RIP Waterproof Camera

To make a long story short: I lost my camera yesterday.

Although I've enjoyed taking aquatic pictures, I don't feel too inclined to buy another waterproof camera right away. In fact, I feel more inclined to take a break from aquatic photography and blogging altogether (not because I don't enjoy them, but rather to focus solely on surfing). However, it won't be too long before I'll be back - I enjoy aquatic photography and blogging too much to quit them indefinitely.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Or is it a thousand pictures is worth one word? Wedge

I went to the famous break yesterday and after dealing with the atrocious traffic (it took me almost an hour and a half to find parking and almost an hour to leave), I was in awe at the spectacle that Mother Nature had provided.

Of note: Hats off to the valiant lifeguards yesterday. They saved a bunch of people - including saving people from themselves. I was surprised by how many people actually thought they could handle this spot on such a heavy day. You could tell by just looking at some of these people - coming to the beach to swim in tennis shoes and jeans is not a good look - that they had no idea of the power and danger of such conditions. The lifeguards did a great job of screening those who could go into the water.

From Tip to Tip With Some Drama in Between

Knowing that the much-anticipated swell had finally arrived, I met up with some bros and went from one tip of the South Bay to the other in search of the best breaking spot. Instead of finding the best breaking spot, however, we found some drama.

At the first spot we checked, we were chilling on the beach and observing both the waves and two surfers who were already out. The next thing we knew one of the surfers was clinging onto the side of a jetty while the second surfer was rapidly paddling towards that same jetty. Just as the second surfer grabbed a hold of the jetty, we saw something big and dark partially emerge from the water only a few feet from where the second surfer was. I initially thought it was a sea lion, but I wasn't sure. So when the two surfers finally climbed onto the top of the jetty, I approached them - one of the surfers was none other than Chris Taloa - and asked them what had spooked them. Chris adamantly said it was a shark. He said he saw a crescent tail moving side-to-side (as opposed to up-and-down like a dolphin's tail) and a white belly. Needless to say, surfing at that particular spot was not in our best interest and we decided to move on.

We pulled up to our second destination only to see a couple of fire trucks and an ambulance. I instantly thought "this can't be good". To make a long story short, the story I was told was that a lady had drowned and the lifeguards couldn't find her body. As you can probably imagine, that put a damper on my desire to surf at that particular spot, and we ultimately decided to move on.

At the end of the day, we didn't find a spot with perfectly peeling a-frames, but after so much drama, finding Indo-esque waves was the least of my worries.

What's Going On?

After not seeing any telltale signs of the much-anticipated swell on Tuesday and Wednesday, I was sure I would see a little bit of swell this afternoon. Well, if you couldn't tell by today's blog title, there wasn't any such swell. In fact, it actually looked smaller than yesterday. Despite the disappointing waves, I decided to catch a sesh anyway. It felt good to cool down in this hot weather.

Of note: the water is really warm. Boardshorts weather is here!

Swell... less

Waiting Game

I thought the first signs of the swell were going to show up yesterday. Unfortunately, they didn't. Then I thought for sure said signs would show up today. Well, there was a little bit of bump in the water this afternoon, but at the same time, I didn't see a lot of potential. Hopefully Ma Nature comes through on this swell 'cause there's a particular break that I've been jonesing to ride - I just need a nice little south to come through.
This lone sponger had the waves all to himself on the north side


It looks like I wasn't the only one who was expecting the swell to show up today

Changing Conditions

Perhaps the next best thing to arriving to a spot with epic waves already firing is arriving to a spot, getting into the line-up and then have the waves change to epic. That's exactly how it was this morning... well, except for the epic part. The waves didn't change to epic, nor did they change to good. Heck, they didn't even change to half-way decent, BUT they did get better. And sometimes that's all you can ask for.

A Little Bit of South up North

With a hunch that the home breaks were small, I decided to look for surf at other local areas. To my surprise, I found some uncrowded nuggets. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of visual proof since my camera leaked mid-sesh.






The following pictures are courtesy of my cousin: