What a week

Bedraggled Swift Booth

Despite some gruelling moments, we survived the Sacred Craft Consumer Expo. It was absolutely packed and for some reason RK decided to unveil all the in-development boards so we spent most of the time answering questions about boards not for sale. He had the full line though, Casper, Casper Jnr (a 5'5" Casper), Sputnik (a Casper with quad keels and a very odd tail notch) and the White Pony (a 4'11" ultra wide Simmons styled fish). All EPS, all pure white, all very non-mainstream. There's a nice photo thread at www.mylocallineup.com/shows and you can find our booth at the front and the back of it. There were lots of other great boards there and lots more really generic ones. I did get to hang with some nice people though. Larry from Pro-Box who has done me right with the Horan fins, Tim Stamps who is now making the Horan boards (and very nicely too) all the Fineline/Hull crew who were well into the Casper family, Paul Jensen who makes beautiful wood boards (he and Danny Hess were the high water mark of the show I thought), Jake Moss who was next to us, Terry Martin, John Cherry- quite a roll call really. I sold some books,the consumers all seemed to be enjoying themselves and somehow we got the rack and 18 boards (including the Simmons repro and a couple of big Mirandon Bros twin pin logs) into the van and home without incident. The Joe Baugness Simfish was the board that RK was selling most of (I'm horrified no-one took advantage of our delerium and grabbed the Seebold quads at knock-down expo prices, to say nothing of the big root beer tint fish). It's a small wave machine, basically Casper with a fish tail. You'll be seeing more of it. Yesterday I went and surfed. It was sucky, dirty small red tide waves but it felt good to get wet. Too much work, not enough water has been the story of the last few weeks. Next week I go north, then back to set up more Kidman dates. It doesn't stop. Time to go rinse the wettie out I guess, the dawn patrols are what will save the shreads of my sanity.

NSW

both these photos swiped from the Six Ounce Boardstore site (www.sixounceboardstore.com.au) Truly a temple of fibreglass.

I've been a bit aussie-centric lately, but if they keep making boards like these why not? The first is a 5'10" Dain Thomas fish. Dain's a young guy in Byron Bay, his label is Sea Surfboards and I'm loving what he does. Very classic, beautifully made and as much a piece of art as anything else. He builds some incredible looking logs and singles too. I'm sort of glad I don't own this board as I'd feel bad getting it all covered in wax and dings. The second board is another from Mick Mackie in Ulladulla on the south coast of NSW. Personally, I think he's one of the most interesting shapers out there. This particular oddity is 6', nearly 23" wide and close to 3" thick. It sports a really long, narrow raked fin and is apparently insanely fun to ride (according to Neal Purchase Jnr. who has a similar one) Mackie builds some really wild boards- very curvy fish with deep swallow tails (some with flex tails), amazing quad stubbies, a few very extreme 3 fin bonzer style boards with side runners and ultra narrow center fins as well as doing a good line of gunny thrusters for the folks who ride the big hollow reefs in his part of the world. I'm like a kid in a candy store with this stuff, but with these cool, sunny fall mornings I'm loving the dawnies and getting excited about a new board for winter. It's all window shopping right now, but soon.....

onwards

Neal Purchase, Parmenter widowmaker
Photo Kidman

Time is flying away from me. Festivus was a good time and only a couple of weeks ago. I hung with some cool Japanese guys, got to say hi to Skip Frye and watched two fantastically good bands, then drove home to LA from San Diego at 2 am with a truck load of boards for the Mollusk shop out here. I was tired. Since then it's been a whirl of book shipping, barely mediocre surf, another trip down to SD, mediocre surf and much stress and work in getting the Kidman book through prepress. Here's some details- 240 pages, hardcover, drawn from Andrew's 20 years worth of work, packaged in a screen printed box with an exclusive 10" record, limited to 1050 copies total, signed and numbered, $175. It's gone from a book to a piece of limited art, and it's really, really amazing. I'll keep posting stuff and will update on Andrew's planned tour when we start planning it.

Party Time

Richard Kenvin with a Simmons Twinnie, Morro Bay 2005. Photo Kidman

It's Festivus time again. 340 16th St, San Diego. Friday 7th & Saturday 8th Spetember, 12-9pm. Jalopy will play on Sat and there will be Swift Movement surfboards to gaze longingly at as well shirts and books and wetsuits to buy. It'll be fun. The Kidman book is progressing nicely too. 240 pages of photography, film stills, art and interviews from the last 20 years. It will be limited to 1000 singned and numbered copies and will come in a screen printed box with a resin swirl 10" record of music from Andrew and Neal Purchase Jnr. Yeah, it won't be cheap but look at it as a start on your art collection and it won't be ready until early 2008 so there's plenty of time to save.

Deus Ex Machina

Putting out books is an absolute grind and no way to make money, but it has it's advantages, like hooking up with people doing ridiculously cool things, case in point- the Camperdown boys. Oh yeah, the waves are still tiny but you knew that.

www.deus.com.au

Expo

We (the Swift Movement & ConSafos Press) are going to be at the Sacred Craft board expo. There was one booth left so we paniced and took it. Please come visit it, we'll have lots of pretty surfboards and will undoubtedly enjoy the company.
www.surfboardshow.com

Epically Big

The world's tallest man got married a few weeks ago. He once saved a dolphin's life by reaching down its throat and removing plastic from its stomach. Meanwhile waves stay small, the fish gets ridden and I even tried to improve my lot by a short hop into the northern portion of Baja. The waves were a fraction bigger but still nothing to get excited about. It was a fun road trip though, my kid loved it, good food was eaten and we bought some beautiful Huichol bead art. I returned home to unload a truck full of Fugazi books and my life is now devoted to packing and shipping books. Check it out at fugazibook.com.

Pod Room

Ah summer. Warm water, little waves that make the bursts of swell so much fun and the avoidable joys of crowds and stingrays. The days are long, nights balmy and outdoor events so much fun. Thus I begin a blatent plug for the Pod Room. It's possibly the world's smallest surfshop, and definitely the world's best in it's joy per square foot ratio. It's a single room inside a fine old Victorian building at 524 S. Coast Hwy in Oceanside (there's a great organic cafe downstairs) and is run by Chip Bynum who is a fan of the events concept, so he kindly hosts a few. This past Saturday there was art (Harry Daly had me wishing I could break out the credit card), there was music (Jalopy, who have ruled at the past Festivus'-www.jalopymusic.com) and there was even a few chunks of Hydrodynamica courtesy of R. Kenvin. High point (for me anyway) was the Caspar footage. That's the weird 6' Simmons-esque beast mentioned a few posts back. RK has edited down a fantastic little chunk of footage that's popping up here and there- 70percent.org may still have a link to it- and it'll tweak your concept of what a surfboard can be. Very nice, as was the segment of Rasta on his Van Straalen carbon fibre fish. Makes you glad to be a surfer.

Back

Not my photo, but one by the very talented Scotty Sullivan of a place I like to surf

Healed, back in the water and it's trunk weather. Down south again for a day or so, then this AM I got out at the not so lovely SaMo. Little, tiny waves but there were corners and I fished around and had some short ride fun that spat you out in shin deep water. It got crowded and crappier as time went by, and when a 'surf school' decided to paddle a bunch of kids out right in front of me, I decided to go home. I usually avoid the weekends but I've missed getting wet.

New Fin Fun

This is a new 'Spitfire' fin. Essentially a winged keel with no wings. Really thick and foiled like the wing of a Spitfire plane, hence the name. I've had the thing for a while but recent flaness has conspired against me getting a good session on it. Finally rode the thing over the last couple of days on a jaunt down to San Diego. Caught some bumpy but OK chest to head windswell at a couple of spots, and it was plenty to feel this thing work. It holds in incredibly well for a single, doesn't have the insane pivoting from the tail feel of the starfin, but still it never felt like it wouldn't hold, frontside or back, whatever I did. What's really noticible is how drivey it is- I felt like I was getting slingshoted out of the drop- very fun. It's all to do with the increased tip area and I'm really liking it. On top of all this I had a fun trip, picked up a Mabile stinger (unglassed) that my better half is going to paint as an art thng, ate good Mexican food after wandering Balboa Park and fondled some fine, fine examples of alternative surfcraft at the Swift headquarters - a 6' Simmons style board with a 19" tail that is over 23" wide most of the way, has an s-deck and a pair of weird long based keels. Best of all, it's totally light EPS and glaringly whire. Oh so odd.

