Slightly jumbled, crossed-up peaks on offer this morning. Looking a bit more disorganized than yesterday, with a few rideable corners still making it through at times.
I have never surfed on a shortboard and I have never surfed at Ocean Beach. Shortboards are harder to paddle, harder to catch waves with, but when you’ve got them you can tear up waves. You can also duck dive with a shortboard (swim under an oncoming wave with the board instead of paddling over). Duck diving comes in very handy at a place like Ocean Beach where the waves are bigger, more powerful, and take a lot more paddling to get through.
I’m on a smaller, harder to paddle board facing bigger, more powerful waves. Fantastic idea right there in the works!
Cryptomail gave me some pointers on duck diving and waited patiently as I failed at it over and over. I didn’t manage to paddle out past the breaking waves. I did catch one wave boogie board style, but spent most of the morning under water or falling off the board. I need a lot of practice before I stop looking like a flailing wet mess and look more like a surfer. Ha.
Conditions: 3-4 ft. + – waist to shoulder high and fair-good conditions. Clean, peaky lines with workable shoulders and fair-good shape. Gear: 9 ft foam board
AWESOMEÂ day.
I got together a group of friends who were looking to learn and headed to the beach for another Adventure Out class. My friends all got the basic class while I talked to one of the instructors about where I wanted to improve. Basically I wanted to work on my timing, on reading a wave, and generally working on my confidence.
I spent the day working with Melissa on catching waves, trying to learn when IÂ should paddle slow (if it’s a steep wave)Â and when I should paddle faster to catch the wave. Mike helped me learn to balance my upper body and to use my front shoulder to steer. I learned to set up top turns and how to start to think about bottom turns. IÂ didn’t get a whole lot of turning in, but I got up lots of times and had a blast.
Everyone else was getting the hang of things pretty quickly too, hopefully I’ll have a few more friends in the water!
Day Two of my surf class was Sunday April 27th, 9-Noon. Also with Adventure Out.
Day Two was when all the hard paddling from Day One (and all the rock climbing from the day before day one) finally caught up to me. Ow.
Owwww.
IÂ was exhausted, but happy. The waves were much harder to paddle out into, fewer lulls and a lot more whitewater. IÂ only caught three waves the whole day and didn’t get past kneeling on the board, but it was still fun. Hard work, but fun.
Injury report:Â I took a bit of an ambitious wave and fell. Underwater I could feel my leash go taught and IÂ knew the board was probably not someplace I wanted it to be. Sure enough when IÂ came to the surface, WHACK I got nailed with the board right in the face. Good thing IÂ was doing the safety head cover the instructors told us about or I’d probably have gotten a black eye.
*This day was prob more like 3-5 feet with a lot of wind and back to back sets. No real downtime and some tough waves to paddle through.
Conditions: Small Clean Waves* Gear: Rental foam board
Day: AWESOME
My first surf class was Saturday April 26 from 9am to Noon with Adventure Out.
IÂ can’t recommend these guys enough.
The lesson included a wetsuit; a board; plenty of time on dry land learning safety, wave reading, etiquette, and pop ups; plenty of time in the water learning to paddle, dodge waves, timing, standing and turning. The instructors were great. They spent the time hanging out with us and helping us each individually work on our timing and telling us what to do on the next wave to get better.
I stood up a few times, cheated a few other times by just getting up to my knees instead of a clean pop-up, and turned once. It was sooooo much fun.
I got pretty much hooked right then and there.
*This was before I started checking Surfline religiously for conditions. It was probably 2-4 feet, not a lot of wind and the sets were pretty chill. Lots of time to rest between sets.
