Cowabunga.
Hurricane Marie is currently eating Southern California. Beaches washed away, seawalls cracking, homes flooding, panic building for an uncertain Super El Nino season. Local surfers, of course, worried about loss of property value etc. but also too busy cosplaying as Wolf Pak chargers. Visiting surfers, such as Koa Rothman and Koa Smith, enhancing the illusion.
Newport Beach, usually playful, has transitioned into a wild burly tube-fest very reminiscent of the famous Banzai Pipeline. Big large barrels. Crazy drops. In a word, mayhem.
While the best of the best were getting some of the best cylinders of their very lives, the less accomplished were becoming saved by lifeguards.
Adam Yacenda, lifeguard battalion chief for the fire department in Newport Beach, shared that lifeguards carried out 177 rescues on Saturday alone, adding, “Any time you’re approaching over 100, that’s a busy day,” then warning, “We are red-flag conditions from one end of our beach to the other.”
The Wedge, which would be considered one end, also flashed its thang though with less keg.
Which begs the question, for those who call the Southern California home. Did you travel to one of the spots catching max swell, wax your rhino chaser and paddle or did you stay around your local that doesn’t cop straight south swell, wax your plan shape and paddle weird bumpy 3-4ft softies?
I partook in the later though blamed crowds and traffic. Without those, I would have been making shacks at 56th, or wherever it was breaking best in Newport.
Such is life.
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Ja Bless
Nooks and crannies firing. No need to surf with crowd. Broken up enough you can avoid the points. Search and destroy.
Ooh the wedge vid, don’t think i’ve ever seen it that clean.
File under “looks extremely easy and makeable but probably not”
Some sick looking ones
Just seen footage of yesterday at Lowers. Waves looked super fun, as well.
Hey gang here’s a good quezzy while we wait for Slowers to start and please answer honestly. If you could surf any current tour stop with only 3 of your mates and at the size of your choosing which one are yous going?
Personally I’m going either 4 ta 6ft Snapper or 6 ta 8ft Cloudies. These sizes are in Strayan so allow for any differences and state where you’re from please fellas and Sofa yeeeeeeeeeeeeew
4-6ft Chopes
Soooooo fucking fun. You not going icy cold 6 ta 8ft Bells Bowl? Why not apparently its heaps better than The Superbank cuz the swells it gets are really long interval hahaha
ha..Pipe /backdoor….just backdoor……and nah Bells wouldn’t rate in our top 8 waves in Vicco…..superbank well it’s man made , needs sand pumped……vs big barrels not just stand up….but each to his own…..
Hahaha mate why are ya choosing Backdoor when old or new Kirra are heaps better waves with longer pits and don’t even need long interval swells?
If ya read the question properly its just you and three of your mates out so ya don’t even need the locals to get every other cunt out of the water like ya said your Hawaiian mates used to do back in the day.
The best thing is you can surf both in your budgy smugglers cuz like that great line used to say Life Is Better in Boardshorts yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew
Backdoor is fucking mental that’d definitely be my pick. You can paddle out at Kirra during a good swell and get waves but you can’t pull that at Backdoor, it’s a small takeoff zone filled with Barron Mamiyas everywhere you turn. The wave is fantastic, incredible energy focused into a long tapering wedge, it’s pretty easy to pick the gems, and it has consequences you don’t have to wear if there’s four of you out. Just ride a board you can paddle.
Yeh it’s a great shout Nick and am stoked to open an actual surf debate on here. Thing is though you’re still talking about take off zones with heaps of Barons etc when the question involves just you and three mates? Hard to pick when you’re talking about pumping Kirra or Backdoor with nobody out ay hahaha
You’d get more waves though at Backdoor setup… closer in, same takeoff spot, no walk arounds and long paddles against the super current… just big standup kegs from behind the peak. Sounds too dreamy.
*Disclaimer: I’ll gladly take the Kirra freight train multi section below sea level drainers too though.
I think Nick was just highlighting, as a bit of a tangent, why Backdoor has to be at the top of his list; because more than any other wave the difference between a regular day and your empty-day scenario is the greatest difference.
J-Bay, Backdoor and Cloudbreak when it’s not in killer mode, wanting to smash you into the reef. Maybe Snapper, when it’s perfect, would take the place of one of those. I don’t do cold water, but would put up with it for J-Bay.
Hey, NC. Did elite pros ever commonly sell or give away their boards in the 80s or 90s, just to save themselves the hassle of getting them back home through multiple connecting flights, say from Brazil to Australia? Or was that rare?
NC makes a very good point re choosing the one that you would otherwise never get a wave at – so backdoor for sure
backdoor…bigger and better….I have the longest barrel at Backdoor ever……the power the squareness and it get’s 10′ not 5’…..Kirra nah…….
Good call. 6-8 ft perfect Backdoor/OTW.
inspired by me mate, new avi…
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4-5′ Saquerema with binnoculars so I can scan the beach.
Cathedral…yeah Ok…Bells/Winki more better…then we have my coast where I grew up the west coast…..seriously great….make sure if ya come down contact me on my website and I’ll sort ya…..
