Sometimes you just get skunked. But, it sure is nice when something else happens after you've been skunked.

It was late in the year, 1968. Richard Deese and I, after spending the first part of the day in our respective shaping bays, headed out to get some of the nice west swell that was in the water. But this one particular day the east winds where blowing pretty strong and the point in Ventura was junk. Despite what Surfline says about Ventura east winds are not the best wind conditions for Ventura. They may be nice for spots south of Ventura.... like Oxnard and on down to the county line but in town? Not. So we decide to head up to Rincon.

Sometimes the east winds will lay down as you move up the coast a few miles.... no such luck that day. What happened was as we went by little Rincon, saw some clean waves and thought Rincon was going to be good.... Rincon was junk from the east winds. So we turned back and stopped along the road at little Rincon.

Little Rincon is a bit sheltered from the winds by the surrounding hills and has a large kelp bed out side the surf break that will broom the wind chop to create  nice clean surface conditions and provide clean frosted faced waves. Which is why the spot was so good that day. To top it all off there were only a hand full of guys around to take part in the almost surreal waves and conditions. In short order we were suited up and finding our way to the water. The waves were running head high and better, very consistent and close to perfection.

Of all the surfing I've done over the years this was one of those times that still sits in my memory as a rare moment to have experienced. And fortunately Dan Merkel who at the time lived almost straight across the highway in La Conchita had his camera out to take pictures.

Not only having the memory of the surf that day in a picture, the picture is special to me because of Dan, we we're friends from high school, but also I'm riding the first Greenough hull I'd made. At 7'2 it was the shortest board I had so far.

D.R. 

Where I live there can be surf but it may not be that good. It can range from pretty junk to really good. Good like that picture on the cover of Surfer Mag. a few months ago or junk like.. "I'm not going out in that mess".

What happens in Ventura is wind. Winds that originate off the coast up above Santa Barbara that can blow for days at a time. The winds typically don't have a long enough fetch to generate surf but what we get instead of surf is lumpy local conditions. The summer swells we get can get totally ruined by those lumpy local conditions.... yeah, it really sucks too.

This week we had a 3 day summer swell. It started showing Thursday and there was some bump in the water. But it laid down as the day progressed and stayed that way through the night. So Friday morning the conditions were really good. There's nothing better than surf that is dang close to perfect peeling down the point.

I surfed Friday morning until I started to fatigue. Didn't want to get out of the water but had an appointment to go to so I reluctantly got out of the water and did the responsible thing. With visions of those perfect waves in my head for the rest of the day and into the night. I made plans to get up at the butt crack of dawn and get some more Saturday morning. I seldom surf on the weekend but couldn't hold back.

So guess what happened? The wind picked up Friday afternoon and blew all night long. There was more surf Saturday with more size but, the conditions were lumpy... again. And once again I'd set my expectations to high. The surf was ok but after spending a couple hours in really good surf the day before? ... bummer.

Is it a bad thing to wish for really good surf  2 days in a row?

D.R.