Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot?

     First of all, Merry Christmas! I got caught up in ye olde hustle and bustle of the Holiday season, and never got to do a Christmas post, which I had big plans for, and I never got to do a Monday-After-Christmas-Snowstorm-Swell post, for reasons I can't explain. But now I have a new reason to post: the completion of 007, right on schedule!

     By now everyone probably knows we got a lot of snow (except my neighbor, who is an older gentleman who owns the house a vacation home, and came down today. He asked Jeannine if she knew anyone who could shovel, and seemed surprised that he couldn't get in the driveway. By the way, he's from NY, and I think they got snow there, too.). I made sure to dig out what I could late at night on Sunday, so I could get out Monday morning. I was well on my way to the Island when I heard that a "State of Emergency" had been declared the night before, and one should only take to the roads out of necessity. Well, necessity is in the eye of the beholder, and my eye beheld this as I pulled up to the break:

    Yes, I'd say it was a necessity to be on the road. Waste to chest high fast and hollow lefts breaking down at the South End, which was probably the only place to surf that had parking, because no side streets were plowed.

     Walked around to take some photos before going out. The South End is beautiful this time of the year, especially with no one around and snow on the ground.

     The wind was blowing 30-45 mph offshore, the air was barely in the 20s, and the water was in the mid-to-lower 40s.Not the coldest it'll be all winter, but cold nonetheless. I was able to stay in the water for 2 1/2 hours before my feet started to get cold, which is a testament for to XCEL, even if I haven't had the best of luck with the durability of their stuff.

     This picture came out blurry, unfortunately, but I decided to put it up here anyway because I love the shape of the wave. Just perfect.

Ding-Dong!

    And in other news, 007 - the garbology mini-Simmons I've been working on - is complete, and right in time for my goal to finish it in 2010. 5'2" x 21 7/8 x 2 7/8 - I think this board will be fast and fun, especially on lined-up lefts (frontside for me).

     That being said, I will never EVER build a board like this again. Not the shape, mind you, but the method of piecing together the blank out of garbage/found pieces of foam. It was resourceful and interesting and I learned a good deal throughout the process, but the most important thing I've learned is never to do this again. The result of building a board like this was a board that is way heavier than it should be, but at least it took longer than it should have, too.

     That also being said, this board is dedicated to the memory of my Grandfather, a Master Garbologist who
helped to instill a fervor for thrift in me. And, yes, he also had a way of, even while utilizing incredible ingenuity and frugality, doing some things in a completely overcomplicated and time-consuming way, much as I've done with this board. He also had a penchant for labeling things with a DYMO labeler, so made the "Strange Flora Surfboards" on this lam from labels from his labeler.

     I made these fins for the board. I think they came out to about 9 1/2" long at the base and probably 3/8" thick, maybe a little more. I finished them off with some spraypaint, which was wonderfully simple after all the complications throughout the construction of this board.

     I left a sanded finish on the board - 320 grit on the bottom and 400 on top - sanded in the direction of water flow. I first read about a sanded finish of this type being faster than gloss on Greg Liddle's site, and have since read more about it on Swaylocks. I decided to do it on the bottom on this board, and was thinking of going gloss on the deck, but in the end, I liked the matte finish of this color, and, more importantly, I discovered I was out of 600 grit sandpaper. So that settled it.

     What lies beyond this beach-access of time that will take us from the parking lot of 2010 to the surf of 2011? That's stupid, but only time can tell. GOODBYE!