Tag Archives: northwest surfing community

Hipsters and Kooks and Kids and Swells Gone Awry

Posted on by under "Swamis" the novel, real surfers, surf fiction, surf novels

HAPPY LABOR DAY, I guess, sorry I’m, like twelve hours late with a Sunday posting. One hour, actually, since I woke up from going to bed early to work on this. I have, since I started working, fifty-four years ago, or so, traditionally worked on Labor Day. Yeah, poor me. I spent most of the accumulated martyr points going surfing when other people were working. Poor them.

YES, I did go on a scientifically based, surf forecast driven, search for surfable waves. And it wasn’t just me. People who surf, folks with all levels of skill and expertise and stoke, head out on three day weekends, value added and backups (traffic, ferry waits, Gorst, Tacoma) avoided (maybe) by starting on Thursday and/or heading back to civilization on Tuesday, pack up their board-bagged quivers and their surf-slick modified rigs, their pop-tops, and roof tents.

NO, I can’t really tell you where I went or what I found, wave-wise. This isn’t a self-imposed rule; there have been, um, reminders that blowing up spots is not in the best interest of someone who lives on the Olympic Peninsula. WHAT I CAN SAY is that, and mostly because we all look at the same forecasts, I did see a lot of CHARACTERS,

THIS ISN’T NEW. And, yes, I might put on my lucky HOBIE shirt, try to do a bit of posturing on the beach, trying, and failing, to look, you know, cool. I mean, as cool as someone who just turned 72 can manage.

YOU DO KNOW. Thought so.

FORECASTS- If one looked beyond the numbers, one could find that the swell numbers were one thing, the overall direction of the waves another. There is a real explanation as to why a long period swell might avoid the (relatively) shallower water and cruise on past the relatively narrow entrance to the Strait. I just don’t have it. And either do the many many enthusiasts who pull into the parking and/or viewing areas for known spots, discuss it among the other members of their crew, and move on. And, of course, on.

BECAUSE I’ve been doing this for so long, spent so much time in pull outs and lots, I almost always run into people I’ve seen in the past. This is usually great; reliving stories, waiting for the swell to change direction slightly, the tide to rise or fall appropriately.

BECAUSE I have seen such a wide variety of surf… people, I thought that I am missing a bet by not taking a few cell phone photos of interesting folks. WHAT really prompted this was seeing this one dude, big, bushy brown beard, distinctive hat, some sort of beverage in one hand, wearing shorts to best show off his calf tattoos, some short of shirt that matched his beard; and he’s cruising across the rocks with his, I’m guessing, sidekick, not as hipsterly dressed, and they’re heading up the beach to determine, I guess, if the waves are actually larger than they appear. Something. I don’t know. They weren’t gone long. Before I could get my shit together and chase them down, they were back in their custom surf rig and moving on.

OPPORTUNITY MISSED. Regroup. I will get a HIPSTER OF THE WEEK thing going soon. MAYBE not every week. ANYWAY, I took a photo of these guys to hold us over.

Okay, so it’s BARRY, whose name I remember because my son Sean’s cat is also named Barry, and who wondered that, not only I didn’t remember him, but the legendary TIM NOLAN also didn’t remember him, specifically, when they crossed paths recently. “I had longer hair,” he said. “Oh. Okay.” Next to him (and I did point out the double beach chair) is… no, not sure of his name. Didn’t get enough clues. Both of those guys had little kids who they would deck out in kid-sized suits and take out to challenge the waves. I did take a photo, but it might reveal the actual spot, and it might look as if there were actual waves. On the right is MIKE, who I’ve seen for years. Same van. I called him STU. No, not Stu, who, coincidentally, I ran into later at what was FRANK CRIPPEN’S surf shop, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, in Port Angeles.

