Philosophy of Surf Fuel Pt 1

As I sit down to write this I am quickly realizing that I could author a whole book on food, my relationship to it, what it means for us as human beings, what it means to us specifically as surfers, recipes, pairings, ideas for stocking the pantry, for what to pack on surf trips, how to eat on surf trips, and of course epic pics of ingredients, meals, and waves. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate . . . still couldn’t hurt to put another iron in the fire. In this post I will touch on all the subjects above, but will undoubtedly not be able to do justice to them all. Hence calling it Pt 1. There will doubtless be more posts on this topic. I imagine we’ll also add a cooking component to the forthcoming YouTube channel.

We are what we eat. We are also what we drink and breathe and see and touch and who we know and what we believe. We are a lot of things. We are porous and changing and subject to entropy. Like the rest of nature we are energy converting beings. Our cells are constantly rearranging and dying and growing. It’s truly an incredible process. Food is not only physical fuel for us human beings, as nothing is merely physical for us. For we are the creatures that have this very particular and special relationship to language. Our lives are always wrapped up in meaning making. Food is one of the most important organizational phenomena around which meaning is made in human life. Every meal tells a story. Think about it. We have media outlets dedicated to food, scientific specializations for studying it, religious rituals concerning it, and complex economic industries tied to it.

My brief history with food runs as follows: breast milk (no formula here), homemade smashed vegetables from our garden, lots of omnivorous homemade meals by mom, divorce, two households, stopped liking vegetables unless mom cooked them, fishing for salmon before school with dad from 6-13 years old, lots of meat and potatoes and cereal, didn’t really drink water, read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair in 1996, converted to vegetarianism, failed, started working in the restaurant industry in 1995, moved to Costa Rica in 1998, started drinking water, became vegan and the end of that year and stayed vegan until 2003, worked in casual fine dining off and on as a waiter from 1995-2012 (new American, Italian, French, and Japanese restaurants), had a stint helping my mom with her and her friend Katie’s organic catering company 1998-2000, continued to develop my skills as a home cook from vegan days onto today’s present omnivorous phase, pandemic hits 2020, I cook more at home than ever before. Obviously a million stories to tell in there, but them’s the cliffs notes.

I was a vegan in some of the most fundamental parts of my young life, from ages 18-23. It was in that period that I learned to love drinking water, eating vegetables and legumes, and preparing meals at home. I also did a lot of vegan baking — scones and calzones and cookies and pies — because although there were plenty of ready made offerings in Bay Area grocery stores and cafes by then, they weren’t that good. It was in this phase that my current sense of “comfort food” was established. There is nothing like hummus or tahini noodles with tofu — really anything with tofu, which I consider a junk food — or a big plate of fried potatoes or sweet potatoes, or a No Cookie cookie, or sesame sticks (my particular weakness). Oh yeah and fake meat Asian cuisine. Vegetarian Palate “chicken nuggets” anyone? Can’t leave out samosas (not fried in ghee) or greasy bengan bharta. You get the picture.

Our little garden in Rockaway. Leafy greens are life!

I’m not vegan any longer, although as I think I make clear, I am firmly converted to having a primary source of my calories derive from the plant kingdom. When it comes to animal by-products I’m one of those annoying bourgeois locally sourced farmer’s market only types, with the occasional exception of some sharp cheddar cheese for melting or half and half for coffee, if I can’t get to the market in a given week. The pandemic has radically changed my approach to meat, and I am pretty firm on just getting stuff from local farmers via the farmer’s market and stuffing it in the freezer for our 3-5x monthly protein spike. I like the long lasting energy and complex flavors that meat provides, but do not need it for every meal, nor do I need to eat it every day. I think there are farmers raising animals out there in a sustainable and careful manner, and those are the kind of people and practices I like to support. Yes, the animal dies, but places like Lewis Waite farms convert the whole thing into various products. We’ve purchased soup bones, leaf lard, and livers from them this year. Not only does it honor the sacrifice the animal made, but it also makes for more adventurous, flavorful, and exciting cooking.

I also understand that there are many people who rely on factory farms not only for jobs, but also for affordable protein, and who do not have access to the resources or the education that I do to see how it is imperative that we as a species move away from factory farming. Unfortunately, I do not think all the fake plant-based meat is the answer, although for now it seems to be the way the food industry is headed. Substituting what Sophia and I call “angry meat”, i.e. factory farmed meat, for fake meat to be eaten at every meal, is simply based upon the wrong-headed assumption that meat should be at the center of one’s meals and one’s diet. Don’t get me wrong, as I write above, I love fake meat, but I consider it a treat or an indulgence, not a dietary staple. I also think that the “old fake meat” — tofu, tempeh, soy protein bits, gimme lean, soyrizo, different wheat gluten things — was perfectly fine as it was. There is absolutely no need for fake meat to be any more “realistic”.

