crowd surfing

I shot these pics on a nice sunny day on the east side. I estimated there were about 2,000 surfers in the water. After doing some calculations I figure there was about a 2:1 local-to-kook ratio. Now I have to question the local-ness of those locals who were willing to go out there with 1,999 others and surf the same wave. Even if you are that good you have to assume you'd be dodging kooks left and right. The most core locals don't like doing that. They want to focus their energy shredding waves, not surfing over the backs of kooks!

Maybe these guys should have upped their kook deterring skills. Barked louder, mad-dogged harder, waxed windshields, uh, more. I don't know. They should have done something!

Even though the waves were pumping (again), these locals have a lesson to learn: if you plan on ripping waves really hard, you have to take the crowd factor into consideration. Crowd surfing isn't for hard core central coast locals...it's for kooks!!!

wild wild westside

My wife and I took a drive over to the westside a while back. Nothing says central coast local quite like the surfers who frequent Steamer Lane. It was winter, the sun had set, a big swell was in the water (how many times have we said this this winter?), and there were a dozen guys still out...ripping.

I took some pictures of what I witnessed. I'll let them do (most of) the talking. The locals didn't have to intimidate anyone out of the water on this night. The conditions yelled "beat it kook!" for them!

On an additional note, a loyal reader and friend asked that I explore the Santa Cruz surfing east-west rivalry. I usually like to pen the central coast local vs. the kook, but I suppose I could consider doing an expose into this feud. Stay tuned...