Coming soon...

What's been keeping me busy and more out-of-the-water than I like is now more or less done. And the next project is well under way. At least the past few days I haven't missed much.

Chipper

The mighty Ben 'Chipfish' of Swaylocks fame with a 5'6" Indian Ocean kneelo. He's looking out at the Indian Ocean too. Ben is one of the most surf stoked people I've ever encountered. He surfs every opportunity he gets, he's absolutely fin obsessed and rides mostly reshaped boards with more plugs in them than you'd imagine possible. Owing to back injury he's been out of the water a bit lately, and so has been laying up dozens of fin panels and making some wild looking combos. After our decent burst of swell last weekend it's easy to get overly grumbly about this weeks lack of anything (especially since I have a new fin for the Horan) so I'm posting Ben as my reminder that it will indeed be 'all good' and that even a couple of short rides on junky waist high surf still counts.

Inhaling The Mahatma

'One in every six people on our planet is an Indian, and the nation they inhabit is conducting the world's largest and most important experiment in democracy. Can a deeply religous society of more than one bilion people with a large Hindu majority sustain a secular government under which people of all faiths are treated equally? If it can work in a developing country as populous and diverse as India, it can work anywhere.
In just sixty years, the power of ordinary Indians to determine who governs them has revolutionised once demoralised colony of Britain, breaking down feudalisim and caste discrimination, and making enormous strides in reducing poverty and disease. In 1947 the average Indian's life had a life expectancy of thirty-two years, and only one in five people could read or write; today's Indian lives twice as long on average, is better off than ever, and two out of every three people are literate. India's information technology boom has buried its image as a timeless, caste-ridden place teeming with paupers, snake charmers and maharajas. The world is doing yoga, wearing pashmina and reading Indian authors, not to mention enjoying spicy Indian cusine and being entertained by the pulsing output of Bollywood cinema.'

from 'Inhaling The Mahatma' by Christopher Kremmer

Another big roadtrip plus is that without a computer to dick around on or a garden to distract me, I get some reading done. This one is a fine history of modern India told through Kremmer's time as a foreign correspondent based in New Delhi. He's a great writer, an Aussie journalist (and surfer) who's written a couple of great books on Afghanistan and Laos respectively. It's an intense history at times. much sectarian violence and that democracy seems to be only semi-functioning, but Kremmer is convincingly hopeful. Good stuff. And there's a swell here too. Nice size, a bit jumbled and windswelly where I was yesterday, but still fun.

crowds

Up early and out after some fooling around, but still early enough to beat the worst of the crowd. Waves were shifty, small and the tide was doing a number on them but the morning was beautiful and I sat away from from a pocket of people enjoying myself. The regular pod of dolphins was doing it's thing out the back and they began moving in towards the rip I was sitting next to, one shot under me and then I was utterly surrounded (and letting a few good ones slip by out of pure amazement.) They were swimming slowly by either side of me, the board was getting buffeted by their wake, I could have quite easily reached out and touched a few and one quite calmly eyeballed me as he came up out of the water. 10 seconds or so of serious crowding as they passed and that was it. Never had them within an arm's reach before and felt terrible as they headed off as 'Wow, those dorsal fins really do look like a Greenough with bit more tip' was one of the first things through my mind. Even managed to slide a few waves and put it on a rail once in a while. A really good day all told.

Being nice to marine mammals is a good thing- if you have kids or dig origami, check Peggy Oki's project here:
http://www.peggy-oki.com/cu_origami.html

