Hurricanes Paulette and Teddy September 2020

A short vid of Dion Mattison surfing NY during Hurricane Teddy. Shot by Mitch Blummer and edited by MG Bruno.

Here are two fun vids of the two most prominent hurricane swells we received in NY in 2020: Paulette and Teddy. Both swells had a very similar track, forming off the the coast of Africa, heading west, then taking a sharp northward turn a few hundred miles off the coast of Florida. Neither of them hit land, which is exactly what we all want from Atlantic hurricanes — we love them spinning out to sea producing swell, but keeping houses and businesses on the mainland safe and sound. Both of them hung out in a more easterly area of the Atlantic giving the direction of both swells a strong easterly component. There was south in both as well, as they necessarily had to come from the south too. Paulette was a bit closer than Teddy, and for this reason I think she was a much better swell all around. Her proximity did produce pretty large intervals, upwards of 15 and 16 seconds on the biggest day, but she shined on the day of her arrival with still large intervals at 13 and 14 seconds, but nothing near the 17 seconds that two days of Teddy produced. I’m sure that Teddy was extra awesome at places that love longer, larger lines like that, but our sandbars prefer stuff really in the 9-12 second range. Even 14 seconds is pushing it in terms of long waits and closeouts, but Paulette seemed to have the right angle to produce consistent, peaky surf.

The hype on Paulette’s first morning was tremendous. I had like 10 people wanting a coaching session. And guess what? The surf was terrible in the morning. The swell had not yet arrived and the tide was in a really funky cycle — it was super high at like 4a and none of the bars were really working a mid outgoing. I cancelled the morning sessions, went back to the clubhouse to eat breakfast, then got back to the beach around 9a. Little pulses started arriving and by 930a it was clear that Paulette had arrived. We were surfing my beloved 60th St jetty, aka “first jetty” or as Ruth Mamaril calls it, “Tampons”, due to the sticks in the middle of the beach and because she thinks that calling a break “Tampons” will keep aggressive male surfers away. Great idea in theory, but as many know, it can be one of the most aggressive spots to surf in Rockaway. Still I love it because the jetties are very close together so it gathers a lot of sand and makes a very intense wave. The sand there, as everywhere, is always shifting and after Isaias it has piled up in front of the Tampons, creating an A-frame sand bar. At the time of this writing, this is not really the case. The sand has shifted again since Teddy and since a few windswells that have come since. But on the first day of Paulette it was A-frame heaven. Tons of little tubelets going both left and right with a big open face afterwards to practice turns. I have been working on opening up my shoulders in my cutbacks to get higher up on the whitewater for my rebounds and to make a more critical arc. I felt my intentional work was paying off in this session. My rotation felt good. I had also done a lot of work since the spring taking off under the lip with my hands down to maximize depth in the tube via a mid line on the wave.

Hands down under the lip take off to get under the hood from the start. Pic by Camille Murphy @skybluepinkco

I was joined in this session by Farmata Dia. Farmata is 19 years old, from Rockaway, and has been surfing for 3 years. She is is a part of the Laru Beya Surf Club, and also part of the new CSC Scholarship Program that I am implementing a.) to provide CSC style coaching for the youth of Rockaway so that they can become stylish, masterful surfers and exemplars of surfing stewardship; b.) to put to use expired sessions that people did not or cannot complete (there will soon also be a way to purchase sessions for these young people via the web store). Farmata rode my 6’9” Josh Hall speed egg. Her session started off slow, and then she really came into her strides towards the end. She is super stoked on surfing and wants to make a career out of it one day. We surfed together on the Teddy swell as well, which was much harder overall, but she did manage to nail a sick shot by Brian Bedder. She didn’t tell me at the time of the session that she had gotten tubed, and when I texted her about it, she said that she didn’t know she was in the tube! So we’ll work on making those tubes more intentional moving forward.

Farmata in the tube during Teddy. Pic by Brian Bedder @bbedder.

Farmata and I surfed for about 4 hours during that peak Paulette time frame. I simply could not get out of the water. But by 130p the tide was starting to get a little high and the waves were getting fat. I was parched and hungry and really felt satisfied by the tubes and turns I had under my belt. I went back to the clubhouse, made a mozzarella and tomato panini with a panini press I found on the street in Brooklyn (I washed it down first of course), and got Mitch’s footage off of him in the backyard. Brant was hanging at the clubhouse for the day, doing work, and waiting for his evening surf window. The wind stayed offshore from the north all day. We went and checked a spot different from 60th St, and it was cooking with long, big lefts. Paulette had grown in size. Brant rode my 7’6” Barahona x CSC Tiburon/Potentia model and was absolutely charging. In fact he charged so hard that he gained an MCL sprain on his last wave. It was a bit of a bummer but you know what? If you’re not getting hurt, you’re not charging. And if you’re not charging you’re not progressing in your surfing. Injuries happen. They’ll make you a better surfer.

Brant pre-injury on an overhead bomb during Paulette. Screen grab of video by Mitchel Blummer.

Clubhouse grinds!!!

The second day of Paulette was large and in charge and wobbly. The place we had surfed in the evening was not doing its thing at all. Then I got a report that 60th was not either. I did not, however, go and check it with my own eyes, and that was a mistake. Instead I drove half way to Rhode Island with Catee Lalonde, then got a report from Rhode Island that it was not totally firing either, so we turned around, drove back to NY, missing the best window of day 2 Paulette. By the time we got back it was 11a and the wind just died. It was still glassy but it was far from offshore and perfect. We scoured the surf zone and found a new-to-us wave, which was pretty novel and pretty darn good. It felt like if we hadn’t of made those calls we wouldn’t have scored it as we did, and we surfed alone. Catee, per usual, was charging. I had a good time too. There was a lot of water moving, however, so it was a marathon of a session. It felt like a surfing triathlon: paddle, surf, run up the beach, repeat. At the end of the day we were stoked to have surfed NY alone in good sized waves. I was also reminded the golden rule of surfing: NEVER LEAVE WAVES. It was also a good check to stay in the backyard, especially since we’re still deep in this pandemic. I think there are some good calculated risks one can take with surf travel right now, but I personally feel less comfortable impinging on others’ territory with a highly contagious disease still raging around the country.

