According to NPR, the Natural Resources committe of San Deigo’s City Council unanimously approved a resolution, drafted by the Surfrider Foundation, that opposes the construction of a toll road through San Onofre State Park, home to one of San Diego’s finest surf breaks.  Environmentalists say that building the road according to the current plan would disrupt the flow of sediment from San Mateo creek and affect the quality of the waves at Trestles, which breaks at the mouth of the creek.  Surfers are rallying to prevent the toll road from being built as many regard Trestles as one of the most high-performance waves on the planet because of it’s shape.

Now, I’m not saying that commuters don’t need more roads, if it will actually help to ease the flow of traffic. But, I don’t think the only way to unclog traffic is to clog the creek and mush up the waves.  If we put some bright minds to work, then I’m sure we can find a way to make everyone happy.  It might end up costing a little extra, so we’ll just have to sort out exactly who should pay the price.

If you’re sympathetic to preserving one of our nation’s natural treasures, then you should do what you can to help the cause.  It’s actually fairly easy to send a letter to government officials.  Just go to www.savetrestles.org and click the Take Action link.  You should see a link to a Contact Government Officials page, where you’ll find email addresses to all those fatcat politicians as well as a link to download a copy of a letter that’s already been written.  You just have to put your name on it and attach it to an email.  Instead of sending a separate email to each government official, you can probably just write "To whom it may concern" or "Dear Fatcat" and send that same letter in a single email cc’ing all the fatcats.

While you’re at it, send an email to your friends to drum up awareness.  Awareness is key.

On June 15, in a majestic display of compassionate conservatism, George Bush used his executive authority to create the world’s largest marine wildlife sanctuary by declaring a chain of ten islands and their surrounding waters a national monument.  Roughly the same size as the State of California, the new reserve covers 140,000 square miles of ocean, including  an archipelago that stretches 1,400 miles north-west of the main Hawaiian Islands. The archipelago includes roughly 4,500 square miles of coral reef and is inhabited by about 7,000 species.  By declaring it a national monument, the entire area will be protected from fishing and oil drilling.

According to The Economist the marine sanctuary would normally have been created under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act of 1972.  Conservationists were having trouble creating the reserve under the NMSA, so G-Dub stepped up and knocked the ball out of the park for them.  Somebody, give the man a cookie . . . he earned it.

You can check out some video footage of the sanctuary at National Geographic’s site.  I’ll bet there are some nice waves out there.  Anyone know if it’s against the law to surf a national monument?

At one point or another, most surfers feel inclined to try a hand at shaping a surfboard.  And I’d wager that most of us have never actually shaped a board because getting all the supplies and equipment together just isn’t economical.

Well, some folks in Huntington Beach, CA are making it fairly easy to realize the dream of crafting your own board.  Pravda Surf will sell you a blank and everything else you need to make your own board.  The rates are pretty attractive, too.  Say, for example that you can live no longer without that whacked-out, quad-wing, 5-fin, modified-tri-pin fish that incorporates your revolutionary "Amazon Basin" channel design.  Pravda’s pricing would break down roughly as follows:

• 6′2" EPS Blank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $70
• 3 hrs in the shaping bay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $75 ($25/h4)
• Glassing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $175
• Epoxy costs extra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $60
• Fins (Future or FCS) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  $15 (includes fins)
• 1 hour in the painting bay (optional)  . . . . . . . . . . . . $25 ($15 each add’l hour)
• Satisfaction of charging your home break on your kooked-out dream rocket . . .
• (Sometimes less is more, so it might be better if I don’t actually write the price of satisfaction out for you.)
• Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $420

Pravda offers other options like tinting, polyester resin (for that added sheen), etc. all at additional costs.  And they claim to have some professional shapers on hand to assist if necessary.  All told, it doesn’t sound like too bad of a deal.

