Recent Happenings

I was asked to shoot PipeMaster Champ Jamie Obrien giving surf lessons a few weeks ago, but decided to pass, as I was burnt out from having just finished the VQS Championships. The next email I got though told me the shoot would only last a couple hours, was only a couple blocks from my house and was for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation... I was in.

Jamie and his dad were flown over here specifically for the event by a pharmaceutical company. The company is trying to promote a saline based nebulizing aerosol for Cystic Fibrosis patients... and Jamie, Newport's Cordell Miller, and Brad Ettinger went beyond the call of duty to make sure everyone had a great time.

After the event I tried to get Jamie to go and shoot Lowers, but all he could talk about was the FlowRider in San Diego... and I heard he spent a lot of time down there, and was launching himself all over the place.

Also while in California, Arnette, which includes team manager Brent Bearden (Newport's "Beandip"), used the opportunity to sign Jamie to the their ever expanding team. Look for the PipeMaster to be sporting cool Arnette shades in the future.

Jamie's Shadeless Shaka... in Newport

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The Southern Hemi of the Decade & The Drama

Building Tuesday

Tuesday morning, April 10th, I flipped on my cell phone early and found it already full of messages. I ran to get my camera! West Newport was feeling the initial pulse of 2 solid opposing hemisphere swells. Troy Ekert's double barrel, Tom Rezvan's drive from behind, and Chad La Bass's deep pit, that everyone stopped filming when he pulled into, and then gasped at as he came flying out of, were some of the highlights. As for the swells, the southern hemi just kept building!

Super Wednesday

Unless you're a paddling champion, West Newport was pretty unrideable at day break. "The Point" was a giant 4 block long wall of water. And the Wedge... well when the Wedge has 20ft faces, and there's only a few in the water, you know it's heavy. It wasn't so much the size that was limiting the crowd, it was the NW swell push and morning sickness wreaking havoc on the shape. The word was that Timpton got the barrel of all barrels the evening before.
Timmy Turner was the first to show with a board that morning, he got one bomb, and left. Pat Towersey on his 4 fin, and "Barney", who broke the fin out of his board before he even caught a wave, showed up and wowed the crowd. If you wanted to surf in town on Wednesday, and didn't have Laird Hamilton skills, then 44th to the Newport Pier, or the East Harbor Jetty were your best bets.

"The wave" I can't talk about.

75 plus cars, 20 plus video and still cameras, and a pack of pros mixed in with ripping locals told you how good "the wave" was. In high school, I'd had a place in the line-up in the area, and as I looked at all the cameras lining the beach and the cliff, I knew this media circus would not sit well with the local crew. I shot for a couple hours, and headed to work. And, as I drove north I noticed a surf magazine photographer shooting line-up shots from up far atop the hill, and it became obvious that this rare fickle wave was about to be thrust into the limelight.

"The Website" and "The Wave"

After 10 hours of shooting, and 8 hours at my real job, I got to spend until early the next morning editing photos, damn I wish I was a coffee drinker! "The wave" was the biggest surf news on the entire coast, and the biggest surf news website, which I often shoot for, wanted photos of it. They expected photos of it! One way or another they were going to get photos of it, and if I wasn't going to supply them, they would easily get them from someone else. No names of "the wave" was the agreement, and photos of "the wave" were sent.

First out, First to blame...

A photo I shot of Atwater team rider Spence Pirdy standing tall and charging "the wave", was one of the first images of the swell out of the gates ... And two emails bitching about the release of it came flying at me fast and furious. Hopefully they also took the time to lash out at Surfermag.com and the Daily Pilot, who later named "the wave"!

I contacted a couple locals in the area, guys I'd surfed with years ago... If I hadn't supplied photos, some clown less responsible would have, was my response. I vowed not to release my images identifying "the wave" to any magazines... to rally for them if I ever heard of a webcam being planned there, and to help hold the ladder so it could be dismantled if a webcam ever is. Additionally, I'm planning to put together photos of the day for the local crew... if you're one of the them, you'll hear about it. Surf photography, it's too much fun...

 

Welcome to "the wave"

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$100,000 in cash prizes, skateboards, beach cruisers... plus a motorcycle, were won last weekend at the VQS Championships in Newport. There was also a ton of free goodies tossed into the crowd. Hats, sandals, clothes, hardgoods... Just about everyone left the beach with something.

And then there was the giveaway of all giveaways. 50 yards south of the contest area, as gear was being thrown into the crowd, someone just outside the surf zone started waving a brand new board! It only took a few seconds for it to register with the crowd, and the race was on! Two guys hit the water first, and swam neck to neck the entire distance to the board. Below is the photo finish.

A shark nipping at these guy's heels couldn't have gotten them to swim any faster.

Volcom board giveaway... in Newport.

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Barney jumping off the Wedge jetty was pretty interesting, it's not exactly like jumping into the surf at 28th St.. Plus those boulders are huge, and tripping into one of the deep crevasses can easily happen. As a kid, we used to go down there on the lowest tides of the year, and crawl around the boulder spaces and find tons and tons of lost swim fins. On the CDM side Woody Woodworth and his friends would lose a surf mat that they rode off the end, and the thing would bounce along the boulders, and disappear into one of the spaces... Word is Barney jammed his finger on the rocks, and dislocated it.

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A Dislocated Landing

When shooting water Newport's Josh Hoyer has a habit of trying to boost over me. It's all in good fun and in the name of getting a good photo I guess. I figure he's one of the best aerial surfers around, and knows what he's doing... so I try and hang tight, and concentrate on getting the shot as he's skimming my head. Anyone else that boosts that close though, and I'm diving for the bottom!

And so it was... As we were heading into the water to shoot, Hoyer and I were joking about how close he'd come to landing on me in the past... yea funny stuff, I guess? A short while later... Hoyer's driving down the line towards me, when I notice that familiar grin that tells me he's about to try and fly over me... Hoyer crashes through the wave's lip, his board flying high into the air with enough momentum to easily clear me... but he's suddenly hit by a gush of offshore wind that brings that momentum to a halt. As I'm diving for the bottom I'm just hoping that it won't hurt to bad when he lands on me.

A little sore but still in one piece, we surface simultaneously, nervously laughing... until we see Hoyer's finger. The finger is not cut and is still attached to his hand, which is good, but it's severely dislocated, severely! It appears he'd jammed his finger into the waterhousing when he landed on me. And now bobbing around in the shorebreak we try to no avail to force the finger back into it's joint. I gotta admit, I would have needed a bullet to bite on due to the pain, but damn, Hoyer didn't even wince! Hours at Hoag, xrays, resetting of the now chipped bone, and a splint finger... and Hoyer is nearly as good as new to boost again... next time though, let him boost over you.

Hoyer seconds before impact...

Hoyer, seconds after... in Newport

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In early 2007, a few hundred yards from shore, extending from 40th to 56th St., were large groups of seals. There were over 300 of the agile beasts by one estimate. It was a strange site, with one long time oceanfront resident saying she hadn't seen anything like it in her 45 years of living on the beach.

Theories of the seal invasion ran the gamut. They came to dine of the grunion that have been running at night. Halibut came to dine on the grunion, and the seals came to dine on the Halibut. And the more probable cause, according to the Newport Animal Control, the seals came to feed on the unusually large amount of baitfish currently off the Newport coast.

I'm just glad all 300 of them didn't know how to bodysurf.

Early Springtime crowd... off 44th

Ship-Wreaks... in Newport

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"The Recent Strong North Winds in Newport"

If you live in the 100 block, it sandblasts your house.
If you walk to the beach, you get sand in your mouth.

The sand on the beach, gets blown to the bay.
The trash cans in your alley, get blown to San Diego County.

Because of the currents you can't stay in one place.
Because of the currents the sandbars get washed away.

The water is brown, and you can't see your board when you're sitting on it.
The water is cold, and you can't feel your fingers or toes when you get out of it.

