Sea Notes
Cardiff cold snap and other gifts
It was already cold as the wind gusted from the north and I pulled on winter clothes and decided to walk. Only one place would be offshore today and I didn’t want to make the drive. Cardiff Reef heaved a surprisingly thick slab as an unknown rider took off late, got barreled for seconds and [...]
What about a ‘Don’t visit California’ commercial?
Have you seen that “visit California” commercial where they show a variety of people telling you why you should come here? Made me want to do a commercial of my own, to tell people to save fuel and stay home. The original commercial features a bunch of people who are meant to represent California, even [...]
A short history of women’s surfing
The oldest known story of surfing concerns the mythical Kelea. Born of royalty in Maui, it is said she out-surfed riders of both genders. A few hundred years pass until the mid-late 1800s, when Thrum’s Hawaiian Annual reports that women in ancient Hawaii surfed in equal numbers and often better than the men. When surfing [...]
Public art in aquatic places
Last weekend I took a stroll through Ducky Waddles, that cool little art nook in Leucadia on Coast Highway near Lou’s Records. There, I found a million inexpensive pieces for sale, walking away with only one, a unique vase by a local artist that covered the smudge on my wall and the minor ding I [...]
Teaching kids to surf all about timing
For reasons only they know, parents are putting their kids on surfboards at younger and younger ages. Some even wear kid-carrying devices, paddling junior out with them at around 2 years old. Tosh Tudor, Joel and Maya’s firstborn, rode some well-overheard (for him) waves before his 3rd birthday. The waves were mushy little outside high [...]
My favorite surfer is based on more than just water skills
I had been surfing for two years, but being locked inland I was still a kook when my sister, Jackie, brought home “Surfer’s Choice,” the 1962 hit album by Dick Dale and His Deltones. Then she cranked up the hit song “Miserlou” good and loud as my musical tastes got switched on. From then on, [...]
On Safari to Burn
In 1989, longboarding had competed its loop from nearly dead art form of the ‘70s and ‘80s to a full-blown revival with ‘60s stars like David Nuuhiwa, Nat Yong, Dale Dobson, Herbie Fletcher, Donald Takayama and Skip Frye back dominating the lineup. There was some new blood out there also, much of it following the [...]
Chistmas thoughts for surfers
I wish I wouldn’t have deleted that last e-mail. It came from a concerned citizen touting the relative merits of living Christmas trees. The idea there is that a live, cut tree is far less damaging to the environment because so many trees are planted, they are not made of plastic and tree farms preserve [...]
Small surf not necessarily something to look down on
I still remember wetting my pants (not literally) to see “The Endless Summer” at the Santa Monica Civic in the mid-1960s. Like every other surfer and even nonsurfers as far away as Omaha, Neb., where the film sold out in the middle of winter in 1966, I loved that film. It did something more than [...]
Small surf not necessarily something to look down on
I still remember wetting my pants (not literally) to see “The Endless Summer” at the Santa Monica Civic in the mid-1960s. Like every other surfer and even nonsurfers as far away as Omaha, Neb., where the film sold out in the middle of winter in 1966, I loved that film. It did something more than [...]