You can check them out at www.pravdasurf.com and read more about them in OC Weekly.
 

lalatimes.com has a funny article about a fictional company, BuyAWave.com, that tracks ocean waves and sells them online.   Fortunately,  the idea is a little far-fetched, but not so much  that we won’t ever have to worry about  some miserable bastards actually trying it, if they figure out how to track ocean waves in greater detail.  Should the technology ever fall into the wrong hands,  don’t say we never warned you.

It’s kinda funny because this guy in Long Island, NY and a few of his readers actually think the article is legit.  I’m pretty sure none of them surfs waves, so they get a pass on being down with the idea of buying/selling waves – they being from New York and all.  But I’ll bet they do surf the internet, so this should serve as a good reminder to all of us of a very important rule of any kind of surfing:

SAFETY  COMES FIRST.

Not everything you read on the internet is true, so you’ve gotta look out for yourself.  It’s a jungle out there.

Set to open their first location in Orlando, FL later this year, SurfParks plans on making some tasty waves, specifically for surfing, in wave pools all over the country.  We’re talking waves made by surfers for surfers. 

If the idea takes off, it could bring big change to the sport of surfing.  Imagine, instead of duking it out for crumby waves with all the yahoos at your local break, you just cruise inland to a warm salt water pool and pay $30 for 15 waves that all have a nice, consistent shape.  Now I know it doesn’t exactly sound like poetry to those of us who actually enjoy the excitement of paddling around in the ocean with all the critters and knuckleheads and pollutants . . . but manufactured waves could have a significant impact on the sport that we hold so sacred.

By making surfing more accessible to all the people living in wave deprived regions of the world, SurfParks could draw more people to the sport and undoubtedly fuel competition in various parts of the industry like Pro Surfing and surfboard production.

Hit http://surfparks.com and check out the Technology section.  They’ve got some cool pics and videos of scale models of the waves.

We’ve got the inside track on SurfParks, so we’ll let you know what’s up.

Australians will try anything at least twice.  One of their recent developments, the FireWire design, is starting to hit the market. 

FireWire combines epoxy resin, a parabolic stringer and  vacuum sandwich construction to form a surfboard that is inordinately light and durable.  I watched Bird (down at the SouthCoast Surf Shop in Pacific Beach) set a FireWire board on the ground upside-down and then jump up and down on it (without so much as cracking it).

Surfing Magazine has a short interview with surfboard innovator, Nev Hyman, discussing the FireWire concept.  Apparently, Nev really likes to showcase FireWire’s durability by jumping up and down on the boards.  As cool as that is, surfboards aren’t necessarily intended for us to jump up and down on them in parking lots.  It’ll be interesting to see how these new-fangled sticks perform out in the surf.

The folks at Surf Syndicate are taking tail configuration to the next level with their TinklerTail technology, a variable-flex tail configuration that you adjust while you’re in the water.  Inspired by the thrust that dolphins generate with their tails, supposedly, the TinklerTail can generate more thrust than a conventional surfboard tail . . . and you don’t have to motivate it with buckets of herring.  Killer.

Check out the articles in The Surfer’s Journal and Surfing Magazine.

This week’s issue of The Economist has an article about scientists trying to catch gravitational waves.  They’re not trying to ride the waves (yet) – they’re really just trying to detect the waves and prove that they actually exist. 

The basic idea is to use laser interferometry to detect gravity waves.  If they can pull it off, then they’ll finally be able to do some other cool stuff like put some of the principles of string theory to the test, which could really further our understanding of how the universe works.

If they can use a laser to detect gravity waves, then it oughta be possible to use them to detect ocean waves and provide much more detailed information than we currently gather from buoys.  It could potentially revolutionize the craft of surf forecasting . . . and the art of broceanography would be rendered obselete . . .

In order to gain a better understanding of how and why hurricane force winds destroy buildings, scientists intend to destroy an actual building with a machine that simulates the force of a 200 mph wind.

When they’re done blowing down houses, I wonder if this magical machine could be commissioned to kick up some waves.

Rip currents are often misunderstood.