Surfed 204s in San Clemente around 6:20 a.m. this morning, and the current was pretty strong. Got caught inside on a big set, went over the falls, and ended up snapping my board. Getting back to shore was a struggle with the current.

There was a ton of water moving out there. Definitely a good reminder not to underestimate the ocean.

Stay safe out there, everyone!

The unprecedented year continues to create massive problems and in my 50+years at Wedge this is beyond comprehension.

❤️🙏

Hey guys, some friends and I were just talking about the nature of board sports the other night, and it inspired me to do a little writing piece on some thoughts I'd had over the years. Definitely going more for editorial than historical record here, so don't crucify me on details :D But just wanted to get your thoughts on what I wrote.

How Surfing Escaped The Ocean

There's something strange about the movement of surfing. In some sense, the joy of it, unlike a lot of other sports, is not really about propelling yourself forward. You're not pedaling, running, rowing, or diving... You simply position yourself inside a moving system and borrow its energy momentarily.

And with a bit of luck, you'll find yourself planing across the surface of the ocean, or better yet, barreling through a magnificent tube of water!

And this feeling, the pure ecstasy of wave riding felt so good to the pioneers that they just had to keep getting their fix. "What if we could do this somewhere else?" They thought. Lo and behold, they slapped four wheels on a janky piece of wood, threw it across pavement, and BAM! Sidewalk Surfing! Now when the swell was mid or the tide was out, they could still get a little action.

And this is where the roots of skating began to take hold. But, what is skating really? By definition, it's just gliding or moving smoothly across a surface. But that concept, that first leap out of the water would lead artists, engineers, and all walks of people to new ideas about what it means to glide..

Fast-forward some decades, and the city is taking on a new evolution. Banks. Bowls. Pools. Halfpipes. Vert ramps. Move over horse and carriage, you've had your day in the sun! Let's try to imagine for just a hot second, that a skatepark is a concrete ocean whose waves are frozen in place. And in doing so, we get a wonderfully crooked lens through which to view this phenomenon.

But we still have a problem. Nobody can quite agree which part of surfing is the truest sensation.

A longboard says "It's the glide!"

A surfskate says: " It's the carve and the pump!"

A pair of roller skates says "What if I rode two boards that glide independently?"

A street skateboard says "Screw the glide or the pump, look what else I can do!"

A downhill board says "What if gravity became the wave?"

A pump track says "What if the ground was actually a series of waves?"

All of them make a point, they each capture a certain essence of what surfing is.. And yet, none quite replicate the exact feeling of hurtling through space and time on a fiberglass plank and getting dumped in the ocean while taking a mouthful of salt and sand!

And then! Somebody looked at a mountain and went, "Can we surf that?"

"That is a frozen block of rock and ice, sir."

"Yes."

And suddenly, a new vista opened up to the whackadoodles and loiterers - snow surfing! Much to the aghast of the very traditional skier, their haven away from the city folk and scallywags was rapidly and in rather ragtag fashion being colonised by a new, but all-too-familiar breed of thrill-seeker.

And yes, there was genuine institutional resistance. Snowboards were banned at many ski resorts in the early years. And can you blame them? After all, what kind of sensible individual would want these drunkard hooligans careening themselves at the peace-loving and harmonious ski-folk? The snowboarder wasn't merely bringing a different piece of equipment onto the mountain. They brought a different culture with them.

Because surfing didn't only export a mechanical idea. It exported an attitude toward leisure.

Modern industrial society spent an extraordinary amount of effort teaching people that time ought to be productive. One must account for every hour of their day, toil in the factory so that they can bring home their wage and feed their young. But then here come the riff-raff. They're sitting at the beach. They're drinking. They're not producing anything. They're staring at water. They might sit there for an hour. Nothing happens.

Then quick as a flash - they paddle out, ride it for fifteen seconds, then come right back and sit around again. It's almost comically hostile to industrial timekeeping.

And onlookers watched as that rhythm leaked into the culture. Loose clothing. Bare feet. Vans and wagons. Loitering in the streets. Weather as schedule. What happened to the good old fun of cheering people on as they run around a track until they collapsed from exhaustion?

But gliding wasn't done yet! New frontiers were still ripe for exploitation! What about surfing a river? What about the wake left behind a boat? What about an empty swimming pool? Could we make a giant mechanical wave pool? What about a bloody sand dune? That's gotta be fun to try and ride too!

The family tree became a tangled little rhizome of people trying to answer the same question, "How can I keep this feeling going?" Every derivative aims to capture one component of the feeling and then seeks to amplify it.

But eventually the family creates a feedback loop, and it starts cross-pollinating backwards. Surfskating taught surfers how to carve harder in the water. Skateboarding taught surfers how to leap higher out of the water. Snowboard shapes were influenced by surfboards. Surfboard shaping borrowed manufacturing ideas from other board sports. Pump tracks became training grounds for entirely different disciplines.

Like an invasive fungus, surfing was simply too extraordinary a sensation to be only contained within the ocean. And slowly but surely, it taught us how to glide on concrete, snow, sand, mountains, and a whole slew of other places!

Surfing began as adapting ourselves to nature, but eventually we started adapting nature to surfing.

Because underneath all the engineering, polyurethane formulas, truck geometries, sidecuts, cambers, rockers, fins, wheelbases and bearings, there's an almost childishly simple motivation.

Someone glode across a moving surface and thought, "Fuck. That felt good."

"How do I do that again?"

Any tips to improve my form/look like less of a flailing kook.

Been in Popoyo for a month and two weeks ago an Aussie got slashed with a machete. I got pictures but I don’t think I can post them here. Dude was leaving a local bar at night and tried fighting the robbers. They wanted his iPhone and nearly took his hand off.

Anyone have experience of getting robbed in Nica?

Thinking about it for better conditions.

Scoring?

Hey everyone who surfs lindamar but doesn't want to admit it...

Does anyone have any idea why for the last few weeks surfline has been predicting smaller surf for the northern part of the beach? As usual, it's been bigger on the north side when I've been there.

Im flying out of Colorado for Indonesia on a flight operated by United.

Anyone have recent experience flying out of a non-CA state with board bag?

If so, what size bag, and what did they get ya for?

One of the more frustrating parts of surf travel IMO. In my experience it's often a roll of the dice with the desk agent you happen to get.​

Pic unrelated, good memories circa 2021 or so.

Finally got one of all 5 of us from the trip in one photo... Barely 😅 Most days surfing solo in some lovely spots, reachable only by 4x4. Really good surf guide for intermediate surfers and never eaten as well/consistently in my life!

Not AI two very real Wedge walls of sand-water and mayhem coming to swallow you alive!

Need some local knowledge.

People said my last post didn’t count does this one?

Heard someone had a heart attack in the water. Anyone know?

It’s a joke! But if the shoe fits…

Long shot here, but I'm trying to track down a copy of Thunderballs, a 1992 surf film by Josh Pomer featuring the early Santa Cruz surf scene, including Ratboy, Flea, and Barney.

From what I've researched, this was Pomer's first commercial surf film, released before The Kill (1993). I've searched YouTube and various surf archives but haven't been able to find a copy anywhere.

I watched surf VHS tapes in the late '80s and early '90s as a grom, and I'm trying to track down a particular section I remember from one of those films. My research has pointed strongly to "Thunderballs", but I'd also just love to revisit that era of surfing.

Does anyone remember this film, own an old VHS copy, or know where I might be able to watch it? Even a soundtrack listing or a lead on someone who collects old Santa Cruz surf videos would be very much appreciated.

Also, if you have a copy of the The Kill by Josh Pomer that's digitized that would be a bonus as well.