FYI — Here’s the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s list of tropical storm + hurricane names leading into the near future. Start preparing your best hashtags early. Who knows, maybe Tudor will toss you an upvote. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Curried aloo and goat. Yum.
A classic from 10 years ago. Particularly sharp comments (both in the article and BTL) by JP and LT.
If you want to write for BG then you best step correct.
https://beachgrit.com/2016/12/tears-beachgrit-readers-bullied-me/
Legend has it, half of Koa’s Darc Sports contract is locked away in Molecoin.
Brother in Christ, I know “cancerous” when I see it.
The one time of year socal isn’t huntington hop slop, it’s plagued with aggressively angled lefts, pros in the wild, and footy-mongers (let’s not pretend like the Jetty cam rewinds aren’t actually higher quality than anything Brother is giving us in Fudo).
I can’t stand this hype.
I’m from the north, our season of consequence is longer than these spurts of tropical magia. I was anti south in the 1850s, and I’m anti-south now.
Sue me.
What a comment. Keep em coming.
Hyped south swell in Southern California almost always means I stay away from any place with waves that will be good, because it is a guaranteed total gong show.
come down here and I will show you big barrels and a couple of people out…but need a wetsuit…..which as you can see with LT/Blowin/SC etc….they would never venture into colder water…..so miss Worlds bext surf!
The only problem with cold water is that it’s cold…
yeah got down to only 13.5 this year instead of 11.8…..but when you have good Japanese wetsuits…I haven’t been cold in any conditions in 30 years….the pay off i the wave consistency and quality….and a lot less crowds….has Bells/Winki this week ,perfect triple O/H, and max 25 guys spread…
20 degree water in winter here is more than cold enough for me. Think if I head down to Vicco it’ll be for the golf haha
Getting burnt by penguins is just too hectic for me mate!! I have to ask too Brutus if it’s sooo fucking good down there why does every cunt from there seem to move up here hahaha
hey I get it and realize that in a certain way ….the Southern Coast of Australia is portrayed as freezing / BIG sharks/ heavy waves / Flat burgers/grumpy locals….yeah……so don’t come down here….just so ya know in Summer water goes to 23 Degrees….so really hectic down here…LOL….
Haha forgot about that. At least my Kaspa is declining at a slower rate.
Xox
Rock the Kaspa!!
so many new fiends to meet and greet?
Ever the realist?
I had a blast today at the point. Saw some #prosinthewild. Someone in the lineup complained it was as crowded at Malbu – lol not even close even if the parking lot was full. Also, there’s way more butts in the ‘bu. Sorry @strayancunt:disqus I didn’t even look at a barrel.
No dramas Lowey just getting out and amongst it is good enough for me. Not gonna get a good one sat on the couch fingering your bum hole ay yeeeeeeeeeeeew
not gonna lie it would’ve been cooler if I’d gotten too00obed
My favorite place on the planet besides Mindy’s high end massage parlor
More like bonsaied Pipline…
AmIright?!
Anymore dates to report on CB?
Nope. No action whatsoever.
Been real fun up north too.
Koa Rothman is supported by Vaer watches funnily enough. Here he is pictured showing one off! Strange times!
#watchgate
Xox
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then ask how many waves do you get in a session….??
I think I got 3 for TC Oma- and I remember every single one of them.
Nice. Was listening back to Barbarian Days this weekend while driving and he talked about one of his early sessions at Paul do Mar and he said that he got three waves that made the entire trip.
Finnegan‘s talent, even more so than his peers who are also good at it, is making the surfing experiences relatable to the reader. I’ve never travelled as far as he has or surfed the gigantic waves he has in Madeira, other than a handful of times when the swell came to me, but a couple times every chapter he writes something and it’s so perfectly relatable and you understand exactly what he was experiencing.
Sometimes 3 waves is all that it takes.
Sometimes one wave is all it takes… but more is better.
More is definitely better. I had almost edited my comment to add that caveat.
except those days where your first wave is your best one and then the rest of the session never produces another like it.
yep 3 waves….but a cyclone swell can last for a week….would you be happy to surf 6 hrs a day paddling against a rip …for say 1 wave every 2 days?
Hahahaha mate your hatred of up here is blinding your judgement. I would rather get one full throttle Kirra drainer than 100 waves at Bells. If you’re happy down there surfing cold burgers then good onya but I have no idea why ya keep having a dig at where me and Longy are from haha
“So much dificulty choosing the volume for my new board, in anticipation of the great swell, that i missed it entirely…Maria dat is.” Surfline Man
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nope.
I would definitely prefer two waves every one day, than one wave every two days.
he’s a great writer and thats the best book ever written about surfing, by a long, long way.
he seems like a humourless douchebag though.
I’ve watched some interviews and live readings and he seemed alright, if a little stoic.
I think what you’re seeing is his fear, as he talks about in his writings and interviews, of not being taken seriously, by the people he respects, when it comes to his writings on policy and social issues. That’s my take on it anyway.
we just had a run of what RCJ called 15’………Barrels and a few open walls to carve on…….my point is , Kirra is a man made wave now as is Snapper as is the Wedge…….so if people who ride the pools are poolies//so man made waves > Moolies , LOL….
I would drive for hours to get a proper one at Kirra but thankfully it only takes me 15 minutes yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew