Post Gidget invasion, and Dora’s nightmare.

(Allan Grant, 1961)

I recently finished David Rensin’s biography of Miki Dora, All for a Few Perfect Waves: The Audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer Miki Dora. If you have any interest in surfing, or the SoCal of the ’60s, or are just looking to read a bio of one of the strangest, enigmatic, and most fascinating surfers to exist, I’d highly recommend this book.

One thing that Miki was especially good at was mooching off all of his friends. Although he traveled the world to surf, very little of this was accomplished with his own money, as he often suckered his friends into loaning him cash, or ran up a huge tab on his Diner’s Club card which he had no intention of paying off (this eventually landed him in jail). When Dora died in 2002, his friends and family members were startled to learn that Dora had managed to accumulate over $400,000 in cash and investments:

Miki had fooled everyone. According to account statements, he was heavily invested in silver, gold and platinum. He owned shares of mining companies. He had high-interest bearing CDs, as well as positions, for a time, in energy companies such as El Paso, Dynegy, Consolidated Energy, and Enron – on which he made healthy profits, selling in advance of the bust.

One of the world’s biggest slackers trading shares of energy companies (and earning a nice profit as well)? Who woulda guessed?

Try traveling with a surfboard:

Some airlines are now charging surfers as much as $300 to take along a surfboard. That’s significantly higher than the $15 fee that big carriers began charging for the first checked bag, a move that has riled passengers.

The fee, among the highest of airline charges, is grounding some surfers and has created an unusual uproar among an otherwise mellow surf community. Fees for bicycles, skis and other sports equipment have also been rising, but not as much as surfboard.

Surfers note that most airlines don’t charge for golf bags, while surfers are paying as much as $300 a board for international flights. That’s nearly as much as a new board can cost. Avid surfers take as many as four boards in a bag, which can mean a $1,200 bill, or $2,400 for a round trip.

Surfline has an updated list of fees charged by each airline.

On Monday morning I drove down to Cape Hatteras National Seashore, about 60 miles south of our hotel in Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The surf in KDH had been rather disappointing (completely flat on Saturday, and blown out and choppy on Sunday) so I was hoping that Hatteras would offer something better. As it turned out, that wasn’t the case, but I didn’t mind, because it was absolutely beautiful down there.

The Cape Hatteras Light, built in 1870, is the tallest lighthouse in the United States. The lighthouse was moved inland several years ago due to erosion of the shoreline at its original site.

More on the actual trip later…

Outer Banks for the weekend, originally uploaded by lfincher.

In Kill Devil Hills until Monday afternoon.

Read about this in Surfer magazine today. It was shaped by Rusty Preisendorfer himself. That’s quite an honor. Rusty said that if McCain was a surfer he would make a board for him as well, but we all know that McCain don’t surf.

At 7’6″, this is the tallest board I own (others are 5’10″, 6′, and 6’10″). A bit heavier than the others, too.

Yes, straight from SoCal.

It kinda takes up a lot of space. I’ll probably get some wall mounts and hang it up in the winter. I’ve got a lot of blank space on one wall, so it will fit perfectly.

I’m planning a beach trip next Sunday to try it out. Hopefully the surf won’t be ankle high slop.

‘Cause it was saved:

The California Coastal Commission handed environmentalists a major victory and rejected the pleas of motorists Wednesday, voting down plans to build a six-lane toll road through San Onofre State Beach, a popular preserve in north San Diego County known for its scenery and famous surf spots.

Before a boisterous crowd of more than 3,500 people, commissioners decided 8 to 2 that the proposed Foothill South project violates the California Coastal Act, which is designed to regulate development along the state’s 1,100-mile shoreline. They reached the conclusion following hours of sometimes heated public testimony that pitted protecting the environment against the need to relieve traffic congestion in south Orange County.

[...]

The vote, which was greeted by an enormous cheer, followed 12 hours of public testimony from the crowd, of whom 2,500 made formal requests to speak, the largest number for a hearing in the commission’s more than 30 years of operation.

Some arrived by bus, brought by surf-industry companies opposed to the project. Others came as members of construction unions that support it. Some in the crowd carried surfboards as a symbol of protest. Others dressed as if attending a long-awaited football game.

My favorite sign: “They’re paid to be here” (latimes.com)

Admittedly, I was a bit puzzled by this paragraph in a NYTimes article about the proposed toll road:

Some supporters of the road say it would open up San Onofre State Beach, already the state’s fifth-most-visited state park, to people from inland cities. Right now, they say, the beach is dominated by a clique of territorial surfers.

WTF? San Onofre is the most chill place I’ve surfed. “A clique of territorial surfers” makes it sound like you’ll get hounded out of the water for being an inlander. It’s a STATE PARK.
Everyone’s gotta wait in the same line and pay the same fee to get in. If you want a toll road, move to New Jersey.

Yeah, this is real. Hawaiian tow-in surfers Garrett McNamara and Kealii Mamala catch waves generated by chunks of ice breaking off a glacier in Alaska:

Bay Area surfers were so frustrated with the government’s response following the Cosco Busan spill that they took it upon themselves to organize volunteers and clean up their favorite breaks:

Aghast at what he saw as the government-run cleanup’s slow pace, Rosas teamed up with two Silicon Valley friends, Byron Cleary and Kathleen Egan. All three are surfers. All three loathe red tape.

Their beach was getting slimed. Oil-smeared seabirds were in a death dance. The friends wanted action.
Risking arrest, they took time away from work to hit the sand — and get others out there with them.

In a matter of days they had launched a remarkably successful campaign, harnessing both the high-tech chutzpah and the environmental passion of the Bay Area.

Tapping into far-flung communities of techies and surfers, they marshaled volunteers over the Web. They set up a blog. They offered cleanup tips that others posted on Craigslist. They persuaded local businesses to pitch in by providing paper towels, synthetic gloves, even bagels.

As to be expected, some surfers did show up to the contaminated beaches wearing flip flops.

Several thousand miles away, the cleanup continues after an oil tanker loaded with 1.3 million gallons of fuel oil sank in the Black Sea.

It’s highly doubtful that this latest incident will lead to any improvement in Russia’s enforcement of its environmental standards (or lack thereof). Remember, only non-Russian companies have to abide by those regulations.