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Winter surf Log

Open to mostly benign surf topics. Like: "Gosh! I had fun on my softtop the other day". Registration is required.

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Re: Winter surf log

Postby Howly Wolf » Mon Dec 30, 2019 12:33 pm

Zzz
Last edited by Howly Wolf on Wed Nov 02, 2022 9:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Winter surf log

Postby harg » Mon Dec 30, 2019 1:22 pm

some weirdness with all the swell and crazy high tides the last couple weeks, but managed to get a few good ones, lots of big mushy ones, and a pretty solid freefall beatdown. as a val that usually leaves before light, the spot call is always tough this time of year, but i think i only made the wrong call once, which was nice. only real disappointments were missing a good day with a messed up neck after said beatdown and not seeing a single whale during 'whale week'. state park people had me all hyped up, but all i saw were a bunch of land whales. guess they have to migrate too.
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Re: Winter surf log

Postby Major Lazer » Mon Jan 13, 2020 11:31 am

Will you brave the snow for offshores Wed?
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Re: Winter surf log

Postby buoyhead » Mon Jan 27, 2020 3:57 pm

Waves today about as good as it gets.
Weather about as bad as it gets.
Funny how that works.
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Re: Winter surf log

Postby X-squid » Tue Jan 28, 2020 4:36 pm

It's true! This magical place still exists! Wassup b%^tches? I haven't been surfing much lately, honestly. Life with teens/pre-teens.

Been getting a lot of skatepark time in between winter squalls though which my middle-aged crippled a$$ probably doesn't really need.

Looks like the same few suspects still floating around here?
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Re: Winter surf log

Postby Major Lazer » Tue Jan 28, 2020 6:00 pm

Pretty much. The clunky registration process of having to email someone to get creds does not bode well for new recruits.

Thought you moved back to sunny SoCal Squid. Looks like its been a hell of a winter down that way. Got a little taste back in early Dec.

Anyways was over with the fam MLK weekend and had a dream, a dream I would surf in 2020. On the holiday, skies were overcast and grey with light rain contrary to the day befores warm and welcoming sun. Conditions were clean, waves were overhead and the good ones looked tasty. Crowd was chill too. But given I was a week out of lower back pain and doing life things like wiping my @ss, putting my shoes on, and going to work with out grief, I was hesitant as the beatings looked semi legit. Not that I mind a good beating. Hell sometimes I love a good beating and the feeling after poping up from one..... but in the end I passed tail between my legs :evil: :twisted: :roll: Did walk up to the top and checked it from there something I haven't done in many years. Glassy and consistent, sectioning a little with some crumble here and there, but no takers at the time. Still 11 months to go I guess. The valley rot is for reals.
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Re: Winter surf log

Postby X-squid » Wed Jan 29, 2020 8:32 am

Yeah this is just a few steps technology-wise ahead of aol dial-up. Funny that it was pretty active on here up until - what 2015? Saw a post by Tex on another media platform and thought i'd drop in (pun intended).

So nah - not moving back to SCal anytime soon (ever). Spent some time down there late summer and visited most of the old haunts - enjoyed the time but was quick to remember why I left 15 years ago. When the time is right I'll be splitting life between LC and somewhere warm that doesn't have a '9' as the first number of the zip code. Just need another 10-15 years on that 401k... or a rich relative to die and leave me everything :D
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Re: Winter surf log

Postby Major Lazer » Wed Jan 29, 2020 11:01 am

Interesting because I have been contemplating why California surfers move here at all esp after multiple sessions at an OC beach break where the waves were pumping and the crowd no worse than what I experienced along the North and Central Coasts here all fall. Not from CA but did some time down there up north and regret leaving, but that's another story. So sure there's life reasons say school, job, maybe family, etc. But say you lived 15 minutes or less from a surfing beach or point and even owned your house. Easy access just pull up and jump in maybe check a few spots, but more or less easy peasy surf 3-5 times a week, no biggie even with kiddos. Then calculate abundant sun factor in, warmer water, and summer south swells. To me moving to the Portland metro is the equivalent of suicide and might as well put bullets through your boards, but people keep coming, selling their homes down there and driving the market up in what used to be a fairly affordable working class town that now just seems like any other urban area with big city problems. :roll:
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Re: Winter surf log

Postby X-squid » Wed Jan 29, 2020 1:40 pm

Dude the crowds at better known spots here rival the crowd at any decent spot in S.Ca. No doubt there. I caught PC on a good weekend day in late fall but got a late start and I couldn't count how many heads were in the water from Gas Chambers and north.

I can't speak for anyone but myself: my reasons for leaving CA were plenty but surfing wasn't in the equation at the time (TX and AZ were on the shortlist as well as OR). And if surf 'quality' was a pure motivation for moving... I don't think there's any surfer living in, say, San Clemente right now thinking 'hey I heard the surf is killer in Cannon Beach - I'm moving to Oregon!" It's probably more like, "hey, there's an opportunity in Portland and I can still get some surf in..." Priorities I guess.
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Re: Winter surf log

Postby INTERN » Thu Jan 30, 2020 9:39 am

X-squid wrote: It's probably more like, "hey, there's an opportunity in Portland and I can still get some surf in..." Priorities I guess.