IF I can’t collect photos, I do collect stories. For all the surf enthusiasts who got to if not into the water, you also have stories. Adventures. I tried to wave at all the surf rigs I passed on my way back down Surf Route 101. HEY, I DON”T know, maybe that change in tide and/or angle might have set the stage for someone’s awesome tale.

Surf rigs from some not so distant past. I kind of thought Mike’s VW might have been in this shot. I do remember there was one more there before I decided to take the photo. That’s my now-deceased Toyota wagon. I think all these surfers are saying, “Hey, Dude, don’t blow up the spot!” Or, “Hey, man, does this place ever have good waves?” No.

SO, do try to check out realsurfers on Wednesdays for the continuation of “Swamis.”

Stephen R. Davis is Not a Hodad

Posted on by under Uncategorized

… and yet, he has been known to pose.

Steve in a surf Guru pose, throwing a shaka to the shakers and movers and bookers and gram-ers and tubers.

Steve has been using some of his time working on his paintings. This particular one is of the children of a friend of his whose name I probably could recall from a list of names I’ve heard, like, “You know, the guy who lives in LA now,” or “You know, the guy who lives in Chicago but wants to move to… (somewhere- don’t remember where),” or “You know, met him in Baja, back when my money (or something) got stolen, but then we got it back (or didn’t),” or “You know, Stig, lives in Honolulu; you’re thinking of Makena, used to live here, now he’s on the Big Island, wants me to move back there.”

Oh, yeah, Stig. Never met him. Talked to him on the phone once. Background.

“WHO DO YOU KNOW?” is one of my favorite games. It’s really, “Who do we know in common?” Steve and I do have a number of friends and acquaintances and semi-enemies in common, as well as some people who, for example, like Steve, don’t like me. Well. Steve claims some people don’t like him, but I have never met those individuals. Many of those we know in common are from working- carpenters and contractors and such; others are from the surf community.

Because Steve has also worked in the food industry and elsewhere, and because I pretty much only paint, his pool of contacts is larger. Because I pretty much surf only on the Strait, where the pool of surfers; locals, regulars, occasionals, is fairly small (not discounting surf tourists- never do), and Steve has been known to travel, his contact group is… larger.

I have met Cap (Brian, I believe, is his given name). I’ve met Damon (can’t remember his nickname). I’ve sort of met a surprising number of people, in a surprising number of places, who seem to know Steve and seem to number him among their friends. Most recently, one of two cops who came down to a beach because some tourist had reported some old dude on a paddleboard struggling to get to shore. It’s not like they were lifeguards. More like body recovery was my guess. Rope. Grappling hook.

“That was me.” “You’re allright then?” “Sort of. I’m embarrassed and…” “Oh, Steve.” This was one, not both of the cops. “Wow! Haven’t seen you in a while, man; how’s it going?”

Steve, for those who want an update, just underwent his second round of chemo. “Not that bad,” he reported. He recovered from Covid. “Not that bad,” he reported. His eyes, after a violent reaction to a prescribed medicine threatened to melt his corneas, seem to be better. “Way better,” he says.

NOW, the portrait of Steve’s friends’ (assuming he is also friends with the mother) kids is one of many paintings my friend has been working of for a while. The impetus for getting it finished is that Steve’s brother, Paul, is going to Colorado (yes, though he was born in Seattle, I always tell people, “You know, Steve’s from Col-o-rad-o” in my best valley guy voice), and along with two-thirds of their father’s ashes (another brother, John, has the rest), Paul is taking the painting.

Portrait of Stephen R. Davis’s friend Frasier’s children, Nicholas and Cloe (Steve called, I asked)

My first thought on surfers getting into trouble in the water is “Probably shouldn’t have gone out.” What I’m trying not to think about is that age might have been a factor. Of course, age is A factor. There are several other contributing factors. I am able to see some humor in the situation, and I will write about this another time; but thanks to Kim for running down to the water when I was crawling ashore like a beached sea lion, pushing my board ahead of me. She didn’t need to carry my board up to the car, but, again, thanks.