SURFING CALIFORNIA. DE-MYTH ME

[aaronn]

i believe it DOES rain in California
the girls are no hotter than any other place
so, is the water ALWAYS freezing cold ?
are the waves anything special ?
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and yes, it is 3:13am
and yes, for reasons best left unexplained, i cannot sleep

[Nick Carroll]

watch what your mate Binnsie and the hot six are dealing with right now on ASL. This will give you a clear picture of daily surfing in CA.

[el rancho]

having been up the whole califnornian coast somewhat (didnt surf) I can safely say that they are deluded substantially in thinking it is any kind of surfing dream.

sure, in season they get good waves, but defintely not all yr round. plus the water is freezing, kinda brown, beaches suck. i was in santa cruz in april last yr (their spring) it was friggin freezing, i was wearing 3 layers and jeans, yet becasue it was spring break locals thought it appropriate to be playing beach volleyball at 6pm in bikinis and no shirts, as well as lame high school students skim boarding.

i dunno, i know there is good waves on that coast, it just seems they cling to this dream life that isnt anywhere near reality.

we have better chicks, most white girls when i was there ('08) were wearing dang flared jeans circa 1998. it was gross. they do have the benefit of awesome mexican/puerto rican girls tho...

[LONGINUS]

having been up the whole califnornian coast somewhat (didnt surf) I can safely say that they are deluded substantially in thinking it is any kind of surfing dream.

sure, in season they get good waves, but defintely not all yr round. plus the water is freezing, kinda brown, beaches suck. i was in santa cruz in april last yr (their spring) it was **** freezing, i was wearing 3 layers and jeans, yet becasue it was spring break locals thought it appropriate to be playing beach volleyball at 6pm in bikinis and no shirts, as well as lame high school students skim boarding.

i dunno, i know there is good waves on that coast, it just seems they cling to this dream life that isnt anywhere near reality.

we have better chicks, most white girls when i was there ('08) were wearing dang flared jeans circa 1998. it was gross. they do have the benefit of awesome mexican/puerto rican girls tho...

Um, I disagree. The Californian coast is ideally placed to benefit from some of the best long range swell trains in the Pacific. Far better than the majority of East facing NSW. Last year in San Fran I didnt surf a day when there wasnt a swell period running of less than 15 seconds. Thats pure fantasy most of the year in Sydney.

cold water - nessecity / mother of invention all that blah blah. This is the reason that O'Neill wetsuits are some of the best on the market

[LONGINUS]

watch what your mate Binnsie and the hot six are dealing with right now on ASL. This will give you a clear picture of daily surfing in CA.

Hey Nick, have they actually found any surf yet? Been unseasonably poop over there lately - guess it doesent take much for a 40 kilo grom to get inverted though.

Is the crew hanging around to cover Trestles?

[el rancho]

having been up the whole califnornian coast somewhat (didnt surf) I can safely say that they are deluded substantially in thinking it is any kind of surfing dream.

sure, in season they get good waves, but defintely not all yr round. plus the water is freezing, kinda brown, beaches suck. i was in santa cruz in april last yr (their spring) it was **** freezing, i was wearing 3 layers and jeans, yet becasue it was spring break locals thought it appropriate to be playing beach volleyball at 6pm in bikinis and no shirts, as well as lame high school students skim boarding.

i dunno, i know there is good waves on that coast, it just seems they cling to this dream life that isnt anywhere near reality.

we have better chicks, most white girls when i was there ('08) were wearing dang flared jeans circa 1998. it was gross. they do have the benefit of awesome mexican/puerto rican girls tho...

Um, I disagree. The Californian coast is ideally placed to benefit from some of the best long range swell trains in the Pacific. Far better than the majority of East facing NSW. Last year in San Fran I didnt surf a day when there wasnt a swell period running of less than 15 seconds. Thats pure fantasy most of the year in Sydney.

cold water - nessecity / mother of invention all that blah blah. This is the reason that O'Neill wetsuits are some of the best on the market

well like I said, its not greatall year, like anywhere. I was there for 5 weeks and didnt see any decent swell at all. the best i saw was some big brown burgers in ventura with 2 guys out. i woulda surfed it for sure if it was a surfing holiday but it was miserable. as per the question.

but I assume by your answer your better placed to answer the question as it sounds you've surfed it. I just visited and wasnt keeping an eye on swell conditions bla bla bla.

basically it was spring and colder than a QLD winter, from san diego to san fran i didnt see anything special. just my experience.

[LONGINUS]

Ahh Spring...at least we aren't the only ones that have crappy surf then I guess

[Nick Carroll]

I was fortunate enough to live in CA for seven years and have visited the coastline repeatedly before and since, often for lengthy periods.