The Huntington crew shows up to surf.
The Blackies crew shake their heads and go off to work...

Brian D., throwing water... Windswell @ Blackies.

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Mark Jeremias is a life long Newport surfer and accomplished film maker. Click the poster below to get a taste of his latest and greatest surf epic. "One California Day".

Alex Knost styling on the One California Day movie poster...

Mark Jeremias, styling One California Day at Blackies

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Newport surf shop Surfside Sports has made the big move! Surfside has vacated there location near the Newport Pier, and moved to West 17th. St., next to Staples. How big is their new shop? You could fit every surfshop in Newport, and a couple Huntington shops as well into the new giant store! So when you're in need of surfwear or hardgoods, head straight to the new SurfSide Sports SuperStore.. because if they don't have it, then it probably doesn't exist.

Duke and Paul elbow to elbow in the smaller quarters of their old location...

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Newport surfers Mike Gayer and John Morris have begun the development of an internet site that will provide a unique service. The site called Hookuku, meaning "Contest or Gathering" will provide surf contest organizers a free and easy to use service for running a surf event. To find out more about this "Interactive Surf Contest Management Service", click the link below...

HooKuKu

Mike G. managing to keep all 3 fins in the water while laying it on edge...in Newport

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After weeks of dealing with a flat ocean, when surf finally did arrive late December, people up and down the coast were hungry, and a bit greedy to get a wave...

"Sharing" in Orange County

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It's been a busy past 6 months at this insignificant website. Starting with the Van's Pro last March, NewportSurfShots.com has shot the finals of nearly every major surf event on the West Coast. And I'm elated to say the last event of the summer surf contest season is over, the Newport Pro.

People say real surf photographers don't shoot surf contests, and I couldn't agree more. What they do for a wanna be photog however is allow you to network with other photogs and surfers, teach you how to shoot in the worst possible lighting conditions, challenge you to make a boring event look interesting, and force you to learn to get photos out to publications fast, really fast... like within a few hours after the event. Ya real surf photographers don't shoot surf contests, but the knowledge gained from shooting them is invaluable, and ya gotta pay your dues...

Say good-bye to the summer surf contest season of 06'

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Warren Bolster

1947 - 2006

(This was the "Hotshot" on April 4th, 2004)

I was on my way to Todos to shoot the biggest swell of the winter, when I got a call that it was blown out... I ended up instead at a San Diego reef, one of the few places on the coast that was holding the swell. As I was shooting the reef, this old looking guy with a severe limp, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, an old shabby backpack, and a crazy look in his eye, walks up to me, and in a raspy voice, asks me who I'm shooting. He then starts babbling that he used to surf, that his eyes were bad, and that he recently took some photos in Hawaii. There's no way this guy even owns a camera I thought.

We stood there together, him talking in circles, and asking me strange questions about photography, and me hoping that he would go away. He then reaches into his backpack and pulls out a strange box with dials and and antenna on it. "What's that"? I ask. It's a remote control to an experimental camera board I designed that's out in the line-up", he answers. What the...!! He then hands me his card and asks me to shoot sequence from the beach, while he controls the camera board in the water. On the card is a photo shot from inside a crystal clear island barrel, and the name Warren Bolster. A guy who in many people's opinion is the greatest water based surf photographer of all time... I was fricken stunned!

(Click here for some of his amazing work)

Warren Bolster's camera board... in San Diego

In the ongoing quest to promote local surfers. NewportSurfShots.com has teamed up with Fuel TV and is now providing the network surfing images for wireless products, including wallpaper for phones. A few downloadable surfing images of the local crew are currently available on Fuel TV's website, and many more will be rotated onto the site in the future. Click the link below and checkout some of the local crew in action.

Fuel TV

Put one of these lovable local creatures on your phone today

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"POOCH" HERE, ALWAYS HAS A SMILE AND AN "ALOHA" FOR EVERYONE THAT SURFS THE BLACKIES AREA... AND NOW THE UNOFFICIAL CITY GREETER THROWS A DOUBLE "SHAKA" TO THE CITY OF NEWPORT BEACH AND WISHES THEM

A HAPPY 100 YEAR BIRTHDAY!

