High Surf in Southern California

A fabulous photo-slideshow, at Los Angeles Times, "California surf is up, dudes; swells pound west-facing beaches."

Surfing or Suicide? Nathan Fletcher Survives 'Broken Skulls' in Tahiti

A great piece.

And especially interesting is how the editors embedded the video at the website. This story was on the front page in traditional dead-tree format, but online the newspaper basically blogged it.

At Los Angeles Times, "A surfer's defining moment in a wall of water":

The view from inside a wave, a big one, can be hazy.

Surrounded by spray and a pounding drone, surfers get tunnel vision, all senses devoted to reaching the far end of the barrel. As Clark said: "You're so focused on harnessing and managing that power so you can deal with it, ride it, survive it."

When Fletcher was towed into his second ride at Teahupoo — by a faster Jet ski this time — it was clear he had landed in the jaws of a behemoth.

The wave reached an estimated 37 feet, but it wasn't so much the height as the thickness and ferocious power, a churning locomotive. After a bottom turn, he spotted a narrow slot, a path to safety, but his board kept twisting sideways.

"I was battling the whole time," he said. "Just thinking that I had to make it because I was scared."

The sheer volume of water running up the face of the wave threatened to suck him up and over. Yet, until the last moment, Fletcher thought he had a chance to emerge unscathed.

"Then I realized I wasn't going to make it."

The lip overhead — nearly as heavy as the wave itself, a frightening trademark of Teahupoo — collapsed with merciless force, sending his board flying, wrenching his body underwater. "This is it," he thought. "I've had some good waves, a good life." Then, just as quickly, he popped to the surface.

"I grabbed my head," he recalled. "I was like, is that thing still on there?"

Back on shore, the crowd was buzzing about his epic ride and wipeout, but the whole thing felt so surreal that he didn't pay much attention. Wasn't everyone catching big ones that day?

90 Foot Wave!

Via Theo Spark:

Big Day at U.S. Open of Surfing!

Well, we're back.

I hung out with my youngest son while my oldest tooled around Huntington Beach with some friends from school.

We parked at 12th Street and Pacific Coast Highway, just North of the Sun'n Sands Motel:

Here's the scene looking toward the pier from the BMX grandstands. Vendor booths are under the tents. The Skullcandy sound booth is at right:

Actually, I didn't have time to watch surfing. I usually do, but I couldn't leave my youngest kid alone. But Los Angeles Times has a surfing report, "Brett Simpson is eliminated at Nike U.S. Open of Surfing."

So we mostly hung out by the skateboard ramps:

The weather was awesome. Good for a couple of Pacíficos:

Hundreds of thousands of fans visit the U.S. Open every summer. It's mostly young people, guys with board shorts and girls in bikinis. One thing I found interesting is how people write on themselves, with erasable ink, I guess. Mostly these are good-natured messages, like "Free Hugs Here," seen on a lot of the young guys. That said, I saw one hot little number in a bikini with a slashed line running from her bikini top to her bottoms, with an arrow pointing to her private area with the message, "INSERT HERE!" Well, I'm all for truth in advertising! And honestly, some people have no problem writing "F- Me" all over their bodies. I asked my oldest son about that and even he was surprised. He then showed me his Skullcandy tatoo, so what can you do:

Heckuva lot better than "F- Me", that's for sure!

'The D-Boyz' at X-Games

My boys hanging out on Saturday at Staples Center:

We might be going to Huntington Beach today, so check back from some fresh photo-blogging. The weather is really hot too!

U.S. Open of Surfing at Huntington Beach

The surf contest schedule overlapped with the X-Games, so I wasn't event thinking about it. But my oldest boy asked if I'd drive him down to the beach tomorrow, so I checked it out online. Here's this at Los Angeles Times, "U.S. Open of Surfing at Huntington Beach begins Saturday." Cool Twitter feed here as well.