The Blacker the Berry, the Sweeter the Juice...

But the later in the day, the better the waves? Not usually. It was this morning, though. Conditions cleaned up mid-morning, blackball went into effect, and if you were in a certain part of the line-up, you were most likely stoked.

This guy got a bunch of in-and-outs

Nick busting an air rollo

Curtain call

Here are some unedited clips. Since I didn't initially plan to video record, I didn't use a tripod - the videos are a little shaky. I'm not too stoked about the YouTube compression, as it degraded the quality pretty significantly.

Small Kine Hawaiianitis

The lack of waves combined with the uncharacteristic gloomy skies during the past month gave me a pretty good case of hawaiianitis (aka laziness), hence the lack of blog posts.

Fortunately, Mother Nature came through with a cure for my hawaiianitis today, which consisted of a little swell and clear skies.

Could'a Used Some Sun

I guess the sun gods weren't pleased this morning. I was hoping for some good lighting, but the sun refused to poke through the thick marine layer. It was one of those sessions were you just shrug your shoulders and mutter "it is what it is".

The good news was the waves were as advertised (which is why I was really hoping for good lighting in the first place), albeit a little walled.

Zero-to-Sixty

I arrived at a spot this morning in which I found zero spongers in the water.  I walked around a bit before I saw a group of spongers heading out to the line-up.  Shortly after that, another group of spongers were heading out to the line-up, too.  It went from zero spongers to a bunch with quickness.

It's the last weekend of June, and with that, hopefully it'll be the last weekend of June gloom.  I know June gloom won't necessarily go away just because it's not June anymore, but after dealing with June gloom conditions since May, the sooner it goes away, the better.

Little Dumpers

When I initially paddled out this morning, I noticed a little sandbar that had potential.  As the tide dropped a little, that potential turned into reality as nugs started to dump on that sandbar one after another.

Flashback: Big Bucks

It’s no secret that when it comes to advertising dollars, the American bodyboarding industry undoubtedly gets the short end of the stick. Just flip through any of the several one American-published bodyboarding magazines and you’ll see what I mean.

With the exception of advertisements from bodyboarding mainstays - such as Morey Boogie, Custom X and Toobs - American bodyboarding advertisements largely consist of unappealing products from unknown companies. With all due respects, I just don’t need a bodyboard shoulder strap that doubles as a towel.

It wasn’t always this way, though. In the early to mid-90s, money from big companies flowed freely through the American bodyboarding industry. It isn’t a coincidence that it was during that period that the American bodyboarding industry experienced the biggest boom in growth that it has ever seen – before or since.

It would certainly take a miracle of biblical proportions for the American bodyboarding industry to receive the same kind of money that it did in it’s hey day. For the time being, however, let’s enjoy some of the ads from a bygone era.

USBA Huntington Beach

I checked out the USBA event at Huntington Beach yesterday. The waves weren't epic, but the contestants made do with what came through.

The cloudy/hazy conditions didn't make for optimum lighting for taking pictures or videos, so I snapped only a few before I decided to bounce by high noon.

I got to check out the Churchill Hubbs yesterday. It has a stiffer blade, foot pocket padding (a la Vipers), and ankle padding and built in fin tethers (a la no fin you've ever seen before).

Bud Miyamoto

Won Ton