Mini Tubes

Every time I see one of Clark Little's newest insane shorepound tube images I get super inspired to try and do the same and although the waves were not that big on this particular day the water was clear and the colors vivid. So I thought I'd give it a go and shoot some friends trying to squeeze themselves into the too small tubes of the afternoon.

Nikonos III

Bought an Old Nikonos III awhile ago. The camera was developed by Nikon and Jacques Cousteau in the 70's and has since been upgraded twice with the Nikonos V being the latest model. The III is a tank of a camera and is useful in any situation where your gear might get thrashed. I like to bring mine with me on dirty and drunken missions when you don't want to have to worry about lugging around expensive gear. I still haven't used it as much as I would like but have already got some pretty cool results and hope to use it more soon.

The above pics were the first ones I took with this camera and the roll came out alright, probably because I had some Fuji Provia 400 in there. The film seems to have a nice latitude to work with when you have to guess the exposures. They were snapped at my favorite beachie in the whole wide world and its where I spent all last weekend and where I plan to spend this whole next weekend, hopefully its peaky, glassy, and fun again.

Timmy Curran

Got to shoot Timmy Curran the other day who happens to be one of my all time favorite surfers. I remember watching Timmy in the video about his young life Here and Now, I still have it on VHS, that video was one of my biggest inspirations as a grom. In the video you see him surf a lot of the waves that I grew up surfing and still surf today. TC is a local hero to the North LA/Southern Ventura county crew and to the rest of the aspiring aerial wizards around the world.

I threw up some old pics I had of him when I would catch him out and about, howz that mid-tube stall? He's been doing backflips for years now as you can see in the top pic. No, he didn't land that one, but this particular day he would get tubed and then come flying out and try one of these backfilps: He always puts on an insane air show and he's an amazing tube rider as well. There has been times when I roll up to check the surf and just see somebody boost ten feet straight up, and I just say to myself, Timmys out there.

Tim Curran is still one of the most progressive surfers alive and his little bro just advanced in South Africa at the J-Bay Billabong Pro. I will post pics from the shoot if they don't find a better home soon.

El Nino?

So there are some reports claiming that we are heading for another El Nino year. Which sounds about right considering that I don't remember a solid Winter of surf since '04 which is when the above pics were snapped. That particular Winter my friends and I had just returned from a Baja trip and everybody was telling us how much it had rained while we were gone. We heard that it rained for like five days staright in LA which I don't think I've ever heard of. I heard that there were huge tornado like water spouts off of Oxnard and Santa Monica and I belive that it was also the year when La Conchita suffered a tragic mudslide. We didn't get much swell down in Baja from those intense storms up North, but when we got home the surf was pumping for twelve days straight. These shots were taken in the begining of that run of swell and as you can see the rain had produced some huge sandbars, people were actually boating out to the edge of the one in the pics. There was day after day of big offshore barrels, long lined up point swells, and just solid Winter surf.

There has not been a Winter like that one since, so we'll see if the talk of El Nino is for real, I already heard one report that said it could be a very mild El Nino, so I'm not going to get all excited just yet. It sure would be nice though, to pull out the 6'8" and get a few heaving beachbreak tubes, or maybe even grab the 7'2" a couple of times and paddle into a few mackas.

Curse of the Chumash

The Cove

It looks like this movie The Cove is going to be a necessary and horrifying viewing. It's about that place In Japan where they slaughter the dolphins and was made famous by Rasta and crew who appear in the film. Like Rasta, who was saved by a dolphin when it charged a shark that was poised to attack him, and many of us who spend lots of time in the briny I have had the most amazing close encounters with dolphins. I have never been able to interact with any other creature in the wild more so than I have with these large mammals.

We are fortunate up here in the Malibu area because they are a constant presence and always a welcome sight. I have so many dolphin stories when it comes to surfing around here. There seems to always be large pods cruising up and down Zuma and just recently while my friend Corey and I were surfing there a pod swam right by and I could just tell that they were about to come and surf with us. Right then a wave popped up and as Corey started to paddle for it I told him to be ready to share this one. The two large dolphins made a sharp right and practically buzzed me while they slipped into the wave and all three rode the glassy little peeler together while Corey was hootin the whole way.

This is just one of many stories that I have and I think the point is that dolphins are actually able to play and interact with humans. They experience fun and pleasure and seem to be on a whole other level of animal intelligence. So hopefully this movie will shed some major light on the issue and the killing of dolphins will finally end.

Tarantula Hawk

The Tarantula Hawk is a wasp that lives in the desert areas around us. It got its name because the wasp finds a tarantula and stings it which paralyzes the spider and allows the wasp to lay its eggs inside or on top of the tarantula. The eggs hatch and eat the spider and then the whole cycle begins again. I think Nat Geo has some footage of this process in their In the Womb series. The wasps rarely attack humans and are the coolest looking flying insects we have around here with their bright orange colored wings and humongous black body. If they do sting you though I hear it's like getting shocked, the abdomen on them is massive compared to all other wasps and bees.

I shot this pic a few years back in the West Valley. The wasp was dragging the paralyzed tarantula up a ditch that we used to skate a lot. I usually start to see them around this time of year but even more so in the Fall. I remember one time in late Summer or early Fall when I was hanging at my friend Nick's house on the top of Woolsey Canyon when I saw a whole swarm of little tarantula wasps fly by.