I’m Currently in Baja chasing waves and looking for fish tacos. If you’re reading this post it means I haven’t been able to find internet to upload photos. Don’t worry, I will be fine. I’m taking hundreds of photos and making my way all the way down to Cabo with a few friends. Check out my Instagram feed @fosterhunting for more updates.
I have scheduled a slew of posts on,
In San Luis Obispo, I opened up my iPad and changed the album from This is Happening by LCD Soundsytem to Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys. A drastic change, but it needed to happen. As a child, my dad played the album constantly. In the rainy northwest, the beaches and girls depicted by Brian Wilson and the rest of the Pendletones felt worlds away. My knowledge of waves was limited to whitecaps on the Columbia River and I’d seen a few girls in bikinis in Mexico once. My family drove old Volvos, not Thunderbirds and I had never seen a Deuce Coupes. Regardless of my experience with the places they described, their music captured me.
Renewable.
Woof.
Bad to the bone.
Fish Tacos.
Downtown.
California Street.
I heard this thing coming two blocks away.
Shooting the shit.
Billie Jean or Money for Nothing?
Sidewalk surfing.
China Town.
Pier.
Swap meet.
Travels with Charlie.
Sunset
As I grew, so did my appreciation of the Beach Boys. Brian Wilson’s dark side and the duality of their music made the stories they depicted even more compelling and real. Having spent a good amount of time in this area in the last six months, I’m still intrigued by the image of Southern California they described in their music. Although it’s very different today, a lot of what they captured is still alive and well.
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Riding the whitewater on my stomach, I leaned left towards the rocky point of Steamer Lane. Rolling off my board ten feet from the rocks, I landed in waist deep water and felt my way towards the shore. Scrambling out of the water, I ripped the Velcro leash off my right ankle and wrapped it around the board haphazardly. Following the route of the handful of surfers in front of me, I climbed and jumped between the boulders until reaching the stairs. From there, it was a foot race along the sidewalk towards back towards the point.
Trailing the other surfers I stopped my light jog at the Syncro, and dropped my board in the grass. Fight against light. Rushing to pull off my wetsuit down to the waist, I popped open the sliding door and grabbed my Olympus XA from the center console. Its analog dial read 17, meaning that there were still 20 or so exposures left in the roll. Equipped to rip.
A set rolled through the lineup and with a distant crash the ground shook and the crowd of onlookers cheered their approval. Their hoots continued and, based on the continuous grinding of the wave, I assumed some lucky surfer was getting a great ride all the way back to the rocks that I had climbed out of. The kind of ride that end up as people’s Facebook profile pics. Slamming the door, I followed the ant-like trail of running surfers along the sidewalk towards the point.
Holding the camera strap in my mouth, I climbed over the fence and headed towards the group of surfers waiting their turn to jump back in. By now the sun was a half circle on the horizon, giving the surfers an added sense of purpose. This combined with some exceptional waves rolling in had them talking in two-word sentences and grunts.
One after another, the surfers jumped the 10 feet or so off of the point into the water and paddled back into position. Each wave advanced the cycle.
Standing in my dripping wetsuit, I snapped shots and wound the film with the thumb wheel. A good winter swell at Steamer Lane is one of those things you will never forget.
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“Dude. Did you see that sign?” I said, taking a sip of tepid coffee from my thermos.
“No. What was it?” Spencer looked back through the rear window of the Syncro.
“‘Sandboarding! Rentals$20 for 24 hours. The sign is straight out of Back to the Future.”
“Fuck yah, lets check it out.”
Signaling my concurrence, I turned onto the shoulder just north of Florence, Oregon on the 101 and let the minivan behind us pass.
“I have always wanted to try this. It looks totally ridiculous.”
Five minutes later, Spencer and I were standing in one of the world’s only dedicated sandboarding shops getting the scoop about the history of the sport from the owner, operator and enthusiast. Resembling a former WWF wrestler, and sporting a mustache and ponytail, he informed us that sandboarding has been around long before snowboarding and that it was in fact an inspiration for Jake Burton. I kept my mouth shut and nodded. After the “history” lesson and short video highlighting the sport’s potential in various sand dunes around the world, Spencer were on our way, boards in hand.
That afternoon, we hiked around the dunes of Honeyman State park exploring shoots and picking lines. Although the conditions weren’t ideal, (sandboarding favors dry sand and being the middle of January in Oregon, the sand was wet) we got the hang of things pretty quickly. Sandboarding feels like riding a snowboard in powder. All the steering is with your back foot, and bad things happen when you put weight on your front foot.
They ollie just like a snowboard. Yours truly shredding a shoot.
Waxing up the board before a session.
Spencer summitting the hill.
The boards have similar construction to a skateboard, but with a layer of polyurethane on the bottom. Home Depot project perhaps?
Sand scrub.
Cranking a turn, hand on the wave.
Dodging a patch of grass, I carved my way down the narrow shoot. Pointing the board directly at Spencer, I picked up speed and turned to the right at the last minute spraying him with a few handfuls of sand.
“Duddde. Seriously.”
“Haha you were asking for it.”
“I’m over it. Lets head back to the car.”
Taking a moment, I looked back up the hill at our handy work. In the distance a yahoo’s four-wheeler screamed up a hill. I kicked off the board. “Alright. I’ll be doing this again.”
“As will I.”
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