Teddy was close on Paulette’s heels, and like I wrote above, had a very similar track. But he also had very different local wind conditions, tide cycle, and also the sand bars had shifted after Paulette and seemingly during the first few days. One thing was sure, however, and that was that I was not going to leave Rockaway. The conditions were favorable enough for staying local, and I didn’t want to lose surf time driving. It was a great call. Another great call was driving to NJ the Friday before Teddy hit to pick up a new 5’10” thruster that Charles Mencel shaped for me. On my way out of town I stopped by Barewire Surf Shop to get fins, a leash, and grip, and noticed some super discounted Tomo boards in their used board rack. I have wanted to own one of these for quite some time, but never wanted to pay full ticket for them. I found a 5’4” for $200 and brought it back to NY with me. Nothing more exciting for an advanced surfer than having new boards to ride for an impending swell. You’ll see in the videos above I rode my trusty 5’4” fish all of Paulette and these two new boards during Teddy.

Freshies! 5’10” Mencel on the left and 5’4” Tomo on the right.

Teddy’s first pulse came on a Sunday afternoon. Conditions were a little ragged with the NE winds. I heard a lot of people were in town, again expecting greatness from the first pulse of swell, and were disappointed. I had the luxury to wait it out and around 1p of September 20th I surfed the rising swell with Emory Lee. Emory has recently moved Rockaway (although she had lived there previously), so we’ve been able to work together on the fly, texting when the conditions line up. She had a few amazing rides that session despite the funky winds and droves of people from NJ frothing around the lineup (totally understandable for them to surf NY when winds are NE — there were simply a lot of them).

The swell got increasingly bigger throughout the evening, and a pretty memorable session went down before dark. We didn’t film much that session. MG is still healing so I haven’t been pushing her to be at the beach at all hours. There were huge sets breaking far out on the middle peak but I stayed inside to get these left drainers on the shallower inside bar. It was hard to stay in there though because I’d have to take multiple set waves on the head and they’d lure me further outside than I had intended to sit and thus would catch me out of position for the waves I had identified from the beach. The rights were more prominent with the changing sand, but most ended in a slamming closeout in very shallow water. After I had my fill I let the post work surf demons have at it and went back to the clubhouse to rest up for two more days of pumping swell.

I woke up early and surfed alone on my 5’10” at 60th St. Mitch filmed. That’s the first morning surf you see on the Teddy video. It was pretty big and lumpy with a lot of water moving around. Not the world’s greatest session, but it was nice after the evening froth fest to be surfing alone. I remember some pink foam sprays that came off the back of a few waves and an oily orange water surface from the rising sun in the east. After a few fun ones, we switched locations to a sandbar with smaller waves, but great shape, and I got to ride the Tomo. That’s the last session in the Teddy vid. I surfed the whole day and ended up back in the 60s for the final session. The swell was still pulsing hard around 8ft @ 17 seconds.

The following morning, Tuesday, was the biggest of the swell. I surfed alone again, this time on my 6’6” Mencel 6 channel twin pin at “the second jetty”. There was a lot of water moving — there was a rip like a thunder head coming off of the tip of the jetty. The peak in the middle of the beach was really good, but it is hard to not want to sit at the top of the jetty and get one of those draining screamers across the beach. I think I rode about 4-5 of those. One was particularly memorable because it was solid double overhead and I almost went too high in the tube, but dropped down just in time to make it out. I eventually tired of fighting the rip and went over to the first jetty to see what the center peak was all about. It was big and mushy. The old guys were having a blast, but I was a little bored with it, so I came in to get a better view of the lineup and see if there were more enticing waves that were going unnoticed. Brant was on the beach watching the surf — such a good student and ocean devotee — and MG had just walked over from the clubhouse. I watched a bit longer and noticed that inside bar had a few moments worth seeking, but the 6’6” was not the tool for the job. New game plan was grab 5’10” and hunt inside tubes. I pulled into the first one I got and almost made it out, but was just a touch too deep. My fin hit me in the butt and ripped a hole in my suit. No skin was broken. I walked up the beach and used the rip at the jetty to paddle back out. The sand had shifted even further west, so the main peak we were all surfing was to the right of the tampons, with the lefts pushing dangerously close to the jetty. We do have some footage of this session from the CSC cam, and it appears I barrel dodged a few because the jetty was so close. Still painful to see that I could have and should have stayed in the tube for longer or tried to get in earlier. And that is what footage is good for. Even if I never post it (it’s a bit shameful for me), I have learned from it.

