Surf Event Tomorrow!

Sorry about the late notice, but tomorrow's shaping up to be a fun day on the Sonoma Coast. This just in from Surfrider:

The first Bodega Bay Blue Water Paddle Race will be this Saturday February 25th from 10-2 on Bay Flat Road. Sonoma Coast Chapter is looking forward to hosting a fun community and family event. This is the first of three events this year with the grand finals in September. We realize that there is much to learn but hope to improve with each event.

On Saturday, there will be individual as well as team events. The distance will be 200 yds and there will be some boards provided but best to bring your own. The chapter will award prizes for the best times and there will also be some food and beverages provided. All levels and ages encouraged to participate.

Please contact Rich Potter for questions at (707) 480-0122 or email sonomacoastsurfrider@comcast.net

We will need help on the day of the event with serving food, keeping & recording times, set-up & clean-up.....if you are able to help please send an email ASAP and plan to arrive at 9 a.m. if possible

Get a team together and come on down to support clean water in Bodega Bay! The entry cost is $5 and all proceeds will go to help cover the cost of the event and the Sonoma Coast Surfrider Blue Water Task Force which tests ocean water quality.
Hope to see you there!

Blender Bender

Let the purists have their sub six-foot fishes and supra nine-foot longboards and single malt scotches and American Kennel Club approved Pomeranians.

I’ve been on an unpure, anti-fundamental, mudblood, blend bender lately and I’m fucking stoked. Just shaped a 6’9 full-volumed, deep-and-wide swallow-tailed, beak-nosed, down-railed keel finner and I’m calling the thing a fish.

8’2 shovel-nosed pinched 50/50 railed blended concave to belly bottomed single fin? Log.
For what is shaping—or surfing, itself—without the blend? Flats and curves. Convexes and concaves. Ideologies. Styles. Geographies. Pulled apart and mashed back together in a lurid waterbased alchemy that defies language altogether.
My current favorite blends:
7’0. Longboardy. Shortboardy. Carvey. Skatey. Roundy-flatty. Smallish wave. Largish wave.

Clear.

If this were mine, I’d ride it all over the goddamn place. But it’s not, and it’s headed to The Surf Shop. If you live near there, you should buy it.

Great King St. Artist’s Blend. This stuff is the real deal, and the best scotch expression you will ever find for under $40. Pour it into a glass, add a drop or two of water, let it sit tight for ten minutes, then get your mind blown as wave after wave of salt, toffee, vanilla, chocolate-covered orange, then hot pepper get together and do it with your tongue. A blend.

Ben. Nobody knows what the hell kind of dog he is, and he’s not to be trusted in the house alone, but he’s a good guy. The girls jump on him all damn day and he never asks for anything in return other than maybe nosing the garbage when you’re not looking. Thank God nobody in the house is still in diapers.

Of Midlengths, pigments, and atmosphere

Words I’m not really that stoked about right now: Zillow. Drought. Romney. Mayonnaise. Lana del Rey.

Words I can really get behind: Dungeness. Pliny the Younger. Leonard Cohen. Caol Ila. WNW Swell. Blue.

I’ve been pondering this last one while looking at the pics of Adam’s new 8ft Broadsword. It’s a lovely color. Tony Mikus—master of pigments and one of the best laminators on the planet—calls it medium blue. I like that, too. Simple.

We’ve seen a lot of blue up here this winter. Mostly in the sky, but in the water, too. Etymologically, the word blue is loaned to us by the French: belle, for beautiful, and eau, meaning water.

The Thai word for blue translates literally to sky.

And there we have it. Air and water.

And if you’re a California surf enthusiast, like Adam, it makes perfect sense: blue for the immersion, the submergence, the surfacing. Blue for the melding of sky and sea and experience, and the endless cycles of light and ocean and paddling back out for another.

Then, maybe cracking, a PBR in the parking lot—it doesn’t get the blue ribbon for nothing.