Another major result of my vegan phase, or my coming to an awareness of the importance of food in our lives, was an attention to how much packaging goes into groceries and just how much waste our food habits produce. Home cooking does not eliminate waste altogether, but it can radically cut down on the amount of trash produced per week. During the pandemic we have been baking so much more. Just ordinary stuff you don’t think twice about buying at a store like bread and rolls and crackers. If you make crackers for example — and they’re super easy! — you cut down on a plastic bag inside of a box and the box itself. I think you also save a ton of money, since the primary ingredients in crackers are flour, oil, salt, and water. They’re great with homemade hummus or any dip you like. I’m sure you could substitute all kinds of different flours, if of course you have a real gluten allergy. Don’t get me started with the gluten-free people. I’m not having it. You have body conscious issues/want to be thin for bad patriarchal society reasons, just say that’s what it is. Real gluten allergy, however, is a real thing, and very rare. Wheat and thereby the glutinous flour it creates is a miracle. And yes, like everything else, there are better ways to grow it, harvest it, and process it. But if you’re on a budget, simply want to save on packaging, and increase the yumminess of available snack food, there’s nothing better you can do than staying stocked on a few types of flour. But why stop there? May as well also stay stocked on yeast and a keep a starter in your fridge for breads and rolls too. Humans of all social classes have turned to bread as the “staff of life” since time immemorial. Like meat, you don’t need it every day, but our bodies do process it well, especially if you’re a surfer who needs a quick replenishment of calories after a three hour session.

Simple crackers: 1 c. flour, 1/4 c. olive oil, salt, some water. Make a smooth dough. If too wet add more flour. If too dry add more water. Divide into 4 balls. Roll super thin. Pierce with fork. Cut into squares. Put in oven at 500 for like 4-8 min. Voila!

King Arther Four Yeast Rolls. So easy.

When you buy vegetables at a farmer’s market you don’t need plastic bags. Even less do you need plastic bags if you can manage to find some space for a home garden. I think it’s really cool that vegetables come in these perfect packages, and that there’s so much of them that you can use. Take squashes for example. They last a long time out of the fridge — perfect for these winter months — and you can eat the flesh and the seeds inside. I will no longer eat any squash without also roasting the seeds. Squash seeds are a fantastic surf snack or road trip snack. They also go awesome on salads and to top savory vegetable pies.

Behold the perfect packaging!

Always roast the seeds!

Savory pumpkin pie.

This brings me to the basic philosophy of local and seasonal eating. Sticking to buying from local farms and farmers markets keeps you eating with the seasons. Sure, you don’t get to have as much lettuce and green vegetables as you would like in the winters, so instead you eat cabbage, squash, beets, and potatoes, and stuff that is heartier because it can weather the cooler climate. Of course I’m speaking from an east coast perspective. If you’re in Costa Rica, for example, the weather is not too changeable, and your diet there looks different. On our retreats at Rancho Diandrew we’re eating lots of fresh fruit — pineapple, mangoes, papayas, bananas — and locally caught fish. Funny enough the heartier cruciferous vegetables — winter veg here — stand up to the warm climates better than the more tender sorts of veg. So it’s a lot of cabbage and squash and beets down there too. California has a larger variety of produce available year round, which is why I have always argued that SF fine dining is superior to NY. That and the service is better because people are in the industry for the food, not to become actors. When I moved to NY the very idea that a place would require a head shot for a service job was preposterous to me. It still is. Either you know about food and wine pairing and you can articulate that to guests and multi task like a mad person or you can’t. Your face can make the delivery a little sweeter, but is quite peripheral to the actual skills required. That whole point is currently moot during the pandemic. Restaurants and their workers are fighting for their existences like never before. The restaurant industry has always been been a precarious kind of business, and now we know how susceptible to the adverse effects of a pandemic it is. Supporting restaurants and take out is a hard one for me because although they produce jobs, they also produce a lot of waste, and home cooked food just tastes better. It’s not a black and white thing of course. A lot of the techniques and the pairing knowledge I’ve gained for my home cooking comes from my 15 something years in the restaurant industry. It’s also nice to go out from time to time, and we’re all missing that right now. In general, however, restaurant food, including take out, is best limited to 1-2x a month.

I won’t ever buy the argument, “I don’t have enough time to cook at home.” First of all, we do not need too much food to keep us alive. Second, if you have a primarily plant based diet, vegetables cook quickly, and are satisfying and delicious. Third you can make one big meal or dish, like the pie above, and that effort provides for 2-3 more meals down the road, saving time, packaging, and thought. There’s nothing like coming home from a satisfying surf and doing nothing other to refuel than heat up a gorgeous plate of leftovers. Or maybe you had a slice of the veggie pie in the car for a snack after surfing so that you’re not ripping apart the cupboards when you get home. This has been a newer discovery of mine, which has been a huge game changer in my mood and my food habits: eat a snack directly after surfing. I’m on the fence about whether to eat before surfing. Some people hate it. For me it depends on surf conditions, weather, time of day of session, and how long I plan to surf. If it’s going to be firing from first light through the day, I’ll make sure to put something in the gullet to fuel me through morning. Oatmeal or a pbj or some roasted sweet potato. Regardless of whether I’ve eaten before surfing or not, I make sure to get something in directly after. This is why the pre-made crackers and rolls and veggie leftovers from dinners have been crucial, especially during the pandemic. You don’t want to go home so hungry that your brain can’t process what you want to eat or cook. Get a little fuel in there so that your brain can work well enough to make its next plan. As much as I try to keep my packaged goods minimal, things like Clif Bars, sardines in tins, and nuts are absolutely awesome for this purpose.

