April 23, 2010 Friday

Bolinas	Groin & Patch
8:50 am to 10:30 am	2' to 4'
High dropping tide	Onshore wind (blown out conditions)
Overcast - high fog	So - so session

“Shooting the Breeze”

A fun aspect of surfing is hanging around with other surfers just “shooting the breeze.” You know, just talking about surfing, sharing stories and experiences. In these sessions the topics jump around as the camaraderie builds.

Matt and I were returning from purchasing coffee in town after our “so – so” surf session. David who rides the Becker board had just changed out of his wetsuit and was putting his board away.

“David, you got out early,” I greeted him. “It’s 11:30 and that’s only three hours for you. What gives?”

“I was the only one out there, sitting and waiting for nothing.” The surf was non-existent this morning.

Mary joined us. Fighting the flu for the past two weeks, she had to come to out to the ocean to nurse her cold. The sun was finally coming out, warming us up and turning the morning beautiful. The conversation turned to the distance each of us travels to surf. David travels 50 miles a way from Berkeley, a one and half hour journey each way. Matt spends an hour plus getting here from Santa Rosa. Salmon Creek and Dillon Beach are closer, but he hates those breaks. It takes Mary 45 minutes a way from Larkspur. Her route is through Mill Valley. My path is shorter by ten minutes leaving from the center of Mill Valley.

“Hey, David is about to take a safari to La Jolla,” I told Matt and Mary. “We have to help him plan his trip.”

“My girl friend is going to a conference there. We’ll stay with my uncle who lives just south of La Jolla.” This led to a series of “Have you ever surfed at (fill in the blank)?”

“Blacks?” Which is an excellent break situated at the cliffs below Torrey Pines and UCSD. David had body surfed there as a little kid before UCSD was built and when Blacks was still a nudist beach. He remembered the long walk down the cliff to the beach.

“La Jolla Shores?” I had surfed there years ago. It is located in the middle of the town, has a large parking lot, a grassy park and long slow waves.

“San Onofre?” Both David and I had surfed there. David surfed there when he first took up surfing; he stayed away from the crowd and didn’t catch much.

“I heard that San Onofre is like the Patch,” Mary injected.

“No it breaks harder,” I piped up. “But like the Patch it has long gentle waves. It’s called ‘Old Man’s’ because it’s a haven for old men and longboards.” Half mile north of Old Man’s is Church’s and another quarter mile north is Lower Trestles, the premiere surf break on the California coast. These spots are part of the San Onofre State Park. “In the old days all of this used to be part of Camp Pendleton and the Marines used to arrest the surfers.”

“Doheny?” a state park that sits between Dana Point and San Clemente, a classic old-time large campground with a decent break. Matt and his son recently had a good trip there. They wanted to go to San Onofre, but since it was a holiday weekend with hot sunny weather, the park was full and the park rangers were not letting in any more cars. In San Clemente Matt rented a board and the young guy running the shop recommended Doheny and told them of a little used parking lot. They went and had a great time. Though the water was crammed with surfers, the crowd was mellow and they managed to connect on numerous waves.

“Have you ever gone through the hassle of taking a surfboard on a plane?” Mary switched topics. Matt flew a board to Costa Rica. He wrapped pipe insulation around the rails of his board for protection, stuffed it in a padded board bag and had no problems. Twice I have flown to Fiji to go to Tavarua. Fortunately I flew on surfer friendly New Zealand Airlines and had no problems.

“Wasn’t Tavarua a little hairy?” Matt exclaimed.

“Yes and no,” I explained. “It was anywhere from three feet to terrifying. But the amazing thing was how clear the water was. It was so clear that on several waves I could not see the swell, just small fish darting in and out along the coral reef. Only when the wave began to break in front of me, when the lip began to feather could I see the swell. It’s a weird sensation, cruising along not being able to see nor judge the steepness of the curl.”

