You can’t predict the weather, and when it gets really nice what are you to do?

Usually June in Ventura is gloomy. Usually all along the California coast the weather in June is gloomy. Gray overcast days most of the month that may or may not break into sunshine. As well, we may not see any surf, or if we do it’s gotten crossed up by channel wind and therefore not good for surfing.

So what happened this past week? It was sunny every day all day long. And, there was no channel wind. Which means the surface conditions were great for surfing. And, we’ve had a string of southern hemisphere swells reach Ventura. Though small, it was clean and glassy all day all week. Until yesterday afternoon when some wind picked up then died down again around 7 p.m.

For Ventura some years you can count the number of clean surf days with all day glassy conditions or light variable winds on one hand. We just had a nice 5 day stretch. I surfed so much I was afraid of hurting my shoulders so after surfing my new 7’0 twin fin hull 4 go outs I switched to the 8’0 quad and then my 9’1 PSQ. I haven’t surfed PSQ for some time and was surprise at the time it took to find my feet… at least a dozen waves I’d say. But that was ok because I surfed for about two and half hours, so I got it down.

What fun… I remember telling my son when we where surfing one nice sunny summer day, in the middle of the day, which meant we weren’t at work making surfboards, ‘hey, if the surf ain’t blown out then work is!’

So, when the weather gets good and there is some surf with it… what do you do? Go to the beach!

D.R.

Days with good conditions all day and surf need to be surfed. At least where I live.

My story post 31. Significant surfing days.

It was a late summer day in September 1967. Warm, sunny, with light variable winds and some how I ended up at the beach when the tide was about to make its turn from a low of around 1.5 feet.

The sand was of course all filled in from the summer months so there were no cobles showing along the point. With no leashes back then, and never a thought of one, with the lower tide and only sand along the beach made a lost board a casual swim to the beach knowing your board would wash up on sand instead of a frantic one with worries of your board being washed up over rocks.

I went down to the point alone in my 61 VW bus, the ultimate surf car. When I arrived it just so happened that one other local guy, Steve Shaw, was there too. Steve “pee wee” Shaw was a good surfer, one of the crew, with some notoriety from a picture that made Surfer Magazine of him on a clean Stanley’s wall. One of the very few published pictures of surf from that now long extinct surf spot.

So what greeted our visit to the point that afternoon? To our stoked amazement we saw perfect 6 to 8 foot faced waves stacked up like corduroy reeling down the point with not another soul around. School had already started so that explained a little but still… was there a tidal wave alert or something? How cared? We where on it in short order.

Having surfed all these years days like this when everything has lined up so perfectly get etched in your memory, it doesn’t matter how long ago, they are available for recall at the mere thought. This was one of those days.

Just me and Steve paddling out and over wave after perfect wave casually working our way around the line up for the best take off spot and dropping into the biggest and best waves of every set. Laying out bottom turns with everything we had, racing down the line under feathering wave faces, hanging through sections planted on the nose, cutting back and doing it all again on the same wave, then paddling back out to the line up. We where like yoyos on a string from Figueroa St. to well below Palm St. until we had our fill.

I still remember my last wave. Coming down the line and executing a big roller coaster on the inside wall off and riding to the beach in the white water left from the long ride that started way up the point.

As I walked back up the beach I was greeted by one of the local guys that had just showed up and witnessed my last ride. He said “I didn’t think you would make that last move”. It was only one of many being pulled off by Steve and I for at least the last couple hours. And, I don't think either one of us ever swam for a lost board.

D.R.

Days to remember

If you are interested in surfboard design and would like to be around people that are then the place to be yesterday was at the Surfing Heritage Foundation. If you weren’t there then, to use a line from Endless Summer…. ‘you really missed it’.

Yesterday, Saturday June 7^th was the Surfboard design workshop hosted by Bill Thrailkill and the Surfing Heritage Foundation. With guest, shaper Jim Phillips, and attendance by 50 or more surfing enthusiasts. I was one of the enthusiasts and had a really great time.

To sit and listen to dialog and discussions about surfboard dynamics and be around a bunch of guys that are stoked to learn and understand design aspects is inspirational.

As well, it was great to meet some of the guys from the Swaylocks forum that I have interacted with online. And to be in a room with hundreds of surfboards from redwood planks to the modern short board all beautifully displayed and identified, that makes the atmosphere so perfect and is worth the price of admission.

This was the second work shop, the first one was February 07 and was really great. This year with more in attendance the dialog was fantastic and the stuff Jim Phillips shared was as good as gold. I’m sure everyone went away full to the saturation point… I know I did.

Included in the event was a raffle. With the price of admission you received a raffle ticket and could purchase as many as you wanted. There was a bunch of stuff in the raffle, several blanks, even machined shaped, fins, and building supplies. It was fun watching as the guys would receive their winnings.

What a great time…

D.R.

At the event last year I won a blank which I shaped into a Stubbie Quad and gave to the event this year to be included in the raffle. With lamination donated by Patagonia and fins donated by O'Fishl
.

Me, the Stubbie Quad and raffle winner Tyler.

Myth, magic and Fair Day.

It wasn’t long after I got connected with a few of the local guys in the Ventura surf seen that I began getting briefed on some of the areas surfing folklore.

In the sixties there were no surf forecasts, web cams or for that matter, surf reports on the local radio stations. Yeah, the surf report when it started guys used to think it sucked when someone would do a beach run in the early morning light to check the local surf conditions then go to a phone somewhere… no cell phones then either, call the radio stations give the report of what they saw which would be recorded and played back all day. Those surf hungry in landers could listen for the report and if the report was favorable make their one or two hour treks for surf.

Well, before there was any kind of surf report there was one day you could count on for surf. It was the annual day of the first winter swell, it was actually marked on the local Ventura calendar too. Every year no matter what, be ready because sure as you can surf you’re going to get some on this day.

When I was first told this I thought… ‘wow really?’… but the closer the day got the more I anticipated, then even started getting anxious because it could get really big so ‘be prepared’.

So how can you predict without fail the day the first winter swell would arrive? Well, because…. it’s Fair Day. And without fail the first winter swell would always arrive on Fair Day. The first day, opening day, of the Ventura County Fair. And guess what? in 1967 my first year in Ventura, just like the story was told I woke up that day, that Fair Day in October, went down to the beach and there it was. The first winter swell of the season. All the local crew knew, and now I did too. Fair Day!

The Ventura County Fair is not held in October any more and hasn’t been for a long time. It’s held for 10 long days in August. And Fair day died with the new Fair schedule. For those that don’t know… the Fair grounds are right on the Point in Ventura. When the Fair is on it gets close to impossible to get to the beach to surf after about 10 or 11 a.m. And there’s one thing you can count on. Sometime during those 10 Fairs days we will see some south swell action reach Ventura. But, it’s almost impossible to get to after the Fair is under way.

D.R.

Fair Grounds picture.. David Pu'u
used by permission