From rtaylor@geog.ucsb.edu Tue Jan 21 04:50:20 1997 Newsgroups: alt.surfing Subject: Dancing kelp! From: Surfer Bob Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 20:50:20 -0800 Hi all, I made a bad call on Saturday and spent the day playing on land with my luvin' wife on what turned out to be a day of pretty epic surf hereabouts. Oh well, sure luv my wife! Anyway, I've been on it like a man on a mission these last two days and shit has it been good! Overhead, glassy, fast, hollow, GREEN. I swear, this county is like one big right point when a west swell comes. But let me cut to the chase here. Brother Tim will give you the blow by blow. Here's the color. Maybe it's because I went to see the Parson's Dance Company perform last Friday night, but I swear the kelp was dancing in the wave faces today. The water was so clear and green and there's lots of Macrocystis (the giant kelp) and Egregia (the strap-like leaved one). That stuff looks brown with irridescent purple highlights that are just so righteous with the green water. For me there's some flashback psychedelic quality about purple and green together, but whether or not you ever inhaled it's beautiful together. So a wave comes and all the kelp goes swishing down into the depths. On a big wave, you can actually hear the big strands go, "Schloorp!" as they are pulled down. In the face of a big backlit wall all the fronds do this very smart whip-flourish-tuck-dive in perfect synchrony, like a chorus line of jazz dancers all doing some modern head snap step. Mermaids would be no more graceful. And then the curtain comes down in a shower of glitter, and I make like a duck. It was really cool. I love this little planet. Aloha, Surfer Bob From rtaylor@geog.ucsb.edu Tue Jan 21 04:50:20 1997 Newsgroups: alt.surfing Subject: Dancing kelp! From: Surfer Bob Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 20:50:20 -0800 Hi all, I made a bad call on Saturday and spent the day playing on land with my luvin' wife on what turned out to be a day of pretty epic surf hereabouts. Oh well, sure luv my wife! Anyway, I've been on it like a man on a mission these last two days and shit has it been good! Overhead, glassy, fast, hollow, GREEN. I swear, this county is like one big right point when a west swell comes. But let me cut to the chase here. Brother Tim will give you the blow by blow. Here's the color. Maybe it's because I went to see the Parson's Dance Company perform last Friday night, but I swear the kelp was dancing in the wave faces today. The water was so clear and green and there's lots of Macrocystis (the giant kelp) and Egregia (the strap-like leaved one). That stuff looks brown with irridescent purple highlights that are just so righteous with the green water. For me there's some flashback psychedelic quality about purple and green together, but whether or not you ever inhaled it's beautiful together. So a wave comes and all the kelp goes swishing down into the depths. On a big wave, you can actually hear the big strands go, "Schloorp!" as they are pulled down. In the face of a big backlit wall all the fronds do this very smart whip-flourish-tuck-dive in perfect synchrony, like a chorus line of jazz dancers all doing some modern head snap step. Mermaids would be no more graceful. And then the curtain comes down in a shower of glitter, and I make like a duck. It was really cool. I love this little planet. Aloha, Surfer Bob From tbmaddux@abalone.ucsb.edu Tue Jan 21 06:25:45 1997 Newsgroups: alt.surfing Subject: Re: Dancing kelp! From: tbmaddux@abalone.ucsb.edu (Timothy B. Maddux) Date: 20 Jan 1997 22:25:45 -0800 Date/Time: Monday, January 20th, 10:00 am - 12:30 pm Location: Gaviota Coast Weather: Cloudy morning, rain all last night and storm winds early. Conditions: Glassy with a little warble out of the southeast. Swell: West swell, chest high to just overhead on the sets. Comments: Almost didn't go, but Surfer Bob called, having noticed a fast back-down in the winds. It was smaller than yesterday but nobody was out. Score! Suited up as fast as we could, attracting only one more surfer who followed us out into the lineup. Clean and fun little waves early, very rippable. Later on the sets seemed to get a bit more punch. Late drops were the rule today, made about half of them. The other half were kinda painful. Even landed an air-drop of about two feet midway down the face, extended as I fell and then compressed through the bottom turn. The following wave doubled up underneath me and couldn't handle it, pearled and flushed my sinuses. Also notable were a barrel that I tried for, got axed by the lip right in my neck (ice, advil, heat, compression ensues tonight), and a couple of waves where I popped up late and I think looked down the line a bit too far instead of concentrating on the drop, catching a rail and pitching sideways into the face. Eventually we were joined by two other surfers, but that wasn't so bad. We both still got a lot of waves and had a great time. Hope you got some as well. -- .-``'. Timothy B. Maddux, Ocean Engineering Lab, UCSB .` .`~ Santa Barbara Surfing Web Site _.-' '._ http://www.engineering.ucsb.edu/~tbmaddux/