Surf’s Up, Amigo

by Erik Olsen on

Got a hankering to hang diez? According to this piece in the Post, the surfing is sweet in Panama, where you can ride the waves within a short distance from the legendary canal. Body boarder and surfer wannabee John Briley heads down south to take surfing lessons, figuring that years of riding on hiis belly and wind-surfing will give him the balance and skills to easily master the basics of hanging ten.

At 38, the writer wonders whether his best surfing years are behind him. They are. But some perseverence and practice, he gets up and leaves Panama with a new found appreciation for what wave riders do.

Props for Santa Monica

by Erik Olsen on


I got a kick out of this Times piece on

Santa Monica, CA. One of the key sites they mention, the museum on the Santa Monica pier, is a place I’ve never
visited in my life, despite many years in and around Santa Monica. But they get a few of the other places right. Santa
Monica Beach, surfing, the Third Street Promenade, all great places
to hang out in one of California’s best cities. It’s nice to see the Times, usually so Right
Coast obsessed, give some props to our folks out West.

Kiteboarding in BC

by Erik Olsen on

For some reason, I picture the havens of kiteboarding as tropical places, far off, lush locales where the sun is hot
and no one wears a wet suit. Not so. Turns out that kiteboarding is big in
British
Columbia in a little place called Tofino. Of course, is makes some sense. Wind surfing has long been big
in the Northwest, given the wind-lover’s paradise of the
Columbia River Gorge. But as this article points out,
windsurfing is so 90s. Kite-boarding is where it’s at.

Shark Nets or Not?

by Erik Olsen on

It is now summertime in Australia which means the beaches are teeming with sun fiends and surfers, which means only
one thing to Great Whites lurking off the coast: snack time. And the
attack of a surfer last month
has raised the question of whether to put up shark nets on some of the best surfing beaches.

Conservationists argue the nets have a negative effect on marine life, but the fact is, they are a proven deterrent to
sharks seeking surfers for lunch. According to
the peice, in the past 40
years there has only been one fatal shark attack at the 134 beaches protected by shark nets. Yet there have been 15
deaths in South Australia, 12 in Western Australia, and 7 in Victoria—all states that lack shark nets along their
beaches.

Seems like nets are a pretty good idea.

Surfing Pics

by Erik Olsen on

So I just had to throw some more pictures your way. There’s something about this cold snap that’s giving me a
serious Jones to go tropical, and, perhaps stupidly, I started looking around at the surfing magazines. I found
this gallery – 40 Days of Fall – that just kind of
made me sigh and ask myself why I am not heading south right now. The whole series of photos here is great. And so is –
while I’m at it – this gallery by Scott Bass. Click around,
it might warm you up.