If you’re going to surfing all day and do off-the-lips into the sunset, you gotta have some good surf snacks.

Having a well-balanced diet centered around home-cooked, seasonal, locally-sourced, vegetable-heavy meals will keep you surfing better and longer. It will also keep you on the lighter side of your weight spectrum (all humans fluctuate in weight), which is always optimal for surfing. I have learned to become more accepting of the fact that there are many ways for healthy bodies to look, but overall it remains an objective fact that all people surf better when they are on the lighter side of their optimal weight spectrum. This becomes even more the case when you have to wiggle in and out of a 5mm wetsuit! But this doesn’t mean you have to be austere and not have treats and things that bring up sweet memories and create those rad dopamine sensations. This fall I got really into making apple cider doughnuts. Another thing that is surprisingly easier than you would think! I’m not making doughnuts every month, but they are certainly a great treat with a hot cup of coffee before or after surfing in the cold!

I believe that everyone can and should learn to cook! Follow recipes. For real. Just follow them. Get one or two cook books and make a bunch of stuff in there. Learn the cooking times of all the different foods that you eat. Once you know those, coming up with meals on the fly is a breeze. This is only the start to my posts about surf fuel. In the future I will share recipes and tips, and dig further into some of the details that inform my strong opinions about food and diet.

Phenomenology of Surfing Cont'd: Hurricane Epsilon Oct 22-25 2020

Storm names have moved into the Greek alphabet for the first time in my life since moving to the east coast (moved here in 2009). Didn’t even know that this was the convention for naming storms after first names have been exhausted! Moving into the Greek alphabet is a funny surf/academia crossover for me since I studied and read ancient Greek in both undergraduate and graduate school. When I teach ancient philosophy courses I always make my students learn the Greek alphabet first so that they can identify important Greek philosophical terms in our readings, which I like to write on the chalkboard in both their original and transliterated forms. Ya know words like philosophy (φιλοσοφία), episteme (ἐπιστήμη), ethics (ἠθίκα), aesthetics (αἴσθεσις), phronesis (φρονήσις), and democracy (δημοκρατία). I personally hold the opinion that Greek is the most important language for grasping the significance of words in scientific thought. I read Latin too, and it is important, but a greater majority of our technical scientific vocabulary derives from Greek. And apparently an important part of our technical east coast swell vocabulary does too! The Greek alphabet is as follows:

Alpha (Α, α) — short ‘a’ as in ‘ah’ or ‘hat’

Bēta (Β, β) — ‘b’ as we use it

Gamma (Γ,γ) — ‘g’ as we use it

Delta (Δ, δ) — ‘d’ as we use it

Epsilon (Ε, ε) — short ‘e’ as in ‘pet’ or ‘center’

Zēta (Ζ, ζ) — ‘z’ as we use it

Ēta (Η, η) — long ‘ē’ which sounds like a long ‘ā’ as in ‘ate’ or ‘hate’

Thēta (Θ, θ) — ‘th’ just as we use it

Iōta (Ι, ι) — ‘i’ as used in Romance languages, making the ‘eee’ sound as in ‘tortilla’

Kappa (Κ, κ) — ‘k’ as we use it

Lambda (Λ, λ) — ‘l’ as we use it

Mu (Μ, μ) — ‘m’ as we use it

Nu (Ν, ν) — ‘n’ as we use it

Ksi or Xi (Ξ, ξ) — ‘x’ as in ‘box’

Omikron (Ο, ο) — short ‘o’ as in ‘hot’

Pi (Π, π) — ‘p’ as we use it

Rho (Ρ, ρ) — ‘r’ as we use it

Sigma (Σ, σ or ς) — ‘s’ as we use it (the two ways of writing the lower case differentiate when it is used in a word or at the end of the word)

Tau (Τ, τ) — ‘t’ as we use it

Upsilon (Υ, υ) — classically ‘u’ as in ‘put’ but later transliterated as ‘y’ so the word ‘hypēr’ in ancient Greek (meaning ‘over’) may have been pronounced ‘hupēr’ — in modern Greek pronounced the same as iōta — ‘eee’

Phi (Φ, φ) — ‘ph’ as we use it to sound like ‘f’

Chi (Χ, χ) — not ‘x’ but rather ‘ch’ as in ‘Bach’ — kind of a hard ‘k’ sound

Psi (Ψ, ψ) — ‘ps’ which just sounds like ‘s’ as in ‘psychology’ or ‘psychotic’

Ōmēga (Ω, ω) — long ‘o’ as in ‘mote’ or ‘tote’

Alpha, Bēta, and Gamma all formed as storms, but I remember not where they ran off to. Delta was the first surfable Greek alphabetical swell to grace our shores. That one was mostly just local wind and didn’t last too long. I remember the most fun I had surfing Delta was the day it arrived. It was wild and chunky with hard winds from the ENE. And then about a week later Epsilon popped up on the radar.