Great Food, Great Music, Great People, and fun activities for the kids....

Newport Harbor High School

This year's NHHS Junior and Senior class is special to this site. Nearly 3 years ago, when they were in their early High School years, and developing into good surfers, I began taking pictures of them surfing. Some of them knew me as one of the grumpy older surfers from the Lower Jetties area, and I'm sure rolled their eyes at my feeble photographic attempts.

Over the years they worked with me however and put up with me pointing a camera at them on the beach, in the water, and while dropping in on them. Additionally they met up with me at dusk, at dawn, at dark, and at out of town places for surf photo shoots. They also tolerated being blinded by a flash while surfing, agreed to surf bad conditions so I could experiment with photo equipment, and took time out before sprinting out to the water to let me know the surf and lighting conditions were good.

As my knowledge of photography and their surfing skills grew, our working relationship paid off. A couple of them landed photos in ads, the newspaper, on the internet, plus a magazine feature. Without a doubt, these young surfers are one of the most important reasons for the advancement of this site's photography. It's been a pleasure for me watching their surfing progress, and them mature into responsible young adults during the last few years.

Last month NHHS had their annual surf banquet. NewportSurfShots.com, as well as supportive school parent Joe R. had a slide show. Additionally Regan R. presented a NHHS surf film. Check the album section for NewportSurfShots.com's 15 minute slideshow of the local kids shot over the last few years, accompanied by tribal music from Australia's Yothu Vindi, available on Hollywood Records.

NHHS's Joey H's Smooth Slice... July 2003

NHHS's Joey H's Fin Free Slice... Feb. 2006.

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Dark Monday... The Day the Surfboard Industry stood still.

Clark Foam, the maker of 90% of surfboard blanks in the U.S., recently announced that they are immediately halting business. The company cited local Fire Authority and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) infractions, and continued litigation with these agencies related to foam blank production as the reason for their closure.

What does this mean to you, the surfer, right now? At present, there is no large volume manufacture in the United States that supplies polyurethane blanks, the ones used in most surfboard production. Inevitable blanks from foreign countries such as Australia and parts of Asia might arrive, but blank supplies in those countries are limited, and the cost of them is uncertain. Additionally the lag time for those blanks to find their way into the shaping bays of U.S. board manufactures will not happen overnight, which will surely financially impact surfboard shapers and glass shops throughout the U.S..

Large U.S. board manufactures (think Merric, Rusty & Lost) are one step ahead of the masses, and have set up shop overseas, and are ready for surfboard production. They, as well as "pop out" Tuflite surfboards, will undoubted attempt to fill the surfboard void in the U.S. market, but at what increased cost to the consumer, is uncertain.

Alternatives to polyurethane Clark blanks for surfboard construction do exist, and the current issue of Surfing Magazine discusses some of them. But at present, most shapers and glassers in the U.S. are not up to speed on working with these EPS/Epoxy alternatives.

For now, keep that board of yours safe, and away from the rocks! Because it's not going to be easy, or cheap to replace any time soon. If NewportSurfShots.com can make any announcements for any of those in the local surfboard shaping or glassing community, please let me know... Best wishes to everyone who has been impacted by this untoward event.

"Mowing Polyurethane"

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A few weeks ago NewportSurfShots.com held it's first ever slide show. 711 slides over 42 minutes. The goal was to try and represent every surf spot in Newport, and include as many different people in it as possible. In late August, when I was offered the opportunity to do the show, I thought it was to late to get record company's permission to use the songs that I wanted in the show. So we came up with the idea of using a live DJ. I think the DJ did a pretty good job that night.

Next year I hope to have the opportunity to showcase everyone's surfing again, and to put together a sound track to go along with it. If any surf companies or clubs would like to use this year's slide show at one of their events, let me know. Thanks to those that were able to attend, I hope you enjoyed it.

