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.
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.
Surfing at Countyline
(border between Los Angeles and Ventura counties in California), June 2003
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

Old skateboard pictures
Town Center ramp in Boca Raton, Florida