“What kind of wetsuits does one wear in Southern California?” Mary switched topics again. Everyone wears a wetsuit down there regardless of the temperature. Even in Hawaii with its warm water everyone wears a wetsuit, thin ones, “3/2’s”. In the old days we only wore trunks.

“Speaking of the old days,” Mary injected, “tomorrow I’m going to the Log-Jam in Santa Cruz.” “What’s that?” We all chimed in. It’s “Retro-Surfing”, old style longboards, pre – 1965, single fin and no leashes. Mary could remember surfing in New Jersey (she grew up on the East Coast) without a leash. It forced everyone to know how to swim. Lose your board and you were facing a long swim. I recalled that a requirement of surfing was to know how to body surf. When you lost your board, you would body surf the next wave in to retrieve it. Mary mentioned the common courtesy of those days was grabbing loose boards and taking them back out to the persons who lost them. A skill I remembered was every surfer had to constantly scan the waves like radar when paddling out. You had to be on the alert for anyone who lost a board. Loose boards were dangerous objects in the water. We all condemned people who surf nowadays without a leash.

“Hank raved the other day about a place near San Onofre that has great fish tacos,” Matt stated shifting the topic to food.

“That must be in San Clemente,” I jumped in. Hank would know because his work takes him down to Orange County. He works for Ritz-Carleton, the hotel chain, which has a major hotel at Salt Creek at the south end of Laguna Beach. In the old days Salt Creek was a private beach and you had to pay $10 dollars to park there, thus I never went there as a kid. Down a winding dirt road was a steep fast breaking left point break. Now there’s a large Ritz-Carleton Hotel, a county park with a huge public parking lot and a paved road to the beach, and due to easy access, the break at Salt Creek is always crowded.

Having shifted to food, I told the group about my idea of starting a blog of Surfer Eateries, places near surf spots with good food at reasonable prices, establishments surfers go to after a good morning surf session. Hank’s fish taco place could be our first entry. Jack the Dave Sweet team member had mentioned to me that his favorite place was the Pine Cone Diner in Point Reyes Station. He always goes there after surfing at Drake’s Beach.

“David, on your safari, you must go to the greatest bakery in the world,” I stated with a big grin. “VG’s Bakery and Donuts in Cardiff By The Sea. It’s directly across from the entrance to the San Elijo State Park. Family owned and run. It’s been there since the sixties.”

I had to also mention another entry into the Surfer Eatery blog, that’s El Tarasco in Manhattan Beach. I used to live there and so did David when he was a little kid. In the early 70’s, this Mexican hole in the wall, which sits two blocks from the sand near the intersection of Rosecrans and Highland, invented the humongous burrito for $2. It took two hands to just pick one up. Crammed with rice and beans, grilled chicken and hot sauce, they quickly became the nightly dinner for every unmarried surfer in town. After forty years El Tarasco is still there, same building with just five stools and a counter, still serving the huge burritos and is still the after-session spot for the local surfers.

Matt told us about moving to California from New Jersey, where he grew up. Some forty years ago his family drove across the country with surfboards on top of the car and by random chance camped at Jalama Beach State Park. Jalama is north of Point Conception and just south of Vandenberg Air Force Base. So Matt’s first California surf session was there at Jalama, a beach well off the beaten path and one similar to Salmon Creek and Ocean Beach. He had a good session and was immediately stoked on California surfing.

“You know, surfing is really inexpensive when compared to other forms of recreation,” Matt commented. He then mentioned a doctor friend of his had just purchased a new mountain bike for $5000.

“What’s the price of ski lift tickets these days? $50?” I added agreeing with Matt. None of us knew because we don’t ski anymore. The ski resorts have priced the average family out of the sport. Even kayaks cost a fortune these days. Surfing is the cheapest form of recreation. With merely a surfboard and a wetsuit, one can have several years of fun hitting all the great public beach surf spots.

It was fun reminiscing about surfing. All four of us love the sport and love telling tales of our adventures.