Epsilon started in the ESE and slowly crept northward before turning its sights on Europe. And when I say slow I mean slloooowwww. I did a number of virtual oceanography courses during the start of Epsilon. It’s always fun to do an oceanography course on swell and wave generation and have there actually be a large, spinning, red blob to watch in the southern Atlantic. When I’d click the forecasted radar, advancing in sets of 12 hours, we would see that the storm was not changing relative position very much. It was moving slightly westward and slightly to the north, just in the tiniest increments. This lead me to believe that the fullest pulse of swell would arrive a bit later, and that the initial pulses would be quite weak, with longer, more infrequent lines.

Thursday, October 22, was the day Epsilon arrived, and it had all that first day swell hype. I had scheduled some sessions early, myself hoping to video since it would have been the first day without fog in the morning in quite a few days, and also because having seen how slow and far away the swell was moving, I wasn’t totally hyped to tire myself out in inconsistent closeouts. At first light people were pouring out of their cars, already suited up, shortboards under arm. The tide was very low, the sets were very few and far between, there were many closeouts, and it was packed to the gills. Still, there were some great waves coming through for the patient surfer. The patient surfer this day was Russell Kummer. Russ had one session left in his package and I’d been rescheduling with him for weeks, waiting for a day that was dry enough to film. He has been putting a ton of work in on his own, and this seemed like the day to get the last one done. Russ had an epic session. He was really patient for the sets and dealt with the crowd superlatively, letting everyone else fight and froth over closeouts, leaving himself out the back in position for the one peeler that would roll through every 5 minutes or so. We were working on him figuring out how to time and execute cutbacks and floaters — seeing the section ahead of time and getting the back foot sufficiently over the fin cluster to pivot the board around and back into the pocket. In general timing the move early and finding the fins are the keys to doing maneuvers in surfing. There are other nuances like hand placement and the amount of pressure to apply to the tail per the move, but these are secondary to understanding the wave in such a way that you see the section before you get there — this gives you enough time to prepare yourself to execute or at least attempt the maneuver. It is also generally better to start with horizontal maneuvers like cutbacks, floaters, and simple end section taps because they are founded upon finding the mid to high, fast line of the wave where you need less bodily technique to gain the requisite speed for the maneuver to be effective. Many newer surfers make the mistake of going too far to the bottom and trying to do a bottom turn-top turn combo without yet understanding whether or not the wave will allow it. You typically see people try this and burn all their speed at the bottom and either the wave rolls off without them or when they make it back up the face the wave kind of dies because it never had enough face to do such a turn in the first place.

Russell Kummer, Epsilon Day 1, on his 7’6” Barahona. Mid wave speed line with tucked in knee. Pic: Dion Mattison

After getting a ton of great clips of Russ, I worked on similar stuff with Nelson Hume. Nels had a bit more trouble with the crowd than Russ, finding himself in that chaotic swirl of people fighting over mediocre inside closeouts. The tide was coming in and there were still a few great waves coming through, but it was slowing down and some of the peaks were shifting to the middle of the beach. When it was obvious that Nels was really out of rhythm I flagged him in so we could watch the lineup together and restrategize his session. When he came in a 10 minute lull set in, and I said, “See, you’re catching as many waves here on the beach as you would be out there.” Then we saw some pulses with nice corners and figured out where they were on the bank. He paddled back out and was in position for a good deal more waves, and on the ones he “blew it” it had more to do with form and timing than it did with lineup management. He definitely had a much better flow with the waves after our beach strategy session. Towards the end of Nels’ session the fog descended again and I had to put the Sony Alpha 6400 away. I used my iPhone 8 to film the rest of his surf, then paddled out in the mist with Leslie Kang, Karen Ingram, and Deb Ghatak.

I had scheduled Leslie, Karen, and Deb at the higher tide because they all struggle with steeper drops, so I was hoping for some fun, fat peelers for them. But nah. Just fat, wobbly closeouts on offer. We moved further in and tried to get the gentler ones. We did find some rights in the middle of the beach and each one of them nailed a few closeout drops, which is important practice when you’re gaining confidence in your surfing. There is an intentional way to take off and ride closeouts and this is first to acknowledge that the wave is a closeout and then decide that you’re going to go just for the sake of sticking the drop. Of course it is much more fun to ride along the green face, but if you’re still struggling with knowing the difference between lefts, rights, and closeouts, and with timing your stand up so that you don’t pearl on steeper waves, then it can be good practice, especially if the majority of waves on offer aren’t peelers. Another strategy is to refuse to go on anything that will not peel. This means fewer waves in the session, but possibly better waves of the few you do get. At the start of one’s practice it’s good to mix both strategies into different sessions. Proficient surfing is always premised on wave knowledge, not on knowing how to stand up. If you can’t read the wave correctly it’s probably not worth standing anyhow. So if you choose to stand it’s vital that you know whether you’re going on a left, right, or a closeout.