With another long morning surf in the books, I went back to clubhouse to fuel up. Mitch had finally woken up in Brooklyn, and he said he had time to come out and film around noon. By this time the wind was cranking offshore from the N and conditions were as clean as you like. Sets were inconsistent but big. I decided to surf a jetty I never surf — 69th St — because I had been doing surf checks and knew that the sand is particularly good there this year. I have not wanted to contend with the crowd however, so usually chose to stick to my more familiar zone. It was nearing peak high tide and there was a lot of water in the water. The crowd was light at the moment I paddled out. I opted for the 5’10” again this session. In the video it’s the session with the sparkling water (middle session). I had a few fun ones off the bat, and had one particularly great tube that Mitch didn’t catch on video. It was hard to see with the higher tide. He probably would have had to be on a platform or a ladder. Farmata joined me mid session as did a crowd of “bros” who would paddle around us and one another and just had terrible surf etiquette overall. It was a super tough session. There were a few gorgeous waves coming through but the work for the reward started to diminish. The upshot, however, was that Brian Bedder happened upon the beach with his camera for the best portion of the session and got some insane shots of me and Farmata (that’s the shot of her above). After two hours I called it quits and started hunting around for more waves.

69th St session bomb. Pic by Brian Bedder.

I went back to the old haunt for the afternoon and evening surf. Tried both jetties again. Had a particularly spectacular barrel dodge on my first ride — another double overhead screamer — I just couldn’t set the rail from the takeoff and the thing rifled down the line without me inside of it. Second one I made it in and out. Third one the bottom fell out and it launched me from the sky. Paddled over to the familiar peak and got a few shallow, but perfect tubes. It was empty at that moment. Then the crowd came, the wind puffed up from the west creating a devilish cross chop, and the tide dropped out to nothing, making the inside somewhat dangerous. Juan was out pulling into every closeout he could scramble into. There were some spectacular wipeouts. We filmed a little bit, but again, nothing to write home about. I heard that the NJ crew had a dream session down there that evening. I surfed down the there the following day with Zac K. It was small but clean as a whistle, and we found a draining left hander all to ourselves. Great way to end the swell.

Paulette and Teddy were super fun, but they’ve been about it for our hurricane season so far. We had Kyle back in August. He was very short lived, but also very, very good. We’re all really stoked on that run of surf. We’ve had more since then, but not hurricane produced. We’re nearing the end of what has been the weirdest hurricane season I have seen since moving to the east coast in 2009. So many storms, so few of them producing quality surf. The surf from Paulette and Teddy was quality for sure, but there was always something a little weird, a little funky about it, except of course for the first 4 hours of Paulette, which is basically what anyone wants from any surf session all of the time. The coolest thing about both swells for me is the fact that we now have the clubhouse down in Rockaway. It’s so rad to drive back to a pad in your suit and be able to eat, rest, stretch, and look at footage, and then just head back to the beach losing no time at all. Super rad to see the crew starting to use the co-work capabilities in the backyard and on the porch so that they can stretch out their surf days as well. Will have to figure out a plan to keep everyone warm, stoked, and Covid-free through the later fall and winter, and am pretty confident we’ll figure it out.

Mid Summer Coach Vids: Isaias Junk Sesh, Low Crouch, Tall Stance, Tail Pressure, Cutbacks

Taking a break from the in depth book reports and integrated philosophy analyses to post some coach vids with voice overs. The first one is me riding three of the new CSC x Barahona Shapes boards we just got in. The pink and green is 8’6” x 23” x 3” (the new pink stripe/pink cloud ), the purple and white is 8’2” x 22.75” x 3”, and the red is 9’ x 22.75” x 3”. Clearly 3” is my favorite thickness on these kinds of boards. This video features tons of slo mos so that you can break down take offs, stances, and how to use the tail to control a larger surfboard. Always remember that the tail is the control center of the board. If you do not have your foot over the tail of the board you cannot effectively turn it. Notice how when I’m trimming my stance is either all the way tall and alternatively narrow or wide or completely crouched with my butt near my heels. I have been noticing that people are getting confused between the low crouch frontside vs backside. They’re different! Take notice in the vids and in pictures below. You want to practice these postures at home.

Low rail grab crouch backside. Note knee is tucked under back arm and butt is nearly on the heels. Front hand is up off of the board pointing down the line.

Frontside low turn. Notice, unlike backside, no hands on rails. Knees are a little more parallel, butt faces down towards board, back foot is planted on board, hands are to the sides of my body, not blocking my off in front of my body.

All of the kinds of stances can be performed on the back, middle, or front of the surfboard, but you just have to be intentional about which part of the board and why. When we do anything towards the back of the board it’s so that we can better control the board, either to turn or to stall. When we’re in the middle it’s for stability and trim and to moderate speed. We got to the front to release more pressure off the fin, which creates more speed down the line but becomes unstable if the wave is not sufficiently steep enough to hold us up. In general we walk forward when the wall is steeper or when we perceive it will at the very least stay steep and open enough for us to walk forward. Then the trick is knowing when to walk back again! Usually well before the wave closes out is a good bet.

Beginning surfers have a tendency to pop up in one place and stay there. When they do walk they tend to walk forward for speed, which is kind of right intuitively, but usually equates in a nose dive. To know where to stand on the board you need to be reading the wave correctly from the takeoff. You should have an idea of what kind of wave it will be — mushy, fast, closeout, peeler — long before you even paddle for it. There is no way to guarantee your guess will be correct every time — waves do change on us — but at the very least you can start to plan out your ride. You will notice there are a lot of waves where I cut right to go left — a fading take off — this is because I’ve judged that the wave is small and peeling and that I’ll get more out of the ride if I start with a turn from behind the peak.

The second vid is the almost full session of what was leftover of the Isaias swell. It’s filmed by Mitch Blummer and edited by me. I’m riding a 5’4” Lost Roundnose Retro Fish with keels. I went for a lot of waves because I was frothing, but only about 15% of my rides pan out well. I mistimed a lot of sections and just had a lot waves that had no shoulder left in them for me. But I did get a few nice turns in on a couple of the waves. I feel that all the yoga I am doing is helping me surf faster and more flexibly than ever. I could use to rotate my upper body even more through my carves. As my shoulders and hips start to open up more, I see this happening. Also, it’s a bit easier when there’s more wall to work with, which was only the case with a few waves in this session. I look forward to better hurricane swells that do not land on the coasts.

