Heading South

Looking forward to a drive down the coast this weekend. I'm seeing a show in Santa Cruz on Saturday night, so I'm planning on taking my time on the drive down along the 1 during the day. I feel like I havn't had the usual binge of fall surf days since the first ground swells showed up. The farking oil spill didn't help of course, but conditions weren't really that great during the worst of it (for better or worse.) Long story short, I'm looking forward to have a nice long session or two somewhere aside from OB, and certainly not at the place in the pic. Not that I don't love ya OB (in case you're reading.) Enjoy the weekend.

Fun OB weekend.... turns out there was poop out there

Super fun weekend of surf at the local beach. There had been a bit of rain, but no alerts about water cleanliness. Turns out we were rockin in some poopy water. I'm not sure what (MPN/100mL) means exactly. But I do know that on a normal day, it's less than 10, and over the weekend it was at 309. That's gross. No wonder I was feeling a little queasy yesterday. Check out the SFPUC site.

Next Trip: Top 5 Destinations

Even though OB San Francisco is actually waking up, and I realistically won't be able to do another biggish trip until the summer, it's always tempting to think about where to go next. Here's what I'm thinking now both in terms of desire and what's realistic:

1. El Sal (highly realistic, want to see those right points)
2. Back to Indo (less realistic because it's a bitch to plan and get to, but what more could ya want?)
3. Peru (I hear you can make it worthwhile with 14 days, would want to see some stuff besides the surf too, maybe save this for when I have more time?)
4. Morocco (maybe slightly less difficult than Indo, and it's been on the list for a long time.)
5. South Africa (will probably do this one in 2010 when my good buddy in SF who's from there is planning on heading back for an extended trip)

Padang Shaken, but not Stirred

Just got an email from Danny "Slayer" at Sumatra Surfaris who was getting the word out that while Padang certainly felt the earthquakes of a week or so ago, no one involved with the operation was harmed, and things are business as usual. As they did after the 2004 tsunami, the Surfaris team is contributing to relief efforts launched after the recent quakes. Here's another gratuitous indo shot.

Earthquakes

Wow, more earthquakes in Indo. Two mackers on Sumatra. Initial reports are that things aren't nearly as bad as 2004, but one was an 8.4, that's gotta shake things up pretty solidly. News is kinda slow to come from that area, so we'll see what happens. Let's hope people were better prepared this time around.

First Wave on the New Board

Seemed like a good day to break in some new equipment. Here's the first wave I dropped in on with the new board John from Mystic shaped for me before I left.

Back in the USA - Ready for Fall OB

Just getting back to the USA. Totally through the jet lag at this point, and finally getting all the pics organized. Picasa seems to be the best option for storing and sharing high quality images. Any thoughts to the contrary?