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Living in Los Angeles and working in Malibu provides plenty of outdoor opportunties.  Since my work is right on the beach I usual surf the various points around Malibu or at the breaks along the Los Angeles county-Ventura county border. There are a number of live cameras available on the web for checking the surf around Malibu. Use these links to check the surf at surfrider using Surfline, Surflink (membership required), or from another office at my lab (HRL). Current conditions in Southern California are also available from a variety of sources including:  UCSD.

There are a number of websites that provide swell predictions including wetsand and UCSD.

Plenty of information is also available about surf on the East Coast.

 South beach in Boca Raton, FL (includes live camera).

Since moving to California I have been surfing mostly Rat Surfboards. These are shaped by Jeff 'Rat' Battisti in Encinitas, California.

Long ago I use to surf Rusty Surfboards (my old clothing and surfboard sponser).  Before that Eric Swanson of Inner Rhythm Surfboards, now out of Vero Beach, shaped my boards.

Professional surfing has come a long way in recent years.  You can now watch most of the contests live via webcasts.  Check out the website for the association of surfing professionals for current or upcoming broadcasts as well as anything you could ever want to know about pro surfing.

Latigo Point, Malibu (June 2008)

Latigo is a fun right point in Malibu. It really comes to life during summer. For some swell directions it can be a slow wave, however it tends to pick up the south swells a little bigger and can even throw some barrels. This was a fun chest high to 1 foot overhead day. It was my last day of surfing before moving to Washington DC. I destroyed this board on my last wave when I hit a submerged rock and tore the fins off the board.
1 of 3 cutback sequence 2 of 3 cutback sequence 3 of 3 cutback sequence


Surfing at Zeros (August 2006)

Zeros is one of the few lefts in Malibu.  These picture sequences are taken from high on a cliff so it is difficult to judge the wave size.  It was shoulder high to a few feet overhead with warm water.  Nothing to complain about.
1 of 3 of off the lip 2 of 3 off the lip 3 of 3 off the lip


1 of 2 from zeros cutback 2 of 2 from Zeros cutback

Surfing at Countyline 

(border between Los Angeles and Ventura counties in California), June 2003

off the lip at countyline floater at Countyline

Click here (beware this is a 20.8 Mb file) for a video showing a wave pushing me and a sea-lion onto the rocks at Countyline, followed by three short waves from that day. One thing I learned about sea-lions once I got out in the water is that handeling them leaves a nice oily film on your wetsuit which causes your surfboard to be quite slippery! The sea-lion appeared to be disorientated, so I helped it over to a nearby beach where it stayed for a while. By the time I got out from surfing it had got in the water and left. That evening I learned that a small percentage of the sea-lions get poisoned by an acid in the bait fish each year. From what I read it seems unlikely the animal survived.

Backside lip in Vero Beach, Florida

Snowboarding at Mammoth, California 

Winter of 2004-2005.  This is my first time down from one of the upper level lifts.  Since I am a beginner at snowboarding it was nice to just make it down.  Much better than the previous time I went snowboarding, with the guy taking the picture, from the top of Breckenridge, CO and ended up in the hospital.

Putting the HRL handicapped parking improvements in Malibu, CA 

to their proper use

launching the HRL handicap <I>improvement</I> another launch of the HRL handicap <I>improvement</I>


Old skateboard pictures

Town Center ramp in Boca Raton, Florida