Some people are ready to do cut backs and have been asking me where to do them. I think that in both of these videos you can get a sense of where and how to do them. You want to see the area where you’re going to place the cutback from the start of the ride. You look down the line and see a clear clean face with a taper. The idea is to either come around from the whitewater, using its energy to thrust you into that open spot where you then place your turn with your back foot and redirect back to the whitewater, or you ride out far in front of the taper and use your speed and pressure on the tail to veer the board back to the power source. The two things that remain constant: you need to see that there is enough of a shoulder for you to work with ahead of time, and you need to make sure your back foot is over the tail as you go into your turn.

Setting up the turn from behind the white water. I see the open face ahead of me and I’ll use the force of the white water to send me into it.

Pressing through both toes and feet evenly, eyes still on area ahead.

Move weight onto back foot so that I can press through the tail to pivot back to the power source.

Open and rotate upper body either ahead of or inline with legs and feet — if my fore arm was higher and my gaze was higher I probably could have achieved a tighter arc — and press through the back foot. If you see my cheeks are puffed up because I’m exhaling as I do this.

Rotating hips and unweighting back foot to flow through the end of the turn.

As soon as I’m back to the whitewater my eyes go back to the wave ahead. Crouched position keeps the whitewater from taking me by surprise or knocking me off my board.

As with shortboard wave, I see the shoulder in front of me.

Step back foot back to tail when I’m on the shoulder.

Press down and through the tail with my back foot.

Unweight tail by stepping slightly forward when I’m done with the turn.

These screen grab sequences illustrate that some of the principles for cutting back and turning are the same on a shortboard and a long board. All boards will draw different arcs and different waves will allow for different angles and variation of attack. I am a firm believer that one should be able to do such moves on a longer board before one tries on a shorter one. The longer board makes more of its own speed and is more stable, so it will give you a lot of grace and good timing that you can then apply to a shorter board down the road. Pumping on a shorter board is sometimes necessary to generate more speed but it is ideal to be able to simply flow from turn to turn. If you do not know how to carry and manage speed then it will be hard to ever achieve this in your surfing. Best way to learn to carry and manage speed is to ride a board that creates its own. And of course to learn how to enter the wave with as much glide and control and intention as possible.

Book Review: Waves and Beaches: the Dynamics of the Ocean Surface (1964) and Crest of the Wave: Adventures in Oceanography (1988)by Willard Bascom

The life and work of Willard Bascom has an outsized influence on our lives as a surfers. A bulk of the research and adventuring he has done has greatly contributed to our ability to predict swells and read surf forecasts. Bascom was not a surfer, but he understood waves probably better than most surfers do. After all he is the author of the seminal text in oceanography, Waves and Beaches: Dynamics of the Ocean Surface (1964).

Waves and Beaches was always lying around my house as a kid. It was also at my grandfather’s house, and my Uncle John’s house too. I remember reading it first when I was about 12, the year I also got my first 3 channel weather radio and became utterly obsessed with surfing. I would go to sleep to the sound of the robotic female voice calling out the readings on the San Francisco and Monterey Bay buoys and outer waters. The way the voice said “buoy” sounded like “booty”. We now have web pages for these buoys, and I offer forecasting classes on how to read them.

The most important chapters in Waves and Beaches for us surfers are Chp III: Wind Waves, Chp IV: Waves in Shallow Water, Chp VIII: The Surf, and Chp IX: Beaches. The other chapters are also interesting and worth reading, but they have more to do with wave theory and measurement technologies, including those created in laboratories to study ideal waves. Bascom was not the first to discover how to measure and predict ocean waves. This honor goes to Harald Svedrup and Walter Munk, two European expats working at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, CA in the 1940s. During WWII Munk was an admiral in the Austrian Navy and when the Anschluss — Nazi takeover of Austria — came he didn’t want to become a Nazi so he fled to America where he took up his position at Scripps alongside Svedrup. The US Navy hired them to come up with a way to measure and predict waves in hopes of greater success during amphibious landings. Svedrup and Munk developed the equations that explain how wind transfers its energy into the water to create a variety of ocean waves. By monitoring the velocity of winds generated by storms at sea they made it possible to accurately predict wave heights and intervals, measured in feet and seconds. We call any significant wave activity generated by winds swell. Of swell Bascom writes:

As waves move out from under the winds that generated them, their character changes. The original wind waves are said to decay. The crests become lower, more rounded, and more symmetrical. Their form approaches that of a true sine curve. Such waves are now called swell, and in this form they can travel for thousands of miles across deep water with little loss of energy.

In more formal language, these waves are “periodic disturbances of the sea surface under the control of gravity and inertia and of such height and period as to break on a sloping shoreline.”

The usual range of period of swell is from six to sixteen seconds, but occasionally longer periods are clocked. The average period of the swell arriving at the U.S. Pacific coast is slightly longer than measured in the Atlantic. This difference arises partly from the much greater size of the Pacific, in which more long waves can be generated in larger storm areas, and partly from the greater distances the waves must travel across the Atlantic continental shelf before they reach the shore—in which the longer period waves are attenuated (62).

