As long as I live, I will cherish all of these cold mid-winter night rides with Henry in the woods. They get me out in the cold when I might be more inclined to stay inside after working all day out in the cold, and they give the little man a workout he would never otherwise get. But on top of that, there is something pretty magical about the woods at night, especially the hour after the sun sets and and darkness seeps in and engulfs the fading light in the West. It is generally an exceptionally still time, and I sometimes stop and just listen and look at the silhouettes of the trees, dark against the dying light. That is, I stop for just as long as Henry will allow.
I got out in the water last Tuesday for the swell the mighty blizzard Juno kicked up for us. Some really fun chest-head speedy lefts down at WJ. Basically, my favorite kind of swell at my favorite place. It felt really good to get in the water again, it felt like it had been forever since I had caught a real wave.
By the time I got out, the swell had faded a little bit, but there were still some really fun waves coming through. I had to get out because my leash broke and I had a pretty long swim, so that combined with surfing for the first time in a while pretty much killed my arms. That, and I didn't have another leash with me. Really beautiful evening though.
Selfies while riding in the snow aren't the easiest thing, but at least I got Henry in the picture too.
"Moonshine," by Bardo Pond, off of their exquisite album Ticket Crystals.
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!
Don just sent me this photo of the beach entrance between First Street Jetty and Wooden Jetty in Holgate. The photo was taken on 12/20/2009. The significance? Don and I were the first ones out that glorious day, and there was a guy who was taking pictures of us walking up to the beach (with our permission, of course. We were about to clobber him for watching us for a while until he stated his intentions). It's a shame there aren't any more pictures of us cool guys, but at least our footprints are famous. You can check out more from that beautiful day HERE. Ah, memories of amazing waves, and with no swell on the horizon. At least there's a snowboard trip at the end of the month, and the distant-but-not-too-distant trip to Puerto Rico.Almost done this board, now if only there were some waves to test it on.
This blog was started as a way to chronicle my adventures into surfboard shaping and just surfing in general. Since its inception, it has evolved into a log of whatever I feel like rambling about and sharing with the world, including, but not limited to: photographs, bicycles and bicycling, film, music, gardening, cute pictures of Henry, and more.