First day of Epsilon Oct 22 pm session when “the left” turned on for the first time in years. Pic: Kevin Roberts

After a long, soggy morning, I meandered back to the clubhouse, warmed up, made lunch, and texted about the swell with various people in my orbit. Kevin Roberts and Brant Weil were in touch about a possible evening session. Tide would be low again and I had my eyes on a certain left that has come back to life. This is the wave that is featured in MG’s stunning edit at the top of the post. I had surfed it the evening prior before the swell arrived and it showed promise. I also tried it at the end of the Delta swell. At that point it was this quick slab that would tube then mush off. I figured that if the sand kept building up there, the mush off section might shape up to help keep the face open. Epsilon day 1 proved my prediction correct. When Brant and I paddled out the only people surfing it were the two grommets that wear rashguards outside of their suits. I think they’re brother and sister. Next time I surf with them I’ll ask and I’ll ask their names as well. They have that great spirit of youth about them. Kevin decided to sit out this session, and instead he filmed Brant and I with his iPhone. So some of the footage you see in the edit is from Kev’s phone. Like the last shots of Brant walking up the beach and me diving under a horrendous closeout. It was an incredibly fun session. The sets were becoming more consistent as the swell inched northward. The wave itself was coming to life in a way that I’ve never seen there. The best ones were almost indistinguishable from a ripple when they came in. I would paddle for what looked like a 6 inch wave, stand up quickly, the bottom would drop out, and the wave would jack up to a chest high tubing runner. The sand was extremely shallow, which caused the wave to throw over itself quickly. In surf lingo it was ‘slabbing’ or behaving like a ‘slab’, which is a wave that comes out of deeper water and breaks over a shallow shelf, be it rock, reef, or in this case, sand. A key feature of slabs is that strange phenomenon where they appear to be small or at least small compared to how they turn out after they hit the shallow ‘slab’ and ‘grow’ or ‘jack’. For tube fiends like me these kinds of waves are highly sought after. They can be extremely difficult for newer surfers, especially since they usually have a visual component of staring at some kind of rocks as you take off. Of course it is unwise to focus on the rocks. Just as with driving, you go where you look. So if it’s down the line you want to go, then down the line you must look. Sometimes the eyes avert slightly down as you’re moving into the take off, but as soon as you land they should travel up to the lip that’s pitching over your head. This is the same regardless of whether you’re backside or frontside. Another truth of surfing this kind of wave is that it is easier and safer to take off as deep as possible, rocks and all. The deeper section can be surprisingly softer and easier to enter than anything out on the shoulder. It is a common mistake to hang on the shoulder expecting an easier time of it and then getting tossed in the lip to oblivion. Why? Because you’re trying to take off in the spot where you should already be getting tubed. I’ve read this in countless surf magazines and heard it from 100s of pros in post heat interviews at places like Cloudbreak, Teahupoo, and the Box. This is of course much easier to do when it’s just you or you and a friend taking turns, but can become very complicated when a wave like this becomes crowded. In that scenario you can often have people pushing one another too deep, which is also a thing. The heavier the wave and the tighter the take off spot, the more need there is for communication between all takers. Fortunately this session remained me, Brant, and the groms until dark. To be completely honest, I went in probably a full 30 minutes before full dark, as my near sightedness makes it pretty tough for me to see waves at dusk. I had had my fill and had coached Brant into some sweet little runners, so I felt good about the session. Plus I had been surfing all day.

That night I monitored buoys and noticed that Epsilon was definitely getting closer and stronger. Can’t remember the exact details. I suppose I could scroll through texts I had with my friend, surf bud, and yoga coach, Evan Perry. Somehow 8ft @ 9 or 11 seconds pops into my mind. Winds were forecasted to be funky on October 23rd, Epsilon Day 2, but I had a feeling they’d stay chill in the foggy haze in the dawn hours. Upon rolling up to the beach I became worried that the fog was going to be too dense to see a darn thing. To my great surprise it was just high enough and the left was three times the size of the night before, empty, and regurgitating. I pulled my suit on and waxed my board in record time. I chose the new 6’1” Barahona Shapes “Tiburon” double wing swallow tail. When I first was doing boards with Jose I was putting my own names on the models, and I called this one the “Potentia”, which means “power” or “force” in Latin. Whether you call it a Tiburon or a Potentia, the shape is the same: it’s kind of a “big boy shortboard” or hybrid fish with a lot of forward width, well hidden foam, and pulled in tail with very sharp edges for precision surfing. Gets into waves early and has enough rocker to manage steep drops. I also ordered one in 5’6” — that’s the one with the green airbrush you see in the video. The stock quiver model is a 7’6” and that’s the other orange one — the one that Emory is riding on Epsilon Day 4. I had fallen in love with the 6’1” from the first wave I rode on it in the session with Leslie, Karen, and Deb. It was the only good wave I got that session, but the thing just locked in. Tons of speed and flow and held the rail in a roundhouse almost unlike any board that I’ve had in quite some time.

