Summertime and the livin’ is…

Had some crappy images that were laying around from that last south swell that I never got around to posting.  They were shot with my GoPro and seem to appreciate with time and lack of surf.  So I shot these when I went down to Santa Cruz, time before last, at the lane.  Skindog was out on his longboard shooting some photos of Ratboy and others coming down the line and either getting slotted or busting out fins. On a sidenote, Skindog actually landed a cover for Surfers Journal with his unique photographic sensibilities.  I didn’t know he shot photos until this day…then realized I had a Surfer issue from last year with his shots featured too.  I found the SJ cover shot on the SPL water housings site.

Anyway, I was not expecting much and before checking the surf made a stop at the Rip Curl outlet to see if they would swap out my suit for a new one since the seams were going in a few areas…

I only had the suit for a couple seasons, but one knee was almost blown out, the zipper broke and had a wire attached to it so I could still zip it, the glue on the inside had all flaked off and I had a couple holes where the seams came undone…one of which was right in my crotch and flushed the bottom half of my suit as soon as I entered the water.  It needed to be fixed and since I was there I figured I might as well leave it cause I knew if I didn’t I probably would never get it done or end up doing a crappy job fixing it myself, like I did with the suit I’m wearing now in its place.

Going to pick it up this weekend with everything replaced for a cool $100…first time I have had someone professional fix my suit…exciting.  So the point was that I didn’t have a suit this day, but only a 2mm top.  It was gorgeous out and so I headed to a couple of my favorite spots figuring I could swing it and luckily the water was a balmy 56 degrees or so which kept me out for about an hour and a half before I started to shiver.  Not enough waves to keep me paddling the whole time though…

So that’s the story behind those images above.  I’ve been kind of preoccupied lately and doing some interesting things in my down time.  On one of the flatter weekends I took a trip to Sequoia National Forest and Kings Park.  It was amazing to see these massive Sequoia’s with branches a hundred feet up that were bigger than most normal trees.  Everything about them was amazing and made some of the coastal redwoods around here seem small and skinny in comparison.  One of my favorite discoveries of the trip was the moss that grows in the forest there.  It is a bright lime green color and looks like it was manufactured by Dr. Seuss or something.

Either the high altitude or lack of surf on that trip got me seeing waves in the oddest of places.  I remember an old issue of Surfer’s Journal had some art by Brian Taylor and I really could appreciate the quirkiness of the featured installations.  He had a lineup made of notebook pages, a nearly empty toothpaste tube forming a tube, the curl of a banana and curl of a wrench etc.  This next shot is a tribute to Brian and his ability to see waves in odd places.  I think he even had a corn chip as part of is feature.

My family looked at me a little funny at first, but then got it, whereas the rest of the restaurant was a bit perplexed as to what the hell I was doing photographing a corn chip.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they say.  You have to admit it’s a really perfect representation.

One afternoon I just hung out in my living room, cracked open a cold beer and started playing around with some of the little rock and seashell treasures I have gathered over the years from various beaches here and there.  While down in Half Moon Bay one day I stopped upon this little beach that was full of rocks that had the most perfect little tunnels carved into them.

My guess is that some little sea creatures ate their way through as I would occasionally find little snail like things tucked into the little holes that hadn’t been bore all the way through.  These holey rocks are also kind of Brian Taylor-ish if you have the right perspective.

This same beach where I found the holey rocks I also noticed it had the most remarkable sand too…up close you can see that it is actually made up of all varieties of beautiful stones.  At this young beach I found all kinds of goodies to turn my lense towards.  I now have a glass vase/jar on my coffee table that I filled with this sand since it was so unique.  In fact, I try to take a small souvenir from every beautiful beach I visit, just a really small one, to remind me of the session/day.

This shot below is from something I found in the cave at Uluwatu.  I got out of the water after my first session ever there and as I was coming in through the shallows and going through the cave I noticed a fist sized chunk of reef that had broken off and been bleached white from the sun.  I picked it up since it was almost ball shaped and it’s been a fixture in my living room since.

Found random shells here and there too…sorry if this is boring for some of you, but this is the kind of random stuff I appreciate and play with when I’m not in the water.

As I was saying, some of them hold up better than others over the years, and they always look better wet…kind of a shame to remove them from their natural environment cause they lose a bit of their vibrancy.

I also wouldn’t want to deprive others of the experience of stumbling upon them, but like I said I usually just take one or two little souvenirs and leave the rest for the beach combers.  Notice the undulations and circular flow trapped in these shells.  Such a fluid design frozen in time.

So now you guys know what I’m up to in between swells.  Thinking about how long it took a creature to make one of these homes or what the reef looked like when it was still alive and taking pictures of corn chips.

So you don’t worry too much about my mental stability, the winds kicked up today and with that we can expect some head high to OH surf tomorrow and maybe Friday. Planning on getting up for the early if its a calm morning.  Wish me luck.

Lots more to catch up on from Typhoon action in Taiwan to the epic Occy Curren showdown coming up at J-Bay, to the whole Mavericks Surf Fiasco….hard to fathom Jeff Clark being removed from his role but that’s a whole nother’ issue that I probably shouldn’t even touch. Good times!  I have another Cali boat trip planned for next month and so looking forward to the rest of this summer.  The best is yet to come.