A Newport local... enjoying the slide show.

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Hawaiian female power surfer Kealea Kennelly had never surfed Newport before. But a couple weeks ago, after losing in the quarter finals of the Malibu WCT event, a heat she said she lost due to poor wave selection... she ended up in Newport at a friend's house. And the next morning she paddled out and tapped into the power of 54th St... well ok so maybe it wasn't that powerful, but it was playful.

Her impression of Newport's famous sandbar... "it was ok". Hopefully one day she'll return, and catch"The Point" when there's double overhead bombs or "The Wedge" when there's dredging death pits... there's plenty of power in those waves.

Kealea Kennelly... playing in Newport

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Da Water Update

During this summer my boards often sat in my garage growing cobwebs, while I instead spent a lot of my surf time figuring out how to shoot from the water. You don't know how many times I envisioned tossing my camera, wrestling someone's board away from them, and using it to grab a few waves of my own. My efforts however are starting to pay off, as I'm now spending less time swimming in circles, and more time lining up ok shots. When I told a professional surf photographer last spring that I was going to add water photography to my mix, he just laughed, "you poor guy, you have no idea what you're in for"! As I've found out, shooting water takes a lot of preparation, is a hell of a lot of work, and 2 hours of floating around with a box strapped to your arm, taking waves on the head, and dodging people, often results in only a hand full of good photos. Yea I've got a ton of photos of people going straight down the line and and what have you, but that's not what I'm looking to get. Because the number of good photos from each water shoot is minimal, I'll be putting water shots in albums only when I get a decent amount of good ones.

Eric, toying with the tube... @ 54

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Three years ago this week, long time Newport surfer Steve Webster was killed in a terrorist bombing on the small Indonesian island of Bali. If you look on the 52nd St. jetty you'll see a plaque embedded into the rocks in his honor. Recenlty 3 additional bombs exploded on the small island, killing 25 and wounding 100, numbers that are sure to rise. My wife and I have kept in touch with a local guy that was our driver when we visited the island years ago. This father of 3 reported that over the last year the tourist dollars that the locals depend on were beginning to return to the island. Saturday's bombings is sure to be a blow to their businesses and Bali's economy. For info. on Bali's surf, and news from the Bali surf community, click the link below. Crazy fricken world we live in.

The Wedge

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In the 70's there was a free skate park in Irvine that we used to skate, but after a similar city's skate park was sued by a skater that hurt himself, they shut it down, fearful of a lawsuit. This drove us to be creative and look for other places to skate. The Orange Coast College pool when empty was one of them, as was a reservoir near the top of Margaret in Corona del Mar...

Recently a skate park opened to the public in Costa Mesa, and NewportSurfShots.com's Kiefer is in tune on what's happening up there. Look for him to post some skate albums in the future.

Volcom team rider "Maddog" busting concrete air... in Costa

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NewportSurfShots.com's 15 minutes of fame came and went... Thanks to Laylan Connelly at the Orange County Register for all her hard work in putting the article together.

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The Quiet is Shattered

An incident occurred nearly 30 years ago in front of the small Balboa Bay beach in which I grew up that I will always remember. A couple of vans pulled up one weekend next to our house, and a group of kids and their chaperones piled out for a day of fun in the bay's calm waters. The bay was clean back then, and to us kids in the neighborhood, the channel in front of the house was our big swimming pool. We knew every nook and cranny of every seawall, dock, boat and bridge in the area.

In the early afternoon we heard sirens screaming down the street, stopping at the foot of the beach. Apparently one of the teenage boys had been swimming in the bay, when he suddenly gasped for air and went under. The guard that manned the beach tower was alerted to the incident, and was in the water frantically looking for him. He was soon joined by other guards. Unfortunately they did not find him, and the objective turned to retrieving the body. The lifeguard deptartment asked all the locals watching the ordeal to get their mask and fins and assist in the search. No way your saying to yourself, they would never ask that! Well this was 30 years ago, when rules, regulations, policies and procedures were a lot different.

