| PRESIDENT'S
MESSAGE It's a new year and Pacific Beach Surf Club has a newly elected executive board. We come from all age groups, professions and styles of surfing. This board is a good mix of core surf club members and some new faces and talent. My sincere thanks to these generous volunteers. I appreciate the confidence you place in me as your president. The message this month is get involved. Club meetings are the first Thursday of each month at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall at 853 Turquoise Street at 7:00 pm. Come to the meeting and bring your family and friends. Get involved in the production of the Summer Classic Surf Contest scheduled for this June third at Tourmaline Surfing Park from dawn to dusk. You will meet most of the club and surf team members and have a great surf day at the beach. We need people and ideas. We need your contacts and skills. You are reading our first eNewsletter, CURRENTS. Please let us know if you want it e-mailed or posted to you. The next Coalition Surf Contest is at Santa Cruz on Memorial Day Weekend, May 27 & 28. Our surf team finished third over all among the sixteen clubs in the Coalition of Surfing Clubs last year. We are small but mighty and have opportunities for surfers in all age groups. See you at the general meeting next Thursday March 2nd. Drop in and become a member of the best surf club on the California coast. Kathy Austin President 2006 |
NEW OFFICERS
President
Kathy
Austin
1st
Vice President
Ron Greene
2nd
Vice President
Torrey Brown
Secretary
Derek Lodico
Treasurer
Don Wright
Team
Captain
Travis Long
Members-at-Large
Glen Paculba
Jeramiah Yount
Past
President
Rich Walwood
Our esteemed new leaders pose before a group surf session.
PBSC: Who are your biggest influences as far as classic-style longboarding is concerned? Josh: Wow, tough one. I've always sort of held 3 people up for style and influence in my mind. Dewey Weber (deceased) because he used to rip just the biggest turns of the era on those heavy boards. If he surfed today's progressive longboards, he'd be busting 360's all over the place. Next would be Joel Tudor. One of my favorite maneuvers is noseriding and I don't think there is any one as qualified a noserider than Joel. It's nice that we are both goofy so growing up watching him surf influenced my foot work and noseriding. The most influential to me and dear friend is Skip Frye. I was so, so fortunate to be able to grow up in his backyard, to be able to surf with him all the time, watching him trim and glide on the big boards was such a valuable lesson. You know, and not many people do, but Skip is the heaviest hot dogger around! Most people think that he just rides those tankers and cruises, but I've surfed with him and he pulls it out and just blows doors down on everybody. I wish we could see it more. My dream would have him at a Malibu contest, he'd beat everybody young and old! PBSC: What boards do you carry in your quiver these days? Josh: Smallest to tallest. 6'9 Big Frye fish; usually I keep this one for more broken up hollow beach days because it's tough to catch waves when longboarders are out. 7'7 Fyre Fish Simmons; my favorite board right now. I ride this one in all kinds of conditions big or small. It benefits from really clean lined up waves that are down the line sort of waves like Cliffs, and I can paddle in to waves like a longboard. 9'6 Hall Personal; I shaped this for my Dad to get him back in the water. It's one of the best noseriding boards I've ever made. Clean under head high surf. Last but not least, 10'2 Frye Eagle. This board is for when Skip and I get together at Cliffs and do all the reefs. Fun in small clean surf to bigger stuff. PBSC: Any interesting or crazy surf trips you want to tell us about? Josh: Yeah, my trip to Sumatra in 2001. Basically, just a heavy situation. Having gone from longboarding small surf at the pier all summer to surfing the biggest waves of my life on smaller than normal boards made for a pretty heavy time, all the time. So after having to walk out to the top of the reef, wading through a heavy current that wants to pull you off the reef and right in to the impact zone and dodging big, black sea urchins, you had to time the set and then sprint for your life for about 30 yards. Well needless to say, I was sent back over the falls cart wheeling with my board in my hands a couple of times. So, I'm pissed and freaked out once I get out there. Took a little while to calm down and then start to catch some waves. Now it was easy double overhead plus, headland reef lefts. Not so bad, right? Well, combine two different swell directions and you have a wave larger then what you just rode coming right at you and then end of your ride makes for a fun paddles back out. Scene set. So my roommate Pete Cuffaro and I were sitting where we considered way out the back and off the point, (pre-calming phase). All of a sudden we go over a wave and look and here comes this clean up wave, way bigger then anything that came through that morning. It stretched out into the bay like 150 yards past us, all the water started pulling off the reef and we just went for it, paddling like mad right at this thing. It was going to go top to bottom probably right in front of us. It was at the point, do you bail or try the duck dive? We duck dove. This thing bobbed us around like corks under the water for what seemed like forever. It ripped both my reef socks off and damn near pulled my shorts off. We popped up and thank god there wasn't two waves, we definitely wouldn't have made it under the second one. So we look back just freaking out to see the whole rest of the crews' boards tomb-stoning. Yeah, definitely not a fun session. |
Surf muffs
HEALTH CORNER By Derek Lodico Have you fell prey to Surfer’s Ear yet? If not, studies show those with extended exposure to cold air and cold water may develop what is called “Exostosis”. This is a reaction of the bone that lines the inner part of your ear canal caused in response to cold. It occurs in six out of every 1000 patients seen by an ENT doctor. You probably won’t even know it unless the doc sees it. Once it gets narrow enough, you may get wax and dead cells caught behind the block and become more prone to outer ear infections. Severe narrowing may cause hearing loss. So what do you do? Wear ear plugs. A study was done in England to look at people 10 years after having the corrective surgery done to evaluate the success of the surgery. 42.6% had minimal re-narrowing (<30% narrowing), 31% had moderate re-narrowing (30-60% narrowing), and 25% had severe re-narrowing. Use of ear plugs post surgery while exposed to water was significant in reducing the rate of recurrence. Five of the 31 patients studied in this group developed significant narrowing (>50%) even with cessation of all water sports following surgery. Canalplasty is the surgery done to correct this. Two methods are now available. One cuts the back of the ear, folds it forward and drills the bone out (ouch!). The other goes in through the outside canal. Both have minimal recovery time and are relatively safe. Don’t go stickin’ Q tips in your ears to try and avoid the wax. The Q Tip should only be used for cleaning the outside of the ear. If you stick a Q Tip in your ear, you can make it worse by jamming wax deeper into the canal. |
LETTERS Well, as this is the first issue of CURRENTS, we don't actually have any letters to publish this time. However, if you've got something on your mind you'd like to say in future issues, here's the place to do it. Just send it in an email to the editor, Richard Steadham. Try to keep rants to a minimum please. Be sure to include your first and last name, and the city where you live, or your letter cannot be published. Note that all letters will be subject to editing for length and clarity. |
UPCOMING COALITION EVENTS Memorial Day
Classic: May 27-28; Santa
Cruz Longboard Union;
21st Annual; Steamer Lane, Santa Cruz |
OTHER UPCOMING EVENTS Mar 2: PB Surf Club meeting, 7 pm, VFW Hall, 853 Turquoise Street, Pacific Beach. The new PB Surf Club hats will be available for purchase at this meeting for $18 each. Don't miss out! Mar 4: NSSA
Juniors, Seaside Reef, Cardiff |
For more, visit the PB Surf Club website at: http://www.pbsurfclub.org/ Copyright
2006, Pacific Beach Surf Club, San Diego, California |