If this sounds boiler plate from one of my newsletters, it is for good reason — I take a lot of my knowledge about waves and swells from this book. For example here we see that 6 seconds is the smallest number required for waves to have enough energy to form into swells that break on our shores. For this reason I am always urging everyone to look at the swell intervals with as much intensity, if not more, as one does the wave height. 3ft @ 4 seconds is just wind chop, and does not constitute surfable waves. 1ft @ 10 seconds, however, is totally surfable, at least here on the Atlantic side of the US. As Bascom notes, swells that form in the Pacific tend to have larger heights and intervals. This is also why I always urge people to learn to read Surfline’s swell graph, which shows every swell in the water. Don’t just pay attention to the one that is tallest! Look for the one with the largest interval. Speaking of charts and graphs, Waves and Beaches is full of them. Take this one below which describes how much wind is required to generate certain sizes of ‘sea’ for example:

This helps us understand the intensity of winds required to kick up real swells. The chapters Waves in Shallow Water, Surf, and Beaches help us understand more about how the waves we surf interact with the bottoms they break over. One of the most important concepts to grasp is refraction:

Refraction simply means bending. As waves move into shoaling water the friction of the bottom causes them to slow down, and those in shallowest water move the slowest. Since different segments of the wave front are traveling in different depths of water, the crests bend and wave direction constantly changes. Thus the wave fronts tend to become roughly parallel to the underwater contours (70-1).

Refraction is literally the process that allows us to surf ocean waves. As the waves bend according to the contours of the ocean bottom, the parts that are over the shallowest bits of water break first, causing the rest of the wave — the bit over the deeper water — to stay open. We say the ‘peak’ is that area where the wave breaks first and the ‘shoulder’ or ‘face’ is the part that stays open. He elaborates this in the chapter on Surf where he gives us the key equation of breaking waves:

…At a depth of water roughly equal to 1:3 times the wave height, the wave becomes unstable. This happens when not enough water is available in the shallow water ahead to fill the crest and complete a symmetrical wave form. The top of onrushing crest becomes unsupported and collapses, falling in uncompleted orbits. The wave has broken; the result is surf (159-60).

Bascom uses the scientific vocabulary of ‘plunging’ and ‘spilling’ to describe what we surfers call ‘tubing’ and ‘mushy’ waves alternatively. We can all agree with Bascom that, “Plunging breakers are the most impressive (162).” But most impressive also means more violent or heavy, which translates: difficult to surf or for expert surfers only. Spilling or mushy waves, on the other hand are much easier to ride. And at the time Bascom penned this work, “spilling waves are much favored by surfers (163).” As surfing and surfboard design have progressed it no longer remains the case that spilling waves are preferred by all surfers, but it does remain the case that spilling waves are best for beginners and for the art of longboard surfing. Certain bottom contours and tides — long, sloped bottoms and slightly higher tides — favor the production of spilling waves over plunging ones — think Rockaway at a medium to higher tide on a 3ft @ 8 second swell, or Cowells Beach or 36th Ave in Santa Cruz on a low tide, or surfing’s homeland, Waikiki, of which I do not know the best measurements, but which stirs up iconic images of long, spilling breakers, beach boys, and tourists gliding to shore for hundreds of yards.

In terms of measuring waves and swells using modern technology, the history is quite recent and Bascom’s life and work is at the center of it. Crest of the Wave: Adventures in Oceanography (1988) is Bascom’s memoir. As the quote on the front says, it is a stunning tale — almost hard to believe that he was involved in all that he was and that his life took him to the places that it did. I read this book on two registers: a.) historically; b.) critically. These registers are not necessarily separate. When I read such a work I can look first neutrally at the historical developments and technologies and events and understand how they’re connected, and at the same time I can apply a critical lens in light of newer developments in social scientific research and theory.

Willard “Bill” Bascom was born in NY 1916 and grew up in Bronxville. His father abandoned his brother, Bob, and he with his mother. His mother, whom he calls “remarkable”, was a journalist and a teacher. Bascom was 13 years old when the Great Depression hit. By then he had already developed an adventurous and entrepreneurial spirit. He counts the discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1922, exploring the marshes near the Hudson while playing hooky from school, and frequent visits to the American Museum of Natural History as early influences on his thirst for a life of adventure. When the Delaware Aqueduct project started in 1937 — this supplies the water to NY city — there was a shaft near Bascom’s home and he asked the foreman for a job helping dig out the tunnel. This was his first experience using engineering equipment and explosives, and being in deep touch with underground layers of the earth. In 1938, after his brief stint tunneling in NY, Bascom decided to get a more formal engineering education at the Colorado School of Mines. Bascom was expelled due to an altercation with the president of the school months before graduating, but later, after all of his achievements, was awarded its Distinguished Achievement Award.

Bascom somehow escaped fighting in WWII — he doesn’t mention how in the book — and when the war was over in 1945 he had just ‘finished’ mining school. Having taking a trip to CA, he found himself dining at Spengler’s Seafood restaurant in Berkeley with some engineering friends. That night he met a man named John Isaacs who was a civil engineer working at UC Berkeley. They struck up a conversation and that night Isaacs offered Bascom a job with Cal surveying the waves and beaches off the Oregon coast. Those were the days. An engineer had just quit Isaacs’ team, and Bascom seemed like a good guy for the job. Some people find careers like this today, but very few do so without loads of college debt or some arduous application and interviewing process. As it continues to be the case, many of the choice jobs went to able-bodied white dudes who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. None of the main characters in Bascom’s book fit a different profile. The book contains anecdotes about his wife and the wives of the other scientists, and gives account of natives of the various lands he visits, but they are peripheral to his adventures.

Bascom’s first assignment off the Oregon Coast is nothing short of insane. He and his colleagues had a small fleet of amphibious trucks, called dukws, that UC Berkeley acquired from the military. They would drive on the highways up the coast and out to the beaches. Then they would motor these truck boats into as big of surf as they possibly could — 10-40 foot waves — and ‘survey’ the waves. Surveying included taking pictures of the waves from above, from shore, and from the water, and also driving through the surf and completing ‘soundings’ where they’d try to stick a weighted measuring line in the water to see how deep the sand bar was at different points. For this they would have to time or take sets on the head. Basically Bascom and his buddies were big wave surfing truck boats off the Oregon coast in the 1940s and attempting to measure the heights of the waves, depth of the bottom, and angles of the faces of the waves while doing so.

When that wave overtook us, the dukw would start to surfboard. I would heave the sounding lead ahead and to one side into the trough; as we passed it, and the line became vertical, I could read the water depth in the trough. Then the dukw’s stern would begin to rise as the crest overtook us, and bow tilted downward. As its slope increased, our seagoing truck would begin to slide down the front of the breaker that was peaking behind us, and the driver would fight desperately with the throttle and rudder to maintain its position at right angles to the wave front. While running before the wave, we were traveling at twice normal speed, often with the bow plowing the slick green water of the trough ahead, sometimes up to the windshield (9).

After this first mission Bascom is assigned an even crazier one (it will turn out that his missions simply get successively more nuts). Isaacs and his team had been working on a project with the US Navy to measure the seismic and aquatic waves generated by nuclear bombs they continued to test in the South Pacific after WWII had ended. Bascom was asked if he wanted in on the mission. Seeing it simply as another adventure, he accepted. This sets the tone for Bascom’s attitude towards the military more generally — he thinks some of their motives and methods are fishy, but he is not going to lose an opportunity to further ocean science. In order to measure the waves from the explosions Bascom and colleagues set up a buoy with a cable running to shore, linked to a recorder box inside of a fallout shelter.

The first of such tests was on the Bikini Atoll. Bascom notes that the US Navy had all the inhabitants relocated before they set off the bombs, but that this had some negative repercussions for the islanders. For one, the Bikini Atoll was rich in fruit and bird and fish life before the tests. The island that the natives were relocated to was not as hospitable to human inhabitants. Years after the testing, deeming it “safe” to move back, some of the islanders were re-relocated, only to fall sick of radiation poisoning — so much for that. Bascom does not scold the US military for this or outright take them to task for it. It is clear, however, that he was critical of the practice, however much it furthered his own career. He did not have to put it in the book, but he did. Bascom himself suffered from cancer. When he stopped doing the wave tests in the South Pacific, his cancer finally went into remission.

What is nuts to me is that much of the technology used to measure waves offshore was developed during these nuclear tests. Our ability to simply check the buoy pages and predict swells cannot be historically unlinked from such events. The specific technology has to do with the cables and the recording devices. In the Oregon wave surveys they were using observation, photography, and sounding techniques to measure the waves, and now they were experimenting with buoys and cables.

The cable experimentations continued after the nuclear testing. Some still relied on man made underwater explosions using TNT — here Bascom’s mining and oceanography work really coalesced — but others were just attempts to moor a buoy out at sea and to have it successfully read the swells that came through the water. One such attempt occurred in Monterey Bay where Bascom set up shop on Cannery Row for a couple of years in the early 50s. He hobnobbed with likes of Doc Ricketts and John Steinbeck. Steinbeck and he actually became quite good friends. Bascom and Isaacs were trying to set up a buoy in the Monterey Bay and run a cable through the dunes to a recording station onshore. This mission was thwarted by the large, unpredictable surf that rolls in there. I know this surf quite well — it’s what I grew up surfing in. There is a funny anecdote in this part of his tale about the Army sending out some of their aquatic men to help Bascom with the job, but Bascom warns them that the water is really cold and that the surf is too dangerous to try it. They ignore him and send their guys out anyhow — they all nearly drowned, but made it back safely, and didn’t help with the cable one bit. Wetsuits had not yet been invented.

It just so turns out that Bascom was there when wetsuits were invented at a Navy pool in southern California. He was also there on the cutting edge of the first SCUBA equipment and the first underwater photographic equipment. For many of his missions he did the diving, photography, engineering, and lab reporting. It makes me wonder whether or not my grandfather, Dr. James A. Mattison Jr., ever knew Bascom. My grandfather, a surgeon by training, was also an early underwater photography and SCUBA pioneer, who lived in the Monterey Bay at the same time as Bascom. Maybe it would explain why Bascom’s books were in all of our houses? My grandfather may not have been quite as influential as Bascom, but he did quite a lot. He spearheaded the conservation of the sea otter in the Monterey Bay and made a film with Jacques and Philippe Cousteau, established the first hyperbaric chamber in the Monterey Fire Department for divers who came down with the bends, experimented in early aerial photography of the Monterey Bay, constantly pioneered advances in underwater medicine, and wrote a book on Captain Cook’s third and last voyage. That is to say that both men had a vast and intense interest in the ocean and in what I now feel is an antiquated notion of adventure — antiquated because based upon and steeped in the ideology of western colonialism where adventure and exploitation can be seen holding hands. Yet there is a conservationist bent as well — that ‘good’ part of conservatism that seems gone in all but name.

As to whether my grandfather and Bascom ever knew one another, I’ll have to ask around. Bascom’s work hits home in another regard: he developed the engineering that makes deep sea drilling possible. This is close to home for me because at the time of my birth my dad was a deep sea diver that worked off of oil rigs around the world. It was Bascom who came up with the engineering for both the drilling and the platforms. Originally his plan was not to aid the oil industry. Instead he and a few other scientists were working on a project that could take the spotlight off of the Russians having won the space race by launching Sputnik. Being ocean-minded, they wanted to take the public eye off of space, and bring it back down, deep down, to earth. Their project was to see whether they could get a core sample of the layer of earth beyond the Mohorivic zone. They dubbed this project the “Mohole”. After much deliberation and proposing they won their grant and Bascom got to work. The two largest engineering issues were: a.) how to get a platform steady enough over deep enough water to drill the hole — the platform would have to stay over the hole; b.) how to make a drill big enough and strong enough to bore miles into the earth’s crust. Bascom succeeded at both. For the platform he designed a multiple propeller system called a Dynamic Positioning System that was controlled by a joy stick. For the drill they used diamonds donated by the De Beers Anglo American company. I write the full name of the company because yes, just the fact that the company was called that is itself really fucking nuts.

After he has done all of this work for UC Berkeley, Scripps Institute, the US Navy, and the US Academy of Sciences, Bascom goes on to start an oceanographic engineering consulting firm. This firm would bring him to even wilder jobs like mining for offshore diamonds in South Africa, searching for buried treasure ships off of the Bahamas, and designing a tension bridge that could ostensibly span the Straights of Gilbraltar. Just how all of this links up in the course of one life is truly astounding. And if some of this sounds wildly problematic, it should, because it is. I see Bascom, again like my grandfather, as a man from an age of old conservatism, where there is a reverence for science and for humankind, but coupled with a palpable sense of domination and exploitation of natural resources. The basic idea is that the earth is here for us to know and to ‘mine’ so that we can better flourish as a species. But there is very little reflection on what actually constitutes this flourishing. At least in my grandfather’s case he saw that the sea otter was in danger and needed saving. I have troves of his research that detail the different ways that sea otters were dying in the Monterey Bay. Bascom, on the other hand, is more suspicious about those who think that the animals can’t take care of themselves, arguing at one point that we need not fear of polluting the oceans because the ocean is big enough to cycle through and filter out all of the waste, including nuclear, that we throw into it. He does say, however, that we should be worried about putting waste into less circulating, smaller bodies of water.

Bascom ends the book with these thoughts on the future:

No one can foresee the future very well; usually prognostications fall far short of what actually comes to pass, but I will suggest a few technologies that might be used to make man’s harvest of the ocean more efficient. Perhaps a new material can be devised (now jokingly known as nonobtainium) that will be light, workable, corrosion-proof, and with several times the strength of present materials. Possibly fish or other marine animals can be genetically changed to improve their size and edibility as much as turkeys have been improved. Maybe duterium can be extracted from the sea and be used as a fuel or that the heat of undersea volcanoes can become a practical source of energy. Perhaps some atoll lagoons will be made into huge fish farms and special structures something like oil platforms will be built in coastal waters as fish havens. Possibly sea barriers will be constructed on a grand scale, capable of holding back rising sea level at coast cities, or creating new and larger harbors, or making perimeters around airports in shallow waters. Perhaps it will be possible to obtain panoramic pictures of large undersea features so we can directly see what trenches, faults, and canyons look like. I fully expect that deep water oil operators and bridge foundation builders will make use of tension leg platforms and that archaeologists will find complete ancient wrecks in deep reducing environments using the techniques I have suggested. That is the system: dream about what could be useful; then work to convert dreams to reality (317-8).

Well to me a lot of Bascom’s dreams sound more like nightmares. I don’t want to eat genetically modified fish. I suppose the only platform on an atoll I’m comfortable with are the ones currently there as judging platforms for the surf contests, but now even those I am starting to question. Large perimeters around cities and airports sounds like a lot of ruined surf breaks to me. This really shows that despite the fact that Bascom understood waves better than most, he truly was not a surfer. He was more concerned with stopping waves from harming human industry than he was with riding them. We have people and thinking like his to thank for the ruination of surf spots all over the world. But we can’t be too quick to condemn. We also have people like him to thank for the jetties that keep sand on our beaches, and for the satellite imagery that actually can show us what the trenches, faults, and canyons look like from above. In fact now the buoys that we read are a combination of depth sounding instruments and satellite technology. We now do know more about the currents and flows of the ocean and the migrations of the animals and how human experimentation and meddling in the ocean environment does have negative repercussions for human and animal alike. And yeah, the oil industry did take Bascom’s ideas for deep drilling and run with them — by the way, they dismissed him at first when he consulted for them and then took the idea to the bank, but of course to devastating effects. As my dad says, “If it’s too deep for a human to fix the pipes, it’s too deep to safely drill.” I think Bascom’s overall sentiment, however, is correct, but that his premises are wrong. We must dream of a better future and create the technologies to realize it — that’s completely sound. But we must also base our notions of “better” on what constitutes a more flourishing environment not just for humans — or on the idea that flourishing for humans needs to start from the perspective that the earth is not ours to dominate but to steward.

In closing, I think both books should be on the shelf of any ocean enthusiast. It’s crucial that we know the history of oceanography and also its basic principles. Bascom’s work on wave and beach dynamics alone will enlighten your everyday experience surfing. And despite my critical stance on his philosophy of adventure, I think his adventures are also worth reading about. In a way I didn’t even scratch the surface.

