Thursday Spring Has Sprung SUP Surf!

After what has seemed like an endless cold, wet winter, spring appears to have made an appearance and this week has been increasingly nice out! I was able to get out for a little SUP surf after work yesterday and had a good time but wowee am I out of surf shape! Here's hoping we get lots of beach time in this weekend!

Feeling Blankity Blank

Steamer Lane from on high, a cam snap from video I shot with my 3DR Solo drone. Here's a direct link to the video this is from.

I'm going to start doing more flying and videowork and expect to be posting more videos to YouTube.

Here's a link to my channel, if you're down, give a sub and help me get to that fabled 100 subscribers number that'll empower me to choose my own special, custom URL.

Beyond this, life goes on. We celebrated Sully's 11th birthday this last weekend with a long and occasionally epic Nerf war. In the run up to his birthday we acquired many, many new (to us usually, most are used) Nerf blasters. To the degree that we now have a rather large arsenal that requires upkeep to prevent it from completely taking over the living room.

And I'm still getting out and SUP surfing as much (almost) as I can. I'm mostly sticking to Indicators, Middle Peak and Steamer Lane these days as Cowells' generally meager waves are either too crowded or there's just not enough of them. Links to SUP Surfing videos as well, mostly mine but occasionally mixing in another SUP video as need be.

Next up is summer break and lots of time off from work and time to spend with kids. Summer plans include trying to get out and camp again, we didn't go at all last summer and I missed it. Maybe even some bike camping if we can make that work.

Surfing Contests, Practice and Skills Improvement

Sunset over Its, 2/11/16.

Today is the Titans of Mavericks surf contest up in Half Moon Bay and it is nothing short of amazing to watch the waves these guys ride.

More so since I've become more and more of a surfer as I've progressed through my SUP evolution from flat water cruising and exploration to a mostly dedicated SUP surfer. I can't lie, its still really nice and a different kind of fun to go touring without worrying about swell, other people and everything else.

Something I am thinking about and realizing more and more is that I need to practice my in the water skills more. Not my on the water skills, I'm pretty good at catching waves, steering through crowds of people (though I will almost always seek to find emptier spots since my envelope to catch a wave is substantially larger than a surfer's, also a source of their gripiness about SUP's in general). In the last week, I've had a couple of getoffs that have resulted in my board becoming a weapon and smashing into me.

The first was when I tumbled forward off the wave and the board came down on top of my shoulders with the initial hit concentrating on the left side. Aside from some tenderness when I touch it, there's been no problems from that one. The other was from a fairly short outing yesterday where I got tumbled and my board bashed me in the chest. Again, no immediate harm or pain, just a little wind knocked out and then complicated by getting caught in the wash zone for a couple of minutes.

We have another three day weekend ahead and good weather on tap. We'll be getting some new booties first but then we will be spending a good chunk of time making sure they work!

Oh and here's a short video I shot with my chest mounted cam over the weekend. This will give you a decent idea of what its like to strap on a leash and head out into the surf on a big SUP!

Weekend Recap

A sunny morning stopover always makes for a good start to the day.

One of the benefits of having weekends on and weekends off with my children is that both give me an opportunity to have fun, different kinds of fun but lots of fun nonetheless.

This last weekend was a very good one. After an expensively annoying last week. I need to stop thinking I'm getting ahead, everytime I do that, I get smacked in the face with an expected expense on top of expected expenses I forgot about...

West Cliff at sunset is pretty awesome!

The highlight of the weekend was spending a few hours at the beach and in the water and my older son decided to join us and play in the water too. He usually sticks to digging or reading in the shade but he came out and we all had a really good fun time playing together!

Seeing as how it is now Wednesday, let's add in a bonus recap of the last couple of days, specifically the afterwork portions of the last couple of days.

I've been super fortunate enough to be able to get out and enjoy some of the recent swell while also becoming much more familiar with my new SUP.

We got out for a short bike ride

Suffice it to say that I spent a good chunk of the last few evenings with a giant shit-eating grin on my face as I caught waves to ride the length of Cowells two evenings in a row! The  guy I bought my board from said it was un-pearlable (that's when your front digs into the water and you slide off the front of the board usually) but I've proved him wrong and I pearled a few times before getting a better stance and launch sorted out.

Unlike the bigger board, the shorter one can zoom right down a wave face and go right down the line happily. It also carves back nicely and I'm starting to get into harder and deeper turns.

Pro tip to other SUPers catching waves: Keep using your paddle on the waves, you can gain speed, retain balance and save waves and more by keeping an active paddle. I keep seeing folks standing on their boards with their paddles held mutely in their hand as they cruise along.

More fun on tap this weekend!

Santa Cruz, Love This Town!

 This was my changing room on Sunday when I went out SUPing and SUP surfing. My friend came down to try her hand at SUPing again, she'd tried it the day before, but she chickened out due to aggressive waves and her lack of wetsuit.
Which was okay by me, I got a good cruising paddle in, watched some top notch kayak surfing competition action at the Lane and then spent a few hours SUP surfing among the hordes of other noobs.
Yep, I'm a noob and raw and not very good at surfing at all yet. Yet.
Sorry, SUP surfing. I'm planning on getting a surfboard as well but I need to concentrate on getting one new set of skills in the books before jumping into another sport. Maybe. I've got some feelers out for a loaner board to get rolling on.

This next photo was one I took while out for a bike ride last week. Saw this little family all in their wetsuits, all on two SUPs and looking like they were headed out for adventure. I pulled over, snapped a couple of pics and then they "battled" until the girls SUP tipped over and they tumbled in. Victory was declared and they all laughed and it was just another little happy scene in our happy little surf town.

And here we have a tarted up (that's Fenspeak for thrown through Snapseed filters to make it purtier than originally snapped).

This has been my regular stop in spot for the last year on my way to work. I like to take a moment to appreciate the splendor of the area I have chosen to live in.

Many more images on tap, this place is positively over-flowing with photo ops.

Living in Paradise Means Lots of Paradisaical Photos

Here are some recent photos I've taken in the Santa Cruz area. Most have been tarted up in Snapseed or by Google's Auto-Awesome.

We had our first really wet weekend of the year with heavy rain most of Saturday morning and then another storm on Sunday morning. It made for good indoor playtime, we played video games, Lego, Minecraft, watched movies and ate party food!

Also, the three SUPers in the harbor? That's my buddy, Sean and his daughter (her first time!) along with Trudi, the lady who owns the SUP Shack.

The boys had almost no complaints about the weekend and I got out yesterday morning to take some photos of the storm and enjoy a little chaos!