Gonadman

Who doesn't love surf art? Now the genius that is Mark Sutherland is available on a convenient T-shirt via gonadman.com. You can also sign up for the monthly strip to be sent to you. Stoked. The photo is from another Australian, Paul the Simfreak. I could stand a setup like this.

Oregon Coast

It's remarkable that in 350+ posts over four years, I have none from Oregon! Unfortunately, this weekend's brief excursion did not lend itself to much rigorous beach exploration, but I decided to throw in a few coastal shots just to show we were there for a few hours on Sunday morning.

The photos capture the basic theme of Oregon's coast - broad sandy beaches and high rocky headlands. It also suggests that despite Oregon's generally enlightened and public-minded view of its beaches, the state has still left room for some mistakes and poor judgment.

Besides the Columbia River bridge in Astoria, the shots include the beach at Seaside, Tillamook Head, Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, and Rockaway Beach.

Washaway Beach (Part Two)

A few more pictures from Washaway Beach and North Cove, suggesting that Point Defiance might be a more appropriate name.

Washaway Beach (Part One)

The north side of the entrance to Willapa Bay has been moving north for decades, gaining a reputation as the fastest eroding shoreline on the west coast. It's been disassembling the small beach North Cove neighborhood as it goes, leaving a trail of debris and pipes in it's wake.

But the land on which this neighborhood was built isn't exactly established ground. Beach logs, buried earlier by the advancing dunes, occasionally appear eroding from the bank. In 1921, when the Canadian Exporter ran aground, this must have been beach, but the ship's remains were subsequently buried by the dunes. Only to be re-exposed by the waves this year.

Another house went over the edge very recently and was still spilling it's belongings out onto the beach. Debris from houses lost earlier, garbage and tires from backyard piles, and asphalt from the streets litters the beach. The asphalt chunks were piled up and imbricated against the bank like shingle on British beaches.

Grayland

The beach stretches over 10 miles from the south jetty of Grays Harbor in Westport down to North Cove on the north side of Willapa Bay. Most of it is a long stretch of broad flat beaches and today much of was lined with an army of folks trying to capture razor clams with stubby sections of white PVC pipe (official razor clam openings are rare, and we sort of stumbled on this one).

New wind turbines are going up on the hills to the east - quite an impressive complement to the clearcuts that have always marked the view.

Ether Monthly #10- Stanley Pleskunas

Stanley Pleskunas, Central Cal 2005.
Photo Kidman from 'Ether', available by emailing info at foamandfunction.com

Pleskunas is another of those low key San Diego garage geniuses. He's affected your surfing whether you know it or not. He's designed simple shaping tools that are still the best for the job, he's worked on outrageously complex shaping machine designs. He builds 'Wibbulators', wild, thin and flexy boards that evolved from the cutting edge kiteboards he makes. He was also there at the birth of the fish. From the interview in 'Ether' conducted by Kidman and Kenvin.

AK: Can you tell us the whole story about the board in the cave?
SP: My memories of it are: it was a cold day and the surf was big. It was probably Christmas, and we'd just gotten short johns, the first wetsuits. Stevie (Lis) and I went out at Osprey. It was big; I was haired out, but I had to go. There was a guy out surfing, the tide was coming in, he lost his board and it went in the cave. It was too gnarly to go in there nd get it, especially without a pair of fins on. The guy swam in and he got out of the water, and we knew he left the board in the cave. So the next day the surf dropped, and we went down there , and we pulled the longboard out of the cave . We got a hammer under the glass and we peeled the glass off-worst itch I've ever had in my life! Then we sawed it in half, and then Stevie shaped a board and I shaped a board. He got the nose; he had the better rocker (laughs). Mine was terrible. That was the piece of foam that Stevie built the first fish from, that I remember. It was a bright red Fish. This first one had, kind of, spiky pins on it and it was really thin, double lap; black fins. Sort of peaky fins: a fin with a little tip on it, about the same base as it was high. I remember him surfing that, on the lefts at South Beach, and just ... ripping. That board was probably 4',4'2". Stevies a small guy, y'know?

RK: How about your first exposure to Greenough?
SP: The thing that nailed me was the article with Nat Young, Bob McTavish and George at Honolua. They had pictures of George riding. I was kneeboarding, and I'd heard rumors of him, right, and when I saw those pictures then I immediately tried to emulate, and shape, and build boards, and look for information. I mined information from everybody I knew, to try and figure out what those boards were and why they worked. I started building a few. I think, at the same time, that thing really kicked off the board building craze here y'know? The back yard thingin our area. I think, more than anybody in our area, I was kinda more on George's thing than some of the other people. Stevie was building the Fishes, and people understood what was going on by then, with Steve. But I was more on George's thing.

Jon Wegener Blogs!

Nice. Jon Wegener, definitely one of the top ten nicest men in surfing, is blogging. Now that summer is creeping on, many a youngster's thoughts turn to hot days and little souths wrapping onto pointbreaks, and of course the alaias they plan on riding. Here's the source for the woody goodness. Those of us who are happy with the sideways slide we get with fins are still welcome, Jon shapes a mean foam craft. Still got some t-shirts too, I'm wearing one as I type and feel pretty good about it all.

