Close Encounters of Dave Blake Ocean Beach Waverider, San Francisco, CA     Home page:  Ocean Beach Surf info

Present company included
1) LloydP
2) Foon
3) ggcarroll
4) Tom Orsi
5) Mike Sullivan (Sully) 

Lloyd placed a pic up on his web site. [also can be seen here.]  Foon, ggcarroll (Glenda), and Sully ate.  The other three of us just drank beer and talked surf and jobs and families.

2001-07-13.  John Singer and I hit Santa Cruz on Friday 7/13.  We surfed on a new 3 ft 17 second south at 38th and the Hook.  John made a full ride end to end at the hook on an overhead wave - sweet.

2001-08-04.  LloydP and I went surfing between Pacifica and Ocean Beach in a not so well-known spot for waves ranging from head high to juliatoms well overhead. Lloyd's booty got holes in it, and he placed it in his mouth. Then an overhead set came in. Lloyd took off on the first wave causing me to pull out. Then he pulled out after realizing his leash was off and his booty was in his mouth (I am dead serious on this one - quite humorous).

2001-08-10.  Tom Orsi and I hit Ocean Beach dawn patrol on nice shoulder to head high waves. It was SWEET. Turns out Tom lives 5 blocks down from me on the same road. We'll be surfing again.....

2001-08-21.  Jose Borrero stopped by en route from the Pacific North West (PNW) to LA and we surfed.  I am sitting at the computer last night trying to read the incoming swell when the cell phone rings. I ignore it. Then the home phone rings, and it is Mr Two Shoes aka Jose Tsunami. I was surprised - we had contacted a few weeks ago when he was heading to the PNW, and he was now heading back. He wanted surf in the morning before the drive to LA.

It looked like swell was under two foot and winds were onshore, but we agreed to meet at Ocean Beach at 7 anyway. At 7 AM the swell was about 2 foot and the winds were onshore, but waves were to be had. Actually, we watched a coupla guys on funboards struggle substantially to paddle out.  With conditions like those, you'd think we would blow off the surf altogether and go to a skate park or something lame like that. Or, go for a three mile hike in to another spot equally flat. But no, we surfed. We each caught several rides, and I witnessed the patented "two shoes off the lip" maneuver several
times. The better waves were holding up faces between waist and chest high. Actually, it looked like the seal was having the most fun, and catching the most rides.  Then, after the ride, I got to see two uk swiss rolex shoes' new board. Sweet. It is brand new, never ridden, already dinged, and traveled to Mexico and the Olympic peninsula. Seems Jose has had a long run of bad surf, and is heading to Los Angeles for a while.

2001-08-24.  Surfed with GGCarroll (previously just met), Gamivia Duke, Gioni Pasquinelli, Jeff Kaplan. We met up this morning in the gray mist. Myself, kdalle, Gamivia, lp, and Gioni. Pacifica was too messy and wrong tide, Sloat was sloppy sloppy, but VFWs was JUST right. After recollecting ourselves at the new spot, we headed out to surf. 

Air temp: 60 F, Water temp: 53 F, Winds: light, Wave height: better sets were shoulder high, maybe a tad more, with 13-14 second periods. 

We started with lp. His first wave was unremarkable, except that when he pulled out the nose of his board smacked into his cheekbone. After confirming he was not bleeding, he continued charging. 

Kdalle did a double session yesterday, both solidly overhead, and came back as though he were not even tired.

Gamivia caught the wave of the day, at least as far as I could see. He was paddling for the same wave as Gioni, and Gioni was deep. But it was going to close out on him, so I yelled at Gamivia to charge it. The wave face held up remarkably well, and it was a 10 second plus ride. At several points sprays of
water were sent off the wave back to let me know he was still riding.

Gioni had plenty of waves, and some with improbably steep dropins, most of which he negotiated well. 

Ggcarroll came out for a brief while, to take a photo, which seemed broken up when a set came in the middle. 

A good stoke was had by all. 

2001-Sept 6-8.  Surfed with bodysurfer Sully. Posted to the net in Baptism at OB thread. (Also see Sully's Post in his Close Encounters.)

2001-November.  I had a tremendous time surfing SD county with the following ASers:

George "Terminal tube" Barnes: I DP'd with George three days at his home break for lack of better swell. His home break was shoulder to head high on the different days, and jacks up fast and peels hard down the line. George loves to take off deep, rip down the line, and pull in to a terminal tube. You go in, but you don't come out. This is a wave that, although it doesn't really break over head high with any shape, carries tremendous power.

n8 - surfed with him two mornings at the OBsurfr home break (and n8 home break). n8 is a shortboarder with a little bit of a mouth - but a class act to surf with. I did see him pull in twice on the same wave at this break, before pulling in for the terminal third time. And he got to watch me take a very inappropriate head first pitch on a wave there which amused him somewhat.  n8 does OK as long as he gets his 11 AM nap. :)

Thomas Keener: I went to Blacks with Tom and Dan. Tom didn't seem too thrilled by the shoulder high waves at Blacks, but he grabbed a few and nearly went head first into me once. I found Blacks is qualitatively a lot like Ocean Beach - a beach break wave that can peel instead of dumping. 

Dan King: Dan met me three times for surf, and narrowly missed a fourth. We surfed Blacks, Windansea, and Swamis. You gotta give Dan credit for meeting me at these places that are very
stand-up dominated - especially Swamis which is a mushy wave. Dan fed me weather updates, and kept the stoke going hard.

John Hermesman met me at my conference and we hit Windansea with Joanne, Dan, and Bill Andrews. John is a pretty low key guy and grabbed his fair share of shoulder high or smaller Windansea. 

Joanne VanMeter met us at Windansea, and then met me at Swamis on my way back and took the pictures in the above URL. Joanne loves to swiss watches rip waves on her short board, and is quite a nice person as well. A special thanks goes to her for lending me a longboard for Swamis and figuring out how to make those waves look good in photos. 

I had a short conversation with Terry Hendricks who informed me it was about to go off back home - and he is right. It looks like about 8-10 ft 17 sec is coming in tomorrow morning. Unfortunately I didn't get to surf with Terry or check out his equipment. 

And that leaves Bill Andrews. He is truly a Windansea old-timer - yelling at everyone in the water, taking whatever waves he wants. At one point a boogie boarder came around him, and got in deep, and Bill turned in and stuffed him in the whitewater before enjoying a nice left. Bill is quite simply a bitter old curmudgeon who is clearly the top dog in the lineup in La Jolla based on 50 years of talking trash in the lineup and charging whatever waves need charging - Big Blacks, Killer Dana, and many many others. Although Bill is the same age as my father, he has more zest for life than most people my age. I have a dim hope that I will have that kind of stoke going in another 25 years. 

A hearty thanks to all the SD alt-surfers that made me feel so welcome in my week in SD county. I didn't get to surf every break I wanted, but it could hardly have been for lack of good guides.

Undated - Michael Blend.  Mike is an old college friend I've been helping to surf. We've probably surfed together 100 times. I have told him about the newsgroup, and he decided to enter it by taunting me. Ahh, alt.surfing - a parody of life. Or is it the other way around.

He has also surfed with Gamivia, kdalle, and lloydp.

Maddux at Ocean Beach SF - Dec 2001.  Several of our NorCal crew were there - kdalle, G, lp, me, and Tim.  See rest of the post here and some pics from the session.
 

Point totals:  38