"Stay happy and you'll be perfectly fine" - Jack Norris

Grey & southerly

Hello Friends,

About to give the new fantastic plastic machine a run in the littleness at Rincon.
About to give the new fantastic plastic machine a run in the littleness at Rincon.

Okay, just a quick little note for your afternoon amusement. Got waves again on this side of the ocean. Best of the trip (which isn’t saying a lot). We headed south from Santa Barbara with hopes of possibly finding some little things at Rincon. Alas, it was not to be. Still too small for the place. We did however have a brief conversation with two gents sporting Greenough style spoon kneeboards. One of the blokes (see picture below) was just taking his new epoxy version out. It even has a mount point on the nose for a little waterproof camera. Kinda cool.

Lotta mal riders, but general standard of surfing was not exceptional at California Street in Ventura on this particular afternoon.
Lotta mal riders, but general standard of surfing was not exceptional at California Street in Ventura on this particular afternoon.

Back in the car, and back south along the old highway to check the various possibilities from Emma Wood park to the Ventura overhead. Nothin’ doin’ really. Ended up back at California Street where the swell was showing much more obviously. A couple of guys just out of the water told us that it had just started to come up. Not often you hear that! Surface conditions were sub-optimal with a light N wind kinda junking it up a bit. But as fans of onshore conditions know, the faces are still clean. Sets were pushing into the shoulder high range, and the line was quite long. I jagged a couple on my 6’8″ 7S fish. Perfect board for the conditions – although the large number of mal riders would no doubt have argued the toss. A couple waves went for a good 2-300 metres. You can really play on something like that. Out of the water on dusk and home to Santa Barbara. Had dinner at It’suki, a brilliant little Japanese place that I can recommend to anyone in SB.

Hope your day’s been a good one!

…here’s what I wrote earlier…

At around 0530 the automatic weather stations along the Sydney coastline, the southerly was rolling along at 15-20 kts. Skies are set to be overcast with a chance of the odd shower saith the Bureau.

Surf situation is looking pretty marginal, with the MHL data showing only a metre or so of 7-8 sec windswell. My guess is that the only place big enough to be rideable will also have plenty of onshore wind to go with it.

Meanwhile, on this side of the pond it’s another beautiful, mild and clear southern California winter’s day. Sadly, for the millions who like to surf, it looks as though we’ll do well to score anything much above waist high. Anyway, hope to get out and about for an explore later, so maybe have a picture for you at some point this afternoon…

Have yourself a top old day, and may my remote prognostications be utterly and completely wrong!