CA has a big coastline and some spectacular surf but I don't think it's wise to compare it in any way to eastern Australia. The water is much colder for most of the year, particularly north of LA thanks to the ruthless upwelling effect of persistent NNW winds along the coast. Much of the best surfing coast is remote and difficult to access and there are large swathes of ill-formed rocky coast or long flat generally closed-out beach lines. In much of the southern coastal area, from LA to San Diego, the swell approaches are heaviiy masked by numerous offshore islands and diluted by a shallow continental shelf more than 100 miles offshore. I was fortunate to live near a super consistent spring-summer-fall surf zone which while crowded was never hard to get waves, at least when it was breaking...but it was nothing like my surfing life in Oz, nowhere near the range, energy or consistency. Made a heap of good surfing friends there -- that struck me as much more important than the coupla handfuls of really excellent days of surf I managed to weasel my way into.

There's more important things than swell interval when it comes to good surf.

You learn a lot about the effect of surfing conditions on overall surfing style and culture when you live in another surfing environment, and I really felt that the type of good surf in CA, especially in SoCal, with its slow, long-interval pulses, flattish faced waves and open down-the-line points, bred quite a different surf culture to that of eastern Oz -- much more trim-oriented, longboardy, smoother, a bit hood-ornamental, not as vertically inclined. Of course as surfing has grown more globally influenced you've seen other types of surfer develop in CA.

[oldman]

i dunno, i know there is good waves on that coast, it just seems they cling to this dream life that isnt anywhere near reality.

Gard bless americaaaa!

[philw]

surely sf and north gets heaps of big raw swell?

ocean beach looks like hell for a quick pre work surf.

i was there for a week one september and it rarely looked anything but suicidal.

i made a few half-hearted attempts to surf sheltered spots like pacifica but it's not exactly a dream surf.

no way would i swap for that!

[Lucky Al]

did you ever surf in humboldt county, nick? i've never been there but keep wondering about it.

[Lucky Al]

oh, but i surfed pacifica and got great waves! let's see if i can find a pic on my computer here...

[mswebersd]

...

[Nick Carroll]

did you ever surf in humboldt county, nick? i've never been there but keep wondering about it.

No, I drove the coast but it wasn't really a surf mission -- heaps of surf up there though. If you don't mind cold water and a lot of unsurfable super windy days. It'd be a wonderful surf trip around Oct/Nov I would reckon.

[WANDERER]

don't forget the noahs!!

Was watching some youtube vids of Humboldt yesterday.

I ship off for the US of A in June/July 2010, 6 months+ in a Dodge Ram van, starting in Seattle, goin up to whistler and banff then east to nova scotia, south to the Florida keys then west to Cali and eventually when the money gets scarce, back to Seattle before coming home, via Hawaii depending on what we get when we sell the van and what's left in the coffers.
I plan on taking a custom built allrounder shorty over with me and acquiring a log over there, then surfing whenever a wave is present on my trip.

It'll be much better than work I reckon...

[steve shearer]

did you ever surf in humboldt county, nick? i've never been there but keep wondering about it.

I cruised up and down the West Coast from Baja to Alaska and got really good surf in Humboldt.

Lot of big uncrowded unruly surf with heavy punishment reels. Lot of rivermouths with big beachbreak barrels.
Mostly in the 6-10foot range.

Really beautiful part of the world......I reckon the water felt colder there due to the upwelling NC mentioned than in Alaska , where the Kuroshio current flows up from japan.
I was there in Winter and survived in a shitty 4/3 with no gloves, booties or hood.
One surf a day.

The biggest danger in the Pacific Northwest is the extremely powerful weed which is smoked in abundance by the locals.
Many times after a postsurf Spliff with one of the locals I had to curl up in the foetal position for about 6hours.
Don't pull a bong unless your an A-grade chronic.

We bought a shitty Ford van in Santa Barbara and lived in that.
I think that van broke down every day and we seemed to spend most of the time stranded trying to fix the fcuking thing before it got impounded in Canada and we walked away from it.

Wands, sounds like an awesome trip ....could I talk you into taking a bigger semi-gun.
We wouldn't have surfed much in Northern Cali without 7ft+ boards.

[OddaP]

The biggest danger in the Pacific Northwest is the extremely powerful weed which is smoked in abundance by the locals.
Many times after a postsurf Spliff with one of the locals I had to curl up in the foetal position for about 6hours.
Don't pull a bong unless your an A-grade chronic.

A trip to the dark side, a very unpleasant place

[still here]

Kind of mid way between SF and LA is San Luis Obispo/Morro Bay , and 25 years ago the "Californian dream" seemed to still exist in this little pocket . Fluorescent green hills and pockets of forest , it rained at night and sparkled in sunshine every day . Seemed to be at least a couple feet bigger than anywhere further South , and way cleaner than anywhere North . In the national park an excellent white sand cove with a great barrelling left reef . And over the hill was Hazard Canyon , a heavy righthander . The waves cranked everyday for a week while there was literally nothing surfable outside of this section of coastline - pretty uncrowded back then too . The "california girl" stereotype was distinctly absent but 7'6 single fins and the laid back psychedelic hippy culture was well and truly alive .

I may have been seeing it through rose coloured glasses , but if I had to do California again I'd head straight there and wouldn't bother with the rest .