On my way north up the coast from Santa Cruz a few weeks ago, a full house of windsurfers at Waddell Creek. This would look best as a 3-4′ mural. One of the many limitations of electronic as compared to the real thing. Sigh. Some day I’ll do an exhibit of panoramas, grande size. I have tons…
18 years ago a slight lapse in concentration crushed Pascale’s dreams of surfing. With the help of a family friend and a roll of duct tape, she can now call herself a surfer.
https://mpora.com/videos/AAdif7to116i
-Mike W
In the mid-50s there was a gang of us surfers here in Santa Cruz, maybe 20-30 in number. There were no wetsuits, and UC was not yet here. Nor was SiliconValley. In the winter months, there were very few people around. Other than the water being so cold, it was paradise.
One of my great friends from those days is Betty Van Dyke, and when I called her yesterday, she said she was going over to Jack O’Neill’s for martinis with some old surfing friends. I’ve known Jack for over 50 years, back before his wetsuit surfing empire, when he was selling firefighting equipment and I was an insurance broker — in San Francisco. Both of us bodysurfed at Kelly’s Cove. Early ’60s. When he started his surf equipment business in about 1963, I was his insurance broker (before I bailed on that world).
So here was Jack, holding forth in his cliffside house, and we had a delightful reunion. He’s (real) hard of hearing, has only one working eye, and is 90, so it took me a while to my volume high enough so he could hear me, but I did, and sat real close and we got really rolling about the old days. It was like dragging dusty treasures out of old chests.
Also there was Rich Novak, he of the NHS/Santa Cruz Bikes/Santa Cruz Skateboards empire — twinkle in his eye — and with an icy martini each, six of us had an hour of rare fun. When it got time to go home, everyone said, wow!
Photo by Dave McGuire, l-r: Betty Van Dyke, Richard Novak, Jack O”Neill, moi.
I’m heading to Santa Cruz for 2 days to see my daughter-in-law and 2 grandsons (Papa has gone to Nashville on music business).
I want to get a really good wetsuit (with built-in hood) that I don’t have to struggle so much to get into (and out of), and doesn’t feel like a suit of armor (like my custom made 5/4). Any suggestions? My friend Ray swears by his $500 O’neill suit which he says is really flexible.
“We offer an alternative to the
thruster and contest mentality that dominates our sport. We choose
to celebrate surfing for what it is:
a joyful union between the surfer
and the ocean. Our mission is to
give voice to those people — surfers, shapers, writers, artists, filmmakers, and photographers — who quietly
keep surf culture alive.”
https://www.liquidsaltmag.com/
Last week I met Kevin Kelly in San Francisco at Trouble Coffee to talk about his forthcoming book, Cool Tools (which looks sensational), and we walked a couple of blocks over to Mollusk Surf Shop. Artist Jay Nelson had just completed this cocoon-shaped loft, and below is a photo of the interior of his little 8-foot surf boat (see page 180 of Tiny Homes).
It’s viewable at Mollusk Surf Shop, a great place to visit near Ocean Beach, San Francisco.
Click here to see more of Jay’s creations. There are also two pages on him in Tiny Homes.
I had this wonderful period in my life some years back where, for maybe 2 weeks, I dreamed every night of flying. It wasn’t like I was suddenly in the air, or jumped from a height. I started on the ground, ran, flapped my arms, and took off. It was such a vivid experience, I remember it clearly, after all these years. An out-of-body experience, if you’ll pardon the cliché. During my waking hours, I’d sometimes feel like I could almost do it.
Yesterday I was corresponding with Kian Clipson, who lives in Southwest England; his small, cozy, artistic mobile home is going into our new book, Tiny Homes on the Move, and I decided to check the paragliding website that Kian co-founded, here, and there is a ton of exciting stuff. These guys are doing what I did in my dreams.
Urban Side from Jean-Baptiste Chandelier JB prod on Vimeo.
There is a 2-mile and 12-mile paddle race in Capitola (sister town of Santa Cruz), Calif. on June 22, 2013. It’s in honor of surfer Jay Moriarty and has divisions for different ages and for regular paddleboards and standup boards.
Click here.
This video is way old now, but it still takes my breath away. Check out the clip starting at 4 min. 17 sec.