This. I lived in Santa Cruz, and my partners from there, I could walk to a couple decent spots. Lived in Oakland, which was still a bit of a drive, but only 30 min and some change to get into the water. But as non profit fundraisers we couldn't afford to live there anymore and raise a family. It's still a bit of a struggle here, but the culture between those two places and Portland is miles apart. SC is such an insular little bubble that is locc to the max and the bay area was getting old. As an outsider, Portlanders seems so much nicer and accommodating. It takes a little longer, but it's nice to have the beach and the mountains semi close.
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Re: Winter surf log

Postby harg » Thu Jan 30, 2020 9:47 am

i think it still feels pretty uncrowded up here. the number of surfers has obviously grown a ton, especially at a couple spots, but the competitive level isn't even close to socal, or santa cruz or SF. that makes it feel a lot more relaxed. i still feel like most days, even 'crowded' ones, you're basically surfing with a couple other guys and watching the rest bob around, which i appreciate and try to acknowledge with smiles or hellos, because it still feels to me like a small group. i've definitely noticed a growing number of people don't feel the same way, and maybe that's because they grew up here and have a different perspective or maybe its because they're from other places and are used to hassling and being grumpy. but i think troublesome crowds are still pretty few and far between. plus, up here you can always still turn the corner or take a hike and surf by yourself if you want to
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Re: Winter surf log

Postby Major Lazer » Thu Jan 30, 2020 1:30 pm

Good insights guys and thanks for chiming in. Recent visits to So Cal have just got me wondering as I see similarities with crowds in the water, people, and real estate prices. Agree about level of surfing and lack of groms but that is changing. Middle age, drive, cold water, and cold attitudes at any wave that mildly resembles a point or has a section with more than 2 turns have kinda gotten old. Having surfed a smorgasbord of good waves throughout most of my life, my penchant for the garbage is minimal. Granted rando dogs can have their day and sure you can take a hike or pull over at a rando and surf, but in the end and on the regs how good is it?

After transplanting over 25 years ago now from the left coast, some valley time, and then coast time here in the Beave State, pulled the rip cord after 7 dreamy years in a small coastal hamlet in between SC and SF for an job opp in PDX with hopes of eventually securing a job back on coast. Recession hit, kids came, and family got to damn comfortable here while my restless salty self suffered after about 3 years into PDX livin. Now here I am almost 15 years later :roll: :lol:, job downtown 3mi from home fizzled, and had to take something way to fuking far then I care to travel on a daily basis granted surf commute is more ideal.

While I haven't been to the Bay Area since I left, I can see how people in PDX might be more welcoming to a new comer as I am sure things have changed down there, yet I have noticed an increasing rudeness outside of the hipster snobbery that has plagued the Rose City for some time now. Terrible traffic, more honking, more aggression, less smiling, less laid back, less chill, less rat racy, etc, etc, etc. shite some old fuker in a BMW SUV stoped just to yell at me the other day saying I didn’t have enough lights on my bike. Granted it was the Pearl and I’ll admit I did not have my main blinker on my back pack, but geeze the guy was cursing and screaming like I had banged his wife or something? Then the transgenders friend on the Max who got all up in arms when I called them a him. Shitt I wasn’t thinking about it, it just came out, and as far as I can tell it was a him :? I guess its evident that I need some waves and maybe even a change of scenery, which seems to be a challenge for me at this point in life, but its certainly OK to dream about it.
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Re: Winter surf log

Postby X-squid » Thu Jan 30, 2020 4:40 pm

I can't disagree with anything you're saying there MajLaz. I definitely think the vibe here has changed dramatically. Oregon drivers were always kind of passive aggressive IMO and it's just gotten exponentially worse.

The surf 'scene' (hate that word but whatever) kinda reflects it a bit. You've got the 'cumbaya let's all hold hands and carpool to Shorties' vibe with a lot of people. There's always going to be one or two dudes that snake and throw off the 'eff you' vibe out there... I guess what's left falls somewhere in-between.

I can definitely attest to it not being as aggro as somewhere like Trestles or HB Pier though. I can't count how many straight-up fist fights I saw in the water at those breaks through the years (watching two guys try to fight on boards is actually pretty entertaining, really.) I had my fair share of words and one thing that you could kinda call a fight in HB, but for all the surfing I've done up here, I've only had one real altercation (at Seaside - big surprise). I lucked into Gleneden absolutely firing a couple winters back - all locs - maybe 10 dudes on two peaks total. Not one bad vibe from anyone.

All about perspective I guess. I haven't surfed north of PC in over a year and haven't been to Shorties in at least two... maybe it's changed more than I think on the north coast...
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Re: Winter surf log

Postby Tex » Thu Jan 30, 2020 5:16 pm

Im pretty much done with the PDX...even though my kid loves it here, he has his MMA gym that is becoming like a second family for him. Im torn between bailing up to Whidbey Island to get closer to my dad on Orcas or downsizing again to Corvallis. I can work from anywhere....never go downtown any more, I hunker down pretty hard in Roseway, couple new skate parks have popped up so that is cool.

Shorties will never get old for me, as many of you know, I spread my little brothers ashes there so that spot transcends any conditions for me, always gravy for me no matter what happens in the water.

Loving SoJDF more and more every year....so off grid...can never get enough of the Olympic Peninsula.
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Re: Winter surf log

Postby harg » Mon Feb 03, 2020 9:34 am

Major Lazer wrote:Granted rando dogs can have their day and sure you can take a hike or pull over at a rando and surf, but in the end and on the regs how good is it?


Not very. totally with you on that. every once in a while it's good, but that's mostly relative to all the mediocre days we get. With very few exceptions, my A days for waves up here would be B- for a decent portion of socal or C for Santa Cruz or other wave rich zones. despite my relative positivity on lack of crowds, i'd trade that and the scenery for a more consistent and higher quality waves about 360 days a year.
I also hear everyone about the change in general attitude. there's no doubt its a different place than it was 10 or 15 years ago. but, i think everyone on the west coast faces that, and the level of BS here is still lower than other big west coast cities. unless your independently wealthy or can live/work anywhere, I still find its a good balance relative to most places in this country. I like to think of it this way, it's not as good as it was, but it's probably better than it will be, so better enjoy it now!
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