New Coach Flick June 28-July 3

Another instructional coach vid for ya. A good demonstration of a ride everything philosophy. Starts off with a 5’7” Channel Islands “Fishbeard” (twin fin shortboard) in knee high mush. Then on that same day I’m riding a 9’ x 23” x 3” CSC x Barahona longboard, which was much more effective. That part of the video is super instructive for the fading take off maneuver and the high chest required for a smooth stand up in either direction. There are a few waves on the 9’ x 22.5” x 3” CSC x Barahona — and one is particularly important for a goofyfoot backside approach going right. A lot of NY surfers struggle going right, and it’s a shame! We have so many good “against the grain” right handers on offer here. Learn to take advantage of them! Next I’m riding a 4’10” Kookbox Surfboards fish shaped by Jeff McCallum out of San Diego. I love the bejeesus out of this little fast pocket rocket that is so small it works equally well as a boogie board. Only issue is that I am able to swivel it so hard my right hip hurts for days after riding it. No wonder I kept it in storage for a year! This is followed by a few vignettes of beach scenes and ends with a little POV riding my 7’ Mick Fanning Super Softie. The Fanning Soft Top is the best soft top on the market. I took it out later that day at peak crowd with no camera for one of the most fun surfs I’ve had in this early summer season. I always recommend progress goes from longer —> midlength —> shorter boards. As fun as riding small boards is for an expert, it is certainly not the telos of good surfing. The aim should always be grace and fun, which go hand in hand. It’s hard to be graceful or have fun if you’re not catching waves, making drops, and gliding down the line. Make sure you can do that on a larger board before you even think about downsizing. I have never seen a graceful, complete surfer who cannot surf a longboard or midlength well.

Speed check on the 4’10” while Gaston looks on.

Instructional Videos and MG Appreciation Fund

Not going to be a long post. Just wanted to share these two videos with the community. The first is a video of me surfing, filmed by MG Bruno, with voice overs by me. It’s some pretty simple, straightforward fundamental surfing with slo mos so that people can dissect important points about technique. The second is a video I shot, edited, and narrated of MG. She is my new assistant/mentee and as you can see I am helping her become a more powerful and radical surfer. She is already smooth and graceful. Her pop ups, pig dog, and dead cockroach maneuvers are admirable and imitable. I have received some texts from CSC folks about how stoked they are to see her surf. If you would like to support MG’s presence in the lineup I suggest sending a Venmo of your desired amount to @mmmmgggg. Call it the MG Appreciation Fund. She is not a full coach yet and there is a long way to go for that to become the case, but I thought you would like a way to show your support for her presence in our lineups when they are helpful to your own surfing. Not compulsory. Just a gesture I wanted to make towards MG and all who are inspired by her surfing.

ENTIRELY INFORMATIVE AND SILLY CLUB SURF VIDEO

Get out the popcorn and sit down for 20 minutes of pure CSC club surfing educational fun and humor. I have been experimenting with this voice over format, and both me and the mentees have been loving it. Most of the personal videos are privately linked on the Vimeo channel, but some days just flow in such a way that it makes sense to make one big edit rather than 4-6 personal ones. This way I can intersperse my own surfing and technique tips with those who are in training. MG has been joining us and she has been a great help both with the filming and with her graceful style in the water. She is helping out with filming in trade with help on advanced technique, especially on a shortboard in more powerful surf. As you can see, she’s pretty darn good on a longer board in small surf. We’re stoked to have her around.

MG style for miles down the line. Arms quiet and at the side. Stance narrow and in the center of the board for trim.

This video features students Nina Chavez, Bonnie Stamper, and Liz Golato, all of whom have been working with me for about a year. Nina and I have been working on correcting a bad pop up she had learned that we’ve dubbed “the broken lawn chair” because it involves an incorrect folding forward of her back leg. As with many tough issues in peoples’ surfing, Nina’s is exacerbated whenever she feels anxiety due to either fear or anticipation. My plan to resolve the issue has been to develop her take off and glide technique so that she feels more stable going down the line and thus is more confident about using her back foot to create space under her hips where she can then place her front foot and stand up in one stage. This is only one pop up technique, but I’m finding it’s the one that is most needed to get down for intentional surfing.

Nina likes to smile big when she pops up in one stage.

Some people with fast pop ups, like Liz in this vid, use the fast pop up as an excuse not to look at the wave or paddle hard enough into it. Liz and I have been squashing her paddling and take off confidence issues this spring, and as you can see and hear in the vid, she has realized that a strong paddle combined with looking down the line can get her into almost any wave. Liz is riding the CSC x Barahona shapes 8’6” x 23” x 3” pink stripe rendition of the “pink cloud” board, which is the best all around beginner board in the quiver, especially for the lighter surfer.

Liz cruising — could look at the wave a little more there Liz!

Bonnie Stamper is a “clean slater”. She took her very first surfing lesson with me on August 3, 2019. She and Liz had high hopes for the Costa Rica surf retreat this March, but then Covid hit so they applied their deposits to our NY surfing staycation. In the past month Bonnie has had the ultimate breakthrough in surfing: she knows what the wave looks like when she see the face as she enters the wave. She also has her very own 8’6” x 23” x 3” with her own custom color choice. Now she is moving on to learning pig dog — as you see in the first 90 seconds of the vid — and to turning the board from the tail to avoid the closeout.

Bonnie looks down the line!

Really stoked on the progress these women have made in their surfing in the past month. I also enjoy doing the voice overs and keeping the humor clean. It’s also important to include the other surfers in the lineup, just to get a feel for what one deals with on an average day in the Rockaways. I can see there may be an interpretation where I’m “making fun” of the other surfers in the water — and it wouldn’t be totally wrong — but it is in good spirit. There are lots of people out there attempting to ride 1ft mush balls on shortboards. Add to this the herd mentality of going for the same wave as everyone else and you have a perfect comedy of errors. At CSC we try to wait our turn and share waves as much as possible — there are plenty to go around. And furthermore, this video is public and contains some vital surf educational information available to all and sundry! I would say that the first two minutes where I demonstrate the pig dog take off technique are the most informative. The stuff I’m doing on the board on the beach is part the ‘surf salutation’ exercise that I teach in my virtual classes. This is a crucial technique that everyone who hopes to be a competent surfer must have in their arsenal!