never a dull moment

In case you were wondering if the lack of updates was due to lack of things to post or boredom, here's a hell lot of stuff that I just didn't have the time to post.

"Never look down on the board!", I used to tell my surfing students...






These gopro photos were taken on 6 24 (the same day of the those Oahu photos of last post) on the south shore. Funny how the wide angle makes the big waves look small and the small ones (they were waist to chest high) look big!
Unfortunately, I keep having a major droplets problem. I tried many photographer tricks, but none worked, since the screen of a water housing is flat and lets the drops run easier than the very convex screen of the gopro.

Fortunately, I didn't have any droplet problem for the photos I took during the short walk on the beach between surf spots. My stalking has gone to another level.






It was the first time I used the gopro on a shortboard. That was when I found out that kicking with my feet when paddling for a wave is bad for my foot.
As a consequence of that, I'm trying to put together my broken 8.6. Unfortunately, the way it broke made the two halves not match at all and I tried filling the gap with some pour resin. Kind of got the rocker straight, but the pressure of the expanding foam made the two pieces end up not in line.
Tried this (went up to three bricks) for a few days, but it's not moving.


Plan B will be to cut three inches of the board around the break and try to stick together the two parts... I'm going to have an 8.3!
Since I'm not too confident about the result, I'm also planning on going to Oahu and getting myself one of those Tanaka mini longboards from the Town&Country factory.
7.2, 7.4, 7.6, 8.0... they all look pretty good to me.

In the meantime, I filled a hole in my SUP quiver. After I sold the Sea Lion, I was missing a short board for summer time waves. Looks like I found it...


Lately, I've been lazily trying to understand if the Canon 20D I bought on eBay is a keeper or not.
I'm not a photographer, so pretty much I don't know how to use it. But the other day I met Francky, who is an awesome photographer and does know how to use it. He took a couple of photos focusing on the mailbox of this house and I did the same with my old, cheap and trusty point and shoot Sony.

Here's the shots and here's what I sent via email to a bunch of friends that are helping me figuring out this atrocious dilemma...

I'm attaching a couple of those photos we took the other day.
Don't even know how to download the raw files (the sw didn't see them), but it's a jpg at the highest quality. Res is 3504x2336, file size is 3.8 MB. I cropped the Sony shot to have similar frames. The Sony shot is 1094x818, file size 329 KB!!!

Sure, the Sony shot looks over exposed and kinda bleached (can't see the tiles on the white wall... that's something that I can try to fix in future shots), but it also looks way sharper!
We were both focusing on the mail box, but even that is sharper in the Sony shot.
The Sony shot is taken at f3.5 and that should give it a narrower depth of field (compared to the canon shot taken at f6.3), nonetheless everything looks more in focus in it (I don't even know if that's a good thing or not).

I'm really perplexed...


Canon.


Sony.


FYI: Francky is doing an exhibit at the Green Banana cafe in Paia. The opening party is Friday 9th at 7pm. Can't wait to see the photos he selected.

Also, my buddy Chris sent me this email:
GP,
I would love it if you could give a shout out on your blog to my summer project which was initially inspired by your Oahu trip last year. Branded 60 Days of Summer. The aim of the 60 Days of Summer project is a simple one; to show that there is far more to Hawaii than winter surf and that with the right attitude, the right equipment and enough time you can find waves, wind, surf, freestyle, slalom, SUP, skate, kite, hike, bike, you get the idea, tons of action and have a whole lot of fun too – after all isn’t that what it’s all about?


Check how Chris does on his blog. My guess is that he's going to have a blast, also because it looks like he's going to get lucky right away!
In fact, I just saw on the weather maps a pretty deep storm that will send an overhead NW swell by Sunday/Monday.
This map is forecast to happen Thursday... not a bad fetch for summer time.


This south Pacific one instead is forecasted for Friday 9th. And that means that the weekend after that will see waves on the south shore. How come south swells always happen on weekends?


I saw this great gopro video on beachtelegraph.com. Fabrice Beaux and Rob Stelhik in Oahu.
I like the way they hold the paddle while filming.


And I saw this on Facebook.
Congrats to Bruno Andre for pushing the limits. My only hope is that whoever will feel like trying that, will do so in an absolutely deserted lineup. That's one board you don't want to be run over by!

FOIL STAND UP PADDLE from Surfsailing Team on Vimeo.

SUP Downwind racing season is about to peak. This sunday July 11 there's a Maui Molokai race, then July 18th the Naish Maliko Kahului and after that the Molokai Oahu.
If the wind will be forecasted to be strong, I may enter the Naish race with my 50 pounds, six years old 12.6 and wooden paddle and show them all the effort they put into making more technologically advanced gear was... worth it!

Last, but not least, I'd like to thank Dave Kalama for this inspiring post on his blog. After I read it, I stopped using the bus to go to the launching spot for my downwinders. Now I do that on the bike. If the wind is strong is not exactly a piece of cake on my old shitty bike, but sure it's a hell lot easier than paddling for five hours against the wind from the harbor to just past Peahi... you got to be kidding me!!!!

Thanks Dave. With the first five bucks I'm going to save on bus tickets, I'll buy you a beer.