New Year's Eve Roundup Monday Surf & Culture Report
Lost Boys & Co...
A hazy damp 10 miles visibility under partly cloudy skies. Winds were light out of the WNW by 2.0kts and the sea surface was smooth. The air temperature was 48.6, but felt chillier with the dampness and the water is 61.5. High tide was at 7:51am +7.1' and low tide was at 3:02pm -1.7' with a full moon juiced tidal swing of 8.8'! We have a SW swell out of 225º at 1.6' and it was breaking right on shore and not quite surfable...
Let's take a quick look back in the rear-view mirror at 2017...
JANUARY:
Featured some of the biggest surf of 2017. In fact Jaime Meistrell's biggest wave of the year was at the breakwall in January. Also Kyle Beatty's wide open tube at Burnout was a crowd favorite... Local mountains got a phenomenal amount of snow and everything kind of made you forget about the drought...
FEBRUARY:
More big surf in the month of February, but the biggest news was the trip to Nicaragua by Jah Morgan, Suzi and Joey and Co. They surfed La Barra for a week and got some of the best waves of the year on that spots shifting sand bars. It was such a fun trip that this year the entire crew is going...
MARCH:
Good waves, but calming down a bit after the biggest swells of winter. Living up to it's reputation it was windy for the end of the month, but still had some good offshore mornings.
APRIL:
The surf starts picking up again and Laurel Tavern opens it's doors for the "official" opening. We start following Hugo Vau on his quest to ride some of the most majestic waves in the world and Brent Broza has a charity art show at Waterman's. The surf was fun and we got into the local art scene with shows at the Shockboxx, El Segundo, and various galleries on Cypress. Our fave might have been Keone Boyd's show of drawings and T-Shirt art...
MAY:
The surf starts becoming consistent and all the sand bars really start to work. Little did we know that for the next three months the surf would be good almost every day! Jetski begins giving seminars on everything from applying wax to adding/subtracting fins... Some outstanding surfing by Kris Hall and Tucker O'Shia on the north side of the pier. We all got our visas stamped...
JUNE:
Headed to Dallas for the "Tornado Mud Surf" event and weren't disappointed. The only problem was heading back and having Jimmy Utah tell us what great surf we had missed! Considering we were in Dallas for 6 days, we still got 23 surfing days in June! May and June used to be famous for small surf and gloomy weather, but in the last few years the surf has been pretty good and the number of overcast days has decreased...
JULY:
Featured the "Pirate Hooker" surf event that included every pirate in sabre rattling distance. Though July started out a bit weak, there were still 23 days of rideable surf and the surf for the Pirate event was chest high and even some head-high outsides...
AUGUST:
The big news in July was the solar eclipse and the Lost Boys sent a contingent to Cascade, Idaho to film the event. Surf was uneven, but the water temps were in the 70's and some great beach days. Boomfwappa got a new blade and geared up for a trip to the Outer Banks in November.
SEPTEMBER:
After her husband had some health problems, Mun finally decided to close "Mun's Corner Pub." We suddenly had no place to go on Monday's to watch Monday Night Football with the Lifeguard crew. Three month later and we're still roaming about on Monday nights, rudderless. The kids went back to school, but Coach Frank took his leave and for the first time in 18 years he wasn't coaching either Bishop Montgomery or the RUHS surf teams.
OCTOBER:
Surf photographer and local icon, Randy Ruby passed away after a long battle with burns and cancer. His work lives on in countless photos that adorn the local homes and eateries throughout the South Bay. We journeyed to North Carolina's Outer banks and were surprised at the quality and consistency of the surf. We also got to witness a pretty intense windstorm and can only imagine what a hurricane might be like. A great Halloween Scary Surf Session brought October to a close, with some fabulous costumes and acrobatic surfing from the local ghouls. We thought the Tin Man was pretty innovative...
NOVEMBER:
Daylight Savings Time ended, water temps dropped and we headed to Roatan, Honduras to scope out the snorkeling and fishing possibilities. Things ended up in a revolution with Tarzan and the Professor persisting in claiming they had nothing to do with stirring things up...
DECEMBER:
Surf was sketchy to poor to downright dismal. Endless Summer's Bruce Brown passed away and we took a moment to remember how he opened up an entirely new way of seeing our sport. Temps dropped and the water was down in the low 60's. No rain and a high pressure area keeps Southern California unusually dry for the entire month... True to form we gathered at Laurel Tavern to give the old year the boot and welcome the new... A few pics from the evening including #1 LoLa, Mark and Sheryl who bench pressed a combined 1000lbs to start out the festivities. #2 Jack, The Professor and Tandis mug for the camera. Tandis got two new boards for Christmas, including a balsa laminate fish that was super chic. #3 Jetski and Clarke having a moment in the communal wash area...
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"When the surf breaks, we'll fix it"The Professor!!