The age cut off to participate was in the mid teens and those, including myself, that were to young ran to Bay Island to watch the search. All of the "divers" lined up across the length of the channel, 2 blocks north, under Bay Island bridge. On command from a lifeguard everyone dove to the bottom of the shallow channel, scoured it for a body and resurfaced. The line of divers then moved up a few feet, and repeated the maneuver. The group did this for the length of the channel and found nothing. I remember some of the guys being pretty freaked out by the experience when talking to them afterward.

The city then brought in the O.C. Sheriff's scuba divers, and they soon found the young man under a Bay Island dock, in eel grass. Our house was the command post during the ordeal, and sanctuary for the victim's friends. We learned from them that the teenager had a history of Epileptic Seizures. So it became evident that a seizure most likely occurred, which resulted in him engulfing water, and drowning. The chaperones of the outing were in total shock, absolutely devastated by the mishap, and my parents did what they could for them.

A couple weeks ago sirens sounded throughout the lower jetties area, and the rescue vehicles turned up 27th St.. If sirens turn up a 100 block, it usually means something is occurring on the beach. When I arrived the paramedics were securing an IV, airway and performing CPR . The 48 year old male had been pulled from the water and was reportedly a suicide attempt. The telling photos shot I don't think should be posted. Suffice to say the police, fire dept., and lifeguards where on the scene immediately, instituted heroic measures, and the victim was immediately transferred to Hoag with vital signs, but later died. Ironically at approximately the same time, a woman leap from one of Newport's bay bridges in an unrelated suicide attempt. NewportSurfShots.com will not make a habit of reporting similar events.

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Wheels 2 Water

Laylan Connelly has always been extremely close to her older brother. Tragically a few years ago her brother was shot while on a motorcycle at a stop light. The shooting was without motive, no one was ever apprehended, and it resulted in her brother being paralyzed.

Laylan is a reporter for the Orange County Register newspaper, and has the monumental job of covering any and everything that occurs in the Newport area. If something is happening in our town, you can be sure she is digging up the facts on it for the paper.

Last Fall Laylan became aware of the Wheels 2 Water event held at Blackies. She subsequently contacted myself, and the founder of the organization Travis Tremble. Which then lead her to write a compelling, in-depth article on the newly formed organization. It is an article she was very compassionate about writing, given her brothers paralysis. Read the story online by clicking here

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The Eland is not ONland anymore.

 

The dredge support ship, the Eland, was being passed a line from shore Sunday morning near Orange St., when the vessel nudged the sandbar. Those that live in the Shores said the captain gunned the engine so hard attempting to prevent the ship from running aground, that there were huge clouds of black smoke in the air, and they thought there was a fire. One of the lifeguards who watched it happen, said 'that when the ship began to become stuck, it swung around perpendicular to the beach, and waves started hitting the side of it". This pushed the vessel further towards shore, and up onto the sandbar. The tide dropped throughout the day, and there was little chance of freeing it up and getting it back out to sea.

On Monday the crew of the Eland choose to try and free the ship without the expensive assistance of a tug boat. The 158ft. ship with 20,000 gallons of fuel rocked a bit, but remained embedded in the sand. Mid morning when the skipper of the vessel looked out from his perch and saw the Fire Dept., Police, Lifeguards, a City Councilman, the Contractor, and the Dept. of Fish & Game gathered in a circle along the side his vessel, he must of known his company's checkbook was coming out immediately.

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Growing up on the Balboa Peninsula, our crew used to surf the dumping shore pound around 7th St during windswells. The wave was garbage, but it was cool for us to say we surfed in front of our houses. At the age of 13, I was surfing the thumping walls, and was hit by my board so hard that it broke my front tooth off, and imbedded it into the fiberglass of my board.

Kip A. was out surfing Blackies recently when his board hit him in the mouth and chipped not one, but both of his front teeth. It was pretty surprising how cool he was about it, considering he was looking at spending some quality time in the dental chair. How he avoided a split lip during the accident is still a mystery. Word is his smile has already been repaired...

