more of the new fish!

another shot of my new fish, this time edited so the true colors shine through...
i can't rave enough about this board. it's absurdly responsive and tons of fun. what i don't know is whether it's just this board or if all fishes are so enjoyable...

new fish

i've been dreaming about having a single fin shaped for me, but my shaper is out of town so i stumbled on this old school fish with wooden fins the other day and today i broke down and bought it. a used board that's essentially in perfect condition. put a layer of wax on it and took it out for a spin. it's a twin fin, with no center fin, and so loose and responsive it feels like you are skimming on ice. i was worried there was too much rocker in the board, but now i think it's just right. it's also the shortest board i've ever surfed, a 6'1" that turns quickly but is also nice and stable when paddling. wow, i'm really impressed. the color is a kind of yellow green concoction with grains flowing through it. i was partial the same board in blue, which they had new at klimax, but it was an extra $120, so i went with this. it's much more responsive than a 6'8" hybrid fish i have -- which is a three fin and easier to hold lines on but clearly lacks the skateboard feeling of this new one...

do rude surfers merit plugs?

I got a press release today (see below in Spanish) plugging the ASP surfing tour's upcoming Rip Curl contest in Lobitos and "Peru's Own Queen Sofia Mulanovich." (The hyperbole is a bit much, along with the fact that it seems to endorse the idea of monarchies in general, which Peru spent a few centuries trying to reject, but who cares about history, right?). So, I dutifully sent an email to the kind person who alerted me to the press release and mentioned the following: that Sofia is a rude surfer who sets a bad example for the sport and Peru's image, and sent him two blog posts about my own personal experience surfing alongside Peru's Queen. I also told him that she's about as well-behaved in the water as a Lima cab driver. And, between you and me, dear reader, I've been told her dad also drops in on people. So, like father like daughter. Rude behavior is learned. It's time we break this unhealthy cycle. Learn some courtesy Sofia...
(By the way, it's amazing to me that her sponsors don't bother to impress upon her the importance of setting a good example in the water, though, according to a Peruvian newspaper, they sent her to do media training recently so that she could learn to give more than one word answers when being interviewed. See, her handlers realized that one word answers make you look either unfriendly or not too smart).

EMPEZÓ LA CUENTA REGRESIVA

Nos encontramos a menos de tres semanas para que el campeonato mundial de surf femenino llegue por tercer año consecutivo a nuestro país, con el desarrollo del “Perú Classic presentado por Rip Curl”. La gran novedad de esta temporada ha sido la confirmación de Lobitos como la playa elegida, dejando de lado a la tradicional Máncora.

Ubicada en la provincia de Talara en Piura, Lobitos es un gran acierto según propias palabras de nuestra reina Sofía Mulanovich, ya que no sólo las olas son espectaculares, sino que además se acomoda perfectamente a su estilo de surfing.

El Perú Classic presentado por Rip Curl traerá a las diecisiete mejores tablistas del mundo a esta quinta parada de la World Championship Tour (WCT) y se desarrollará del 3 al 8 de noviembre próximo. Además de Sofía Mulanovich, la australiana Stephanie Gilmore y la brasilera Silvana Lima son las principales candidatas a llevarse el triunfo.

Con 3241 puntos, Stephanie Gilmore es la actual líder de las clasificaciones, seguida por Silvana Lima con 2880 y Sofía Mulanovich en la tercera casilla con 2139. Antes de la fecha en Lobitos, la localidad de Peniche en Portugal albergará por primera vez una jornada del circuito Mundial. El Rip Curl Search se llevará a cabo del 26 al 30 de octubre.


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Adjuntamos fotos (cortesía: ASP) de las tablistas australianas Jessi Miley-Dyer y Stephanie Gilmore y de la peruana Sofía Mulanovich.
Agradecemos la atención y difusión de la presente.

Saludos,

the view from my window

here's a shot from the window i sit in front of at work. not bad. today the islands in the bay of lima were fogged over until a bit before sunset, when a gold band of light broke through and lit up the water and the islands stuck their necks out. luckily there's a spot i can look through to see the islands. i hope the real estate boom ends...

glassy waves at triangulo

lots of perfectly glass waves this morning at triangulo, where the waves were just big enough, at 8.5 feet, to make it break well. it's a famously tempermental spot, and the rule of thumb is that you need 9 foot swells and low tide for it to work. it is hidden behind a huge outcropping of rock at the southern end of the bay of lima, so you need a powerful swell to wraparound the rock, and the more westerly the swell the better. i think that wrapping contributes to some of the glassiness, but mostly the break is eerily smooth because the air is dead still. ain't no wind to whistle in there. this morning i took my longboard out for the first time there. it caught gobs of waves and even allowed me to paddle up next to a sea lion and say good morning to him. normally i ride my fish there, which works, but the rides are much shorter. on the longboard, the wave is big and open faced, and then walls up into something more tubey that requires you to srunch up and try to shoot through. the outside is very fat, but inside all hell can break loose in about one second. i pulled off the back of most of the waves i caught, unwilling as i was to be squeezed by a close out at a break that is known for busting boards. i got pitched there once and it hurt.

and here is a picture to go with that thought

this photo was taken in peru...

longboarding in the sun with dolphins

two straight days of sunshine in lima after five straight months of fog. only small waves poured into the bay on saturday and sunday, so i dusted off my longboard for the first time in a year and went paddling. i pulled off the outside fins and rode it with just the big single fin, hoping to get a looser feel in the small surf that the charts put at 4.5 feet. the rides at punta roquitas lasted for what seemed like an eternity, and you if you caught the right, instead of the sharper left, you could walk up the board, put a knee down, grab a rail and just squeeze yourself into the sweet spot while putting an arm up and thinking to yourself "jesus, i feel like i'm in a powell peralta skateboard video from 1984." fish were jumping out of the water. birds were hunting and, on sunday, three dolphins swam by the break to say hi. one of them was so enamored by the sunshine that he caught a wave. they are amazing swimmers, big, powerful and muscular. i know of no capital city other than lima where you can surf with dolphins and pelicans...

update 1: a kind reader wrote to say you can also surf with dolphins in capetown. now that may be, but the dolphins in lima aren't surrounded by sharks as they are in south africa...