The new Barahona shapes x CSC shortboard quiver from left to right: 5’3” fish, 5’6” Tiburon/Potentia thruster, 61” same model, 7’6” same model. Pic: Dion Mattison

For whatever reason I’m better at seeing in the dark at dawn than the dark at dusk. Evan took much longer than I did to suit up, so I was out alone in the mystical tubing conditions. I got caught inside by a good sized set on the paddle out and watched tube after tube crash in front me. This at least help me orient myself to the take off zone. The first wave I paddled into I couldn’t judge the size. It was just a grey lump of water. When I got to my feet I’d say it was a bit over my head and quite rotund. I wasn’t deep in the tube by any means, but I was right there in that pocket beholding a gorgeous cylinder of ocean energy. I probably hooted a little as I kicked out. The second wave I caught was even better. In the video it’s the deepest tube from the GoPro angle, but still doesn’t do the whole wave justice. It doesn’t even appear that I am even that deep in the tube, but I must tell you it was a splendid vision and it felt like a stellar ride from where I sat behind my two human eyes, which have very different lenses than the GoPro does. The wave was just perfect. The drop was easy because I took off deep. I touched the wall with my left hand, pointed forward with my right, dropped my butt over my left heel, and held a mid line on the face, making sure I was going slow enough to be inside, and fast enough to make it out — sometimes it is worth it to get a slightly shallower tube so that you make it rather than being too greedy with your stalling technique and getting stuffed on the foamball. It let me right out and then I got a little bonus cover up in the middle of the beach. That was just a head dip, but it’s a good way to end a wave. There was a third tube that was perhaps longest and deepest, but in the Murphy’s Law of GoPro, I missed the shot. A piece of kelp had flown onto the lens upon take off and was covering up the lens until a bit of spray knocked it off as I was exiting the tube. That left the lens clear to capture the bonus closeout tube I got at the end of the ride, which is featured in the video. Had a number of other fun waves that morning then the tide and wind came up, which put a slight damper on the magic. The wave was fatter and choppier and no longer tubing, so I surfed down the beach with Juan for a little bit. I surfed for about 3-4 hours that morning and then went home to rest and write.

Screen grab of second wave. Some people saw me on this wave from the boardwalk. My view is nice, but I bet theirs was even cooler. Pic: Dion Mattison

I made it back to the left for an evening solo session on the 5’6”. No footage of that session. It was pretty good sized and wild. I only stayed out an hour before the wind started really howling from the SE. I was feeling out the 5’6” a bit more. I had size L ‘Rake’ model futures fins in it and it felt a little sticky. The board was responsive, but I wasn’t feeling the fin set up. I either needed a set of smaller fins or to ride it with two larger side fins and a small trailer. That was my hypothesis at any rate. Also during this session I pulled through the back of a closeout in the middle of the beach, the board pressed my foot up and back towards me ever so slightly. It wasn’t even a wipe out. I had made it through the back and laid down on my board thinking, “Damn I just sprained my ankle.” It wasn’t bad, but we all know when our bodies tell us they didn’t like something. I knew it wouldn’t take me out of the water, but I would have to ice it and monitor it moving forward. I had an ominous feeling about that session. I was surfing out of a compulsion because there was swell and because there was no one out. Both are perfectly reasonable justifications for surfing, but I saw the chop and had a tiny feeling that it was a session I could skip. Sometimes it’s hard to know whether that voice is fear or reason. It’s probably just common sense.

That night I had to consider my plans for Saturday, October 24th, Epsilon Day 3. Day 3! We never get swell events this long. The winds were forecasted to be funky and hard from the SW and SSW. I did have ding repair to pick up with Charles Mencel in NJ. But then I also saw that the winds were forecasted to swing NW late in the day. Mitch and his awesome camera only had one day to film this swell, and this was it. He didn’t have time to search for waves in NJ. Furthermore, I don’t like NJ in SW winds and low tide. It’s just going to be crappy, and if I’m going to surf crappy surf, I might as well surf crappy surf at home. But what if the winds went WSW? That’s a different story. I did want to obey the mantra, “Never leave surf,” so I formulated my plan as follows: get up early, check “the left”, if it’s “good enough” surf and film with Mitch, do your normal Saturday run to the Edgemere Farmer’s Market to buy milk, have breakfast, go to NJ and get ding repair and surf if worth it, return to NY and grab the evening session. It turns out that the day went exactly according to plan! It was hard onshore in NY first thing but the tide was low enough for the left do be doing it. Mitch’s camera is awesome, and I also wanted to shoot some stuff in the 2mm hooded that Yuhiko and Isao at Still Blue NY Wetsuits made for me. The rip was bonkers, but the suit is so flexible and the 6’1” has so much flotation that it was no problem fighting it. A few people saw me catching some fun waves and they paddled out and got ripped right past me. It was pretty funny to watch. I surfed for exactly an hour then let Mitch get to his next gig. Everything else went according to plan. I left for NJ after the Farmer’s Market, got my ding repair from Charles, surfed a little in Spring Lake — it wasn’t great — dropped off boards to sell at Barewires Surf Shop, then made it back to NY by 330p.