Gulf Road

Just a few miles and twenty minutes south of Birch Bay and what a difference. Wind and waves and a very different beach.

Gulf Road is the only place you can really get down to the shoreline in the vicinity of Cherry Point - unless you're an oil tanker or an aluminum ingot. Unlike the rest of Puget Sound, where high-end residential development is creeping along the shoreline like mold, this stretch was set aside decades ago for industrial uses and is marked by three large piers, two attached to refineries and one attached to an aluminum plant running on our famously inexpensive electricity. Ironically, the industrial designation may be what saves these beaches from being nickeled and dimed over the next few decades, although a little more public access would sure be nice.

This section of beach is actually a barrier, with wetlands behind and a small stream mouth at the north end.

Birch Bay

Just like last year, a workshop in Blaine provided me a chance to swing home via Birch Bay (March, 2009). And just like last year, I'm going to keep my comments short, despite the amount that could be written about this fascinating part of Puget Sound (Georgia Strait, more precisely, or the Salish Sea).

This afternoon's theme is gravel swash bars. They happen to be located on a very long stream mouth spit on an elegant log spiral beach and one of the pictures is on a gravel beach built by Wolf Bauer almost three decades ago.

Kevlar rails, cold and a setup

Once again, thanks to Mick Mackie for providing some excellent imagery. I certainly could use that wave, but he's welcome to the roof of snow. Mad bastards to be wandering around in that stuff, but that's an Australian for you. I'm off for a surf finally.

DCC Update: March 2010

Update: March 2010

There have been some fluctuations in sand levels at the western end of Ocean Beach, with a small 'step' created by wave action near the Salt water Pool.

The regular access routes to the beach are all accessible at the present time, with sand levels at the St Kilda end actually starting to form additional dunes. With the more settled nor' easterly weather we have been enjoying recently, it is likely that sand will continue to build up while the settled weather continues.

The Fish in it's glory...

Some time ago a surfshop owner told me the fish was 'over'. His logic was that everybody who wanted one had one by now, lots of people found them harder to ride than they expected and as it was a 'retro' board it wasn't one that was being replaced or upgraded in anyone's quiver. Never really was comfortable with that concept, and here's a selection of relatively current fish I've seen that vary from classic to ultra modern that I believe prove there's life in 'em yet. I've been having fun on one the last few weeks anyway.

Hynd Bushrat, worth clicking on to see the art.


Redwood Simmons inspired quad! SWEET! By Jeff Beck at Ninelights


Daniel Thomson quiver. Indeed.


Sidecut polisher's nightmare from Rob Royal.


Pure candy from Hank Warner. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Hank is basically THE man for an old school fish. He makes what I've found to be a magic board.


My other magic fish is of course a Mackie. This is someone else's magic fish, a textured deck sidecut I wish I'd been able to keep.


Check the water flow slot in this one from Reverb, and then check how nice that outline is.


Eli Mirandon made this 4" agave stringer job. It was the board I wanted most at the Ventura Sacred Craft show, felt absolutely perfect under the arm.


Sorry, an obvious shot but stuffed with lemon and rubbed with sea salt and oil then grilled, they were delicious.

Scatchet Head

Scatchet Head is the middle of the three big south facing headlands on the southern portion of Whidbey Island (Possession Point is to the east, Double Bluff to the west). The eastern portion of Scatchet Head is a row of homes built over the beach on some of the awfullest riprap on the Sound. The view is great. The storms are exciting (waves from the south; landslides from above). The location is unwise.

The western portion of the headland, from the homes westward toward Maple Point, consists of high forested bluffs - and seems to suffer from less erosion that one might expect - certainly less than at Possession or Double Bluff or the bluffs just around the corner to the northwest. Maybe this is due to more resistant geology or more dissipative bathymetry - or maybe it's something else.

Here's my idea. This straight stretch of bluffs is swash-aligned - the beach faces directly into the dominant fetch. This minimizes longshore transport and results in a more protective beach - sort of like a broad pocket beach. Erosion is ultimately about sediment loss and the only way for gravel to escape this beach is around Maple Point at the west end - and it may do this slowly.

Maple Point

Maple Point (I think I've seen it labeled Indian Point on some maps) is a small barrier - a recurved spit or cuspate foreland - located at the western corner of Scatchet Head (title of blog post links to the map view).

There is a complex series of intertidal berms and swales west of the point - maybe evidence of the spit's prehistory. There was no obvious depression or wetland behind the berm, but there were small dunes, which are unusual on these features - either due to insufficient sand and wind, or because they are so quickly destroyed by human activity. The clam shell on the storm berms on the north side was largely intact - a good indicator of the lack of human trampling.

What an amazing location! It is a wide place in the beach, isolated by high bluffs and remoteness, yet it feels like it's right in the middle of the Sound. The view includes the Cascades, Mount Rainer the Seattle skyline, the Olympics, Double Bluff, and of course the high bluffs north toward Maxwelton.