It's always better to smash the lip, than be smashed by the lip.

Will A. smashing through the lip... @ 54th St.

NewportSurfShots.com's archive section has only been around about 6 months. Prior to the archive a "Hotshot" of someone would be up one day, and down the next. Often the person in the photo never found out about it until days later, and missed out on seeing it. It is for this reason that once a week NewportSurfShots.com will present a "Hotshot" feature from long ago. It might be the first time you've seen it, it might be one you don't remember, or it might be a photo and feature of you that you never knew existed.

 

The big storm during Jan. woke up another one of Newport's secret surf spots. Mike L. surfed fun ankle high lefts at 39th and Balboa Blvd. yesterday, with the occasional waist high set coming through when a bus drove by. I also heard there was a top to bottom right off of a raised curb at 48th and River. If the high tide along with rain persisted, look for both of those new surf spots to be extremely crowded. As of now Newport lifeguards have no plans to blackball either place during rush hour traffic. Mike L. signaling a left lane change @ 39th......... and Balboa Blvd.

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The Clean up

The City of Newport Beach can be a difficult place to reside in. The parking regulators at times seem to institute covert tactics in order to nail a ticket to your windshield. The growth a few of the City Council Members try to institute, often seems absurd. And then there's the building dept. Try getting their stamp of approval on anything the first time you present it, it's just not going to happen.

But there is one dept of the city that deserves kudos, especially lately. The beach maintenance department. When the large chunks of lifeguard ramp broke off from the Newport Pier last month and ended up on the beach, they removed it the next day. When the recent storm washed tons of debris onto the beach, they were out the moment the weather cleared to start the long process of cleaning up. And when 500 large squid washed up onto our sands last week, even though all the squid somehow mysteriously vanished by the next day, the maintain crews had prepared to rid the beach of the creatures the following morning.

The end of January a few of us were walking the beach and commented on how fast it was starting to look like it's old self. We noted however that the large amount of kelp and debris that had filled in and blanketed the rocks of each jetty, would have to wait and be washed off by the next large swell and high tide combo. But sure enough, the next day the maintenance crews were out in full force digging, scooping out, and shoveling the debris and kelp from the crevices of each jetty.

Those guys are awesome!

Sean M., solid hit in front of what is now a clean 28th st. jetty.

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Blah, blah, blah, the River is still flowing. Blah, blah, blah the water is still brown and Upper West Newport beaches are still closed. Blah, blah, blah the beaches and jetties are still littered with debris. Blah, blah, blah there are hundreds of large squid scattered on the beach... Large Squid?

Jan 19th the beaches of Newport were littered with squid up to 6ft. in length. Strewn on the beach in front of the small walled surf in the lower jetties on Wed. alone, there were nearly a hundred of the ocean creatures. The Register Newspaper is reporting that they may have been chasing bait fish and got washed up onto the beach.

On another note, a crew of surfers racing off of Newport in an Aluminum boat hit the 32nd st. jetty a little after dark on Jan 19th. Word is no one was seriously hurt, except for the boat, a few surfboards, and the boat driver's ego.

Contaminated Water, Giant Squid, A Ship Wreck...

Remember when the only exciting thing that ever happened along the coast of Newport was a big air.

Big Air @ "The Point

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I hate to say it, but if you have been surfing only Newport the 3rd week of Jan, you missed out. Sure you got that one barely head high wave, after waiting 20 minutes, that raced down the beach. But the word is everywhere else on the coast was overhead and perfect. I too am guilty of staying put, and have had to endure reading emails, and listening to people tell me how good Rincon, Trestles, Swami's, Sunset Cliffs... and every river mouth up and down the coast was.

To much West, to long interval, not enough sand, to much sand... whatever, Newport missed out on the meat of the swell. But then again, when Newport's beloved " Point" was double overhead last summer, how good do you think Swami's or Rincon was?

Oneill team rider Nick J., taking off ... @ 28th

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