Peak Epsilon Day 4 around 6p. Pic: Dion Mattison

The swell was on full pulse mode, and the wind had laid down but it still had some storm wobble and funk in it. The tide was still draining out and the wind did not switch nearly as early as I and others had hoped it would. I went to “the left” and it was packed! There were a few people getting what looked like fun rides. I had met up with Brant again but he decided he wanted nothing to do with the crowd and the size and the wobble in the wave. Since he’s just recovered from a grade 2 MCL tear I think he made the right call. I chose to ride my Barahona 5’3” twin keel fish and to just brave the crowds by being patient and going for those fun little inside “grower” waves I had been pin pointing in earlier sessions. From the first wave I took I found a rhythm with the spot, the crowd, and the board. So many times when you go into a crowded session with a game plan and low expectations, you get pleasantly surprised. The board has so much spark and liveliness right off the take off. The keels give it that classical “bar of soap” feeling of smooth speed. I had Jose put wings on the tail to pull it in because I don’t like too wide of a tail on my fishes as some do. I find the wider tails have a tendency to slide out a little more. I prefer my boards to turn in a tighter arc.

The wind switched offshore just before dark and the tide drained out even more. I was nearly blind by 530p again and felt I had caught my fair share and went in. In hindsight that was the worst decision I made the whole swell. Blind or not I should have stayed out. Never leave surf, even if you can only barely see it. The only upshot was that I was on the beach long enough to help a young woman named Taylor get some first aid after smashing her board against her head. It looked like she needed about 5 stitches near her eyebrow. I rinsed her wound with fresh water and gave her some sterile gauze pads to keep pressure on it. Allie Marsiello helped her to urgent care. So if you get in a spot of bother at the beach and I’m around, do remember I always have a full first aid kit in the van. I would even come out of pumping surf to help you. When I got home that night I told Sophia about it and she said, “Oh did you give her some of those steri-strips you have?” D’oh! No I didn’t. Another reminder, anything stitch-worthy, I have steri-strips to hold the wound together until you can get sewn up.

I went to bed that night kicking myself for not staying out longer, and woke up stressed out that it would be beyond crowded the next morning. I had Emory and Brant on the dawn patrol schedule. I held off scheduling others until the tide came back in because that wave has a really tricky takeoff. Brant had already surfed it once and Emory is an advancing surfer, so I was pretty confident they’d do well out there. MG was down to film this time too.

I warned everyone that it was going to be nuts crowded since it was Sunday, there was still swell, and offshore winds were forecasted throughout the morning. However, one thing I didn’t account for in my crowd prediction: 40 degree weather. I accounted for it in my choice of a suit, a 5/4mm hooded Xcel (no gloves and booties), but didn’t think it would also mean that Emory, Brant, and I would be surfing the left alone for an hour at first light. Here is a clear case of me projecting my surf fixations and paranoias on others. Actually very few people were frothing for one of the first cold days of the impending winter season.

This session comprises the bulk of the footage in the video — it’s all the stuff with the incredible light, as it was the first day without cloudy gloom in the morning. I’m on the blue fish getting head dips while dolphins swim by out the back. Emory Lee is on the orange board. They were taking off on gorgeously shaped walls and achieving a pretty functional pig dog technique in terms of style. We’re still working on hand placement, especially the left hand (closer to wall/on wall), and timing the end section to either pull off, pull in, or straighten out before it comes. This requires slight tweaks to their pig dog posture. In general you want to stay loose in your surfing so that you can make minor adjustments to your stance. Often these adjustments are so tiny one hardly notices them, but they often make the difference of a good and poor read of a section. And of course other times they’re glaring, like when the lip slams you in the head when you should have been under it, riding on it, or out in front of it.

Brant’s wave selection was good in the early part of the session, but he too is working on different techniques for timing and navigating more tubing waves. He often goes into this half stance which worries the hell out of me with his knee because it’s just out there exposed and when the lip hits him I fear he’ll reinjure it. I was trying to get him to do a pig dog technique similar to Emory’s — back knee down on board to provide stability to the knee and to straighten out the body so it fits into the small backside tubes — but we didn’t get to it this session. Brant’s surfing actually came alive after MG put the camera down. It’s harder to film in 40 degree weather than it is to surf. You’re sitting or standing still with the biting offshores nipping at you all the while the body is contracting and stiffening. As the tide drained out further into the morning the waves got better and better. I didn’t want to torture MG much longer than an hour — freezing on the beach watching perfect waves — so we made the call to cut the filming around 830a. She said she had to turn on the van and warm up for about 20 minutes after the film session. Makes sense.