Thanks

Waves, creeks, rocks, wind and fog

And so the central Cal trip went. Solid surf, serious afternoon winds and pretty incredible weather. Surfed all the spots I could and did well, pretty much head high or better the whole way. A few spots were just too punishing to bother with, a few were an incredible amount of fun and I had the widowmaker so I was at least prepared. I surfed by myself most all of the time but those that I did encounter in the water and parking lots were all good people. South of Sur was the mellowist so made for a good warmup, the creeks in the Sur were gorgeous, one would be unridable and the next somehow working (if only for a short while), missed the Carmel beachie which I'm determined to get good one day, Santa Cruz was firing but too crowded for my blood, a jetty north of there had some crisp rights and still further north a blown out but working beachie haded me a couple of good left drops. The creeks in Whitey's turf looked pretty rocking but the paddle out alone was not working for me and it all culminated with Ocean Beach being a manageable size so the paddle out was only gruelling not impossible. Visited with the fine folks at Mollusk Surf Shop who deserve your good attentions and as I left the shop on the way out of town I ran into Manny Caro who was an utterly nice guy. I took no photos the entire trip (I'm a backward antipodean- no digi camera, no cell phone, no TV and a tendency to forget to take a camera with me. I plan on developing the two films I no longer remember what's on and getting some sort of digital camera this year though.) and reveled in the cold, undocumented joy of it all.

Dream Quiver #3

Kidman 6'0" Diamond Tail Single
Full-on 'Morning Of The Earth' MP style machine. Big Greenough flex fin, starfin, cutaway- lots of options here.

So I went to the beach early a day or so ago, very low expectations but desperately needing to get wet. It wasn't good, but wasn't awful- waist to chest (at times) and I watched some thruster guy put together a decent ride. I went south of the 5-10 person crowd to a spot that usually works and gambled on it being better as the tide filled. Thought I'd blown it as I spent some time sitting between two rips and not seeing anything much worth paddling for, but patience was a virtue and it slowly happened. Mostly small lefts with a few bigger shorter rights popping up on the edges. I rode few, felt the starfin work nicely and had a fine old time on my backhand for an hour or so before it died on me. All by myself but not really as there were fishos casting at both rips, a 3 person pack maybe 50 yards away, kids hollering on the beach, a pod of dolphins working what must have been a rich spot on the outside and a seal in the lineup with me for a while. Went to work happy

Quiver #4

8'6" Downing Makaha. It's stashed at a friend's place in Hawaii and gets ridden at Makaha. George Downing is a hero and is often hanging around the shop. In the back room Keone Downing's oversized check from his Eddie win is thumbtacked on the wall behind a rack of boards. There's always 4 or 5 of the most insane, sleek frightening 9' + full race Waimea guns in there too. It's a serious surf shop. I rode this in a good sized South Shore swell and had one of the funnest days of surf ever, even despite horrendous crowds. I rode it in small, midweek Makaha surf that was empty except for me, a couple of lifeguards and Dave Parmenter stand up paddling. Riding it is always a treat.

soon...

Central Cal. My lousy photo makes it hard to tell, but this was a solid 6-8 face. I'm back up there next month, and can't wait. Cold, empty, a little scary and astonishingly beautiful. Reminds me of parts of NZ & Victoria, except with oaks and chaparral. Good seafood and aching arms.
Meanwhile, back in LA I finally arrive at the beach and there's working waves.Not great waves, not even good waves really, but waves. I rode, I threw a couple of hard turns to see what the starfin would do and went to work happy. Can't ask for much more than that.

Winter Of Our Discontent

Well, of my discontent anyway. Weeks of no go for the surf, mostly due to my limited window for surf of late, but the swell and weather have hardly been co-operating. It's been dire, my last few go-outs have met with tiny closeouts, waves breaking in inches of water and the like. It can't last, and after getting in the water for the first time in over a week on Friday, it felt good just to be paddling around in the sun. I have had a chance to do a few tasks like ding repair, but I'm ready to surf again.

Dogged

Not my little black & white dog, but one belonging to a good friend. It's on Piha beach back home in New Zealand. This is the beach where I started surfing for real and learnt to love (?) the cold, arm-killing beachbreak. Areas of this beach are OK for dogs and the rules (clean up your dogs mess, don't let it hassle other beachgoers) are well respected. One end of the beach is off limits as there are penguin nesting sites and all too often visitors or new residents to the area disobey and baby penguins die.
This morning I went to a beachbreak. It was sunny, warm and little knee to waist waves were peeling. Unfortunately they peeled rarely and when they did it was in about knee deep water. I turned to go home and saw a man illegally walking his dog down the sand with no means of cleaning up the inevitable mess. I suppose they figure the water is so polluted a little more won't hurt. Dogged all round today.