Low tide was at 10a. Having had sufficient fun on the fish for the first part of the morning I took out the 5’6” for the remainder. I had purchased some True Ames S Double Twins with a trailer online earlier in the week, per my assessment that thruster set up I had in there was too stiff. The S Double set up turned the board on immediately. So much more flow through the fins and so much more release on turns. The frequency of the sets started to slow down a touch, but because there was increasingly less water over the sand bar, the sets that did come stood up much nicer and had more room in the tube. Long time Rockaway local, Sol Joseph, paddled out, as did 5 Borough Skateboards owner Steve Rodriguez. Brant stayed out. Emory went in. MG paddled out on the fish. I had caught enough waves in the early part of the day to make me satisfied, so I changed my game plan to only the largest set waves. There were a few more people out frothing for the inside waves, so I didn’t compromise their ability to get those. I just let all those ones go, even though some had a really nice line and plenty of room for turns and pumping. Sol and Steve and I practiced proper communication and turn taking. As a set came in we’d all determine whose turn it was and cheer the other on. I got my best tube of the swell at this part of the session. One of those not a drop of water out of place waves. Brant and Nick Langelotti were on the shoulder looking in. Sol had caught the wave before and was watching from the inside. The wave was emerald green in color with the yellow translucent lip from the mid morning sun in the east. I felt I was pretty far back in it and managed a micro pump to stay mid face. Per earlier comments, I’ve been finding these micro adjustments to make all the difference in terms of making vs not making tubes. The board starts to slide down to the bottom of the tube and you put a little pressure on the back foot to place the board a few inches higher, making sure butt stays nice and tucked, front foot keeps front rail line steady and horizontal. Small adjustment, world of difference.

Throughout Epsilon I had been trying out the Totum Sport supplements to see if they helped with endurance and recovery. They do. In the previously described session I had one sachet before paddling out, one mid session during the board change from 5’3” to 5’6” (pictured above), and another after surfing. These little salty packets are based upon the research of a Frenchman named Rene Quinton who discovered that the mineral components of sea water are shockingly similar to those of our blood plasma. Totum Sport harvests this sea water underneath plankton blooms in the north Atlantic. The effect it has on performance for me is that I don’t feel parched in the water. Unlike other sports, we don’t have fresh water readily available to rehydrate while putting in long sessions. I do have a water bottle on the beach, but when the surf is pumping it’s hard to stay out of it too long. The Totum Sport helps me retain the water I do drink, and again, keeps me from having that low energy parched feeling in 2+ hour surf sessions. Never thought I’d endorse a supplement, but I can really get behind this one. I was put in touch with the folks at Totum Sport by UK and NY based photographer, Dan Lee, who lives here in Rockaway. This is working out to be a fine partnership all around, and if you want to try the stuff you can get 10% off with code CONATUS10 at checkout.

Of course Totum Sport is not food, and after 3.5 hours of surfing I needed some serious fuel. I left the remainder of spinning tubes to the mid morning crowd, loaded up the van, and took the 5 minute jaunt to the clubhouse. I reheated some oatmeal with apples that I had made earlier in the morning, and also made some bacon and eggs to go with it. The bacon, like any meat product I buy, came from the farmer’s market, and the eggs also came from a local NY farm. Throughout Covid and into my middle age, I’m increasingly not compromising the value of local and small farms, especially for animal products. Factory farms suck, and local farmers need support. Although it’s still not this easy. Not everyone has access to the education or the resources to make these kinds of choices. I get that. We’ll keep working on it.

Surf fuel. Pic: Dion Mattison

Ben Israel and his new 8’6” CSC x Barahona gem! Pic: Dion Mattison

The last session of the swell included Liz Golato, Bonnie Stamper, and Ben Israel. Ben came by the clubhouse when I was just finishing my breakfast to grab his new 8’6”, which he’s storing here. The waves had gotten significantly smaller and more manageable. The left was fatter and the wind was light onshore, so the quality had diminished a bit. It was also strangely a touch more crowded than at any other point in the day. Still, there were waves, and we surfed them. Ben got his first start to finish drop on his new board. Liz was in form off the jetty. Her pig dog technique is looking the good. As with Brant and Emory, Liz is working on not hesitating off the drop and on timing the end section better. Bonnie is on their heels, but has only been surfing one year. She’s come so dang far, and now we’re really working making sure that she’s standing up at the first 1/3 of the wave so that she can get across the green face rather than getting stuck at the bottom after standing up 1 second too late. Not only does this have to do with keeping the head up and looking down the line as one enters the wave, but it also requires the hands be further back towards the hips to lift the chest and head so that there is sufficient room for the lower body to smoothly glide into standing position. From there one has got to trust one’s feet and get those hands off the deck of the surfboard. Bon nailed it in her wave towards the end of the vid.

And with that session the 4 day Epsilon surfing extravaganza game to a close. The weather got gloomy again and it rained buckets the rest of the week from Zēta, which followed shortly after, and was a fun enough swell event in itself, although a lot more like Delta — mostly wind, so short lived. This weekend we’re looking at the remnants of Ēta to give us some little pulses. That one did a number on Central America. Will further Greek alphabet storms continue? It’s hard to say. Thēta would be up next if so.

Hurricanes Paulette and Teddy September 2020

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.