THE WART HOG

I have been needing a new way to get all my SUP boards to the beach and back. This is what I came up with. I bought a nice trailer from a friend and had the local muffler shop weld a surf rack on it. I should be able to fit at least 15 SUP boards on this puppy if needed. And yes, I have at least 15 boards around the house and at friends houses. My wife told me that the trailer looks like a wart hog in the drive way so that will be it's new name. WART HOG BABY!!!!

Also, Saturday May 17th we are planning a Ron House/Gerry Lopez SUP demo at Ledbetter Beach. We are still in the planning stage and I will have all the details asap. The demo will end in a cocktail party next door at the Shoreline Beach Cafe. This will be a Ron House /Gerry Lopez demo only. Ron House will be there as well as 4 time Olympic canoeist Jimmy Terrell of Quick Blade paddles. Most of you already know that the Quick Blade SUP paddle is the very best paddle that money can buy. We will have a full blown SUP demo with all the SUP boards known to man at a later date. Stay tuned. I'm off for a little SUP adventure and will be back Saturday. OUT.

PART TWO

My buddy called me up Saturday night and asked me if I saw Ledbetter point during the day. "No," I say. He then tells me that as he was driving by he counted 21 SUP surfers in the break. "SUP surfers," I say, "or guys on SUP boards?" There is a BIG difference. An SUP surfer knows how to surf and knows the rules and the etiquette of surfing. As soon as you enter the surf zone on an SUP board you become a surfer. That means you need to play by the rules and you need to know what you are doing. These boards are big and dangerous and can put the hurting on a guy prone surfing or even a kid on his surfboard. I can't believe how this sport has grown the past few years and in order to gain respect we need to act like surfers and not kooks. It's kind of funny to watch 21 guys on SUP boards doing the bumper car routine at the point, but this is not the county fair and even as a die hard SUP surfer I am starting to avoid spots like this. SUP surfing is super fun so let's keep the sport clean and if you don't know the rules of surfing please ask a surfer friend how it works. Thanks. OUT.

FYI. Listen to the band "The Kooks ". They rock!

THE 805

Why do I paddle board? I woke up this morning feeling kind of furry from last nights festivities. Had one or five to many glasses of wine at friends house so I decided to grab the 11' SUP board and do a down coast run from Henry's to Miramar. That's about a 2 hour paddle. It turned out to be super hot and glassy with no wind. Along the way a big ass whale came right up to me on the board. When I arrived at my destination the wife and kids were on the beach waiting for me. My son grabbed the 9'6" Lopez board and we paddled around some more. Managed to surf a couple of ankle slappers and checked out the fish in the Crystal clear water. Good time on the water with family and friends. Jumped in the Trooper aka "The Pooper"
and headed home. Forgot all about the hangover. Life is good. OUT.

BIG THROW DOWN !!

Most all of the new House /Lopez boards are in and ready to surf. We are now waiting for the next round of SUP sticks. In a few weeks we will get the Ron House 9' and 9'6" bat wing quads. It's all about high performance SUP surfing baby. You all have the big SUP boards that you learned on so now it's time to get of your ass and start getting after it !


FYI, mark your calender. May 17th we are planning a big SUP /demo party in Santa Barbara. This will be an all day event ending in a party at Shoreline Cafe on the beach. Lots of special guests will be in attendance. OUT.

RON HOUSE / GERRY LOPEZ......IN THE HOUSE!!

A few pics of the new Ron House and Gerry Lopez SUP boards. I made the run down to San Clemente yesterday and picked up a load of the new boards. WarDog at Stand up Paddle sports (www.surfingsports.com) has them all in stock now. These boards look BAD ASS and we can't wait to get them in the water today. The House/Lopez SUP boards are made to surf. If your ready to take it to the next level these are the boards that will make it happen!! OUT.

Gerry Lopez

Lopez hand shaping the 9'6" plug for his new line of production SUP boards.

RON HOUSE ROCKS THE HOUSE !!

OK, I've had a few people ask who's SUP boards I'm pushing. Is it BlueLine, Naish or Ron House? I have my own brand in BlueLine PaddleSurf and I was also on the Naish bandwagon for awhile. BlueLine will always be around for anyone that wants a local Santa Barbara SUP board. I have about 7 boards in the water and have heard nothing but good things about the way they perform. Problem is that there is no money to be made in local custom SUP boards. It's just a hobby. Naish SUP boards work great and I had a short run working with them, but when it was all said and done I went back to my original SUP shaper in Ron House. Ron House just simply knows how to shape a kick ass SUP board. I am very picky about my boards and after trying all these different boards I had to get back on the real deal. I believe in Ron's boards so much that I am now the central and Northern California rep for Ron House and Jerry Lopez SUP boards. Ron and Jerry Lopez are old friends and Ron shapes all of Lopez's SUP boards. Jerry shaped a couple of SUP boards and now I will have the honor of repping his boards as well. Wardog at SurfingSports.com here in Santa Barbara will have all of the Ron House and Jerry Lopez SUP boards the end of the week. We plan on having a big demo and beach party with the House/ Lopez boards sometime in mid May. Hope you all can make it. Above pics are Ron House and team rider Kyle Mochizuki. OUT.

KENALU

Not sure what rock I was hiding under but after a comment from Pono Bill (Peyote Bill?) I was directed to his website www.kenalu.com. Tons of great info. If you haven't seen this site you need to check it out!!

Thanks for checking out my blog. You wont find any intellectual content (really!) just a bunch of pics with an occasional post that has some useful tips (or not). I'll let all the other tech geeks do the serious blogs. My blog is all about having fun. Here in Santa Barbara we have some of the best SUP surfers anywhere and the best play ground to fine tune our skills. OUT.

TEN TWO

OK, enough of the cross dressing dog stuff and back to the business of paddleboarding. Above, team rider Kyle Mochizuki getting busy on the front of his SUP board.

BOOTY CALL ?

To be a kook, or not to be a kook, that is the question. I have always hated wearing booties while surfing on my SUP board. They make me feel like Peter Pan with surf trunks on. Yesterday while SUP surfing I fell off my board and landed on my left foot and "Shazam!", big 'ol slash on the bottom of my foot. 7 stitches later and out of the water for awhile maybe the Peter Pan look isn't so bad after all. OUT.

RON HOUSE / STAND UP PADDLESPORTS

I'm stoked to announce that www.surfingsports.com will now be the Santa Barbara (and beyond) dealer for Ron House SUP boards. Ron shapes some of the most progressive SUP boards on the market. He has it dialed and once you surf one of his boards you WILL feel the difference. I've had the opportunity to surf over 15 different kinds of SUP boards and most work and feel fine but none have come close to the performance of the House boards. Wardog at Surfingsports will be stocking the Ron House boards from the 12'foot single fin right down to the 9' quads and tri-fins. Lots of small SUP boards to choose from soon!! And if that wasn't sweet enough he will also have the new Jerry Lopez 9'6" sup tri-fin. Damn right, that's a Jerry Lopez SUP board shaped by Lopez in Bend Oregon. This board will be a hot item so if you are interested in this board or any other board call Wardog at 805 962-7877 or go to www.surfingsports.com for more info. The small House and Lopez boards will be in stock in about two weeks or less and the House 12' and 11' are in now. OUT.

SUP PARKING ONLY

Wardog from Surfingsports sent me this pic of our local Santa Barbara point over the weekend. What must the people driving by think when they look out to sea and see dudes, kids and chicks walking on water?! Lately people that swore up and down that they would never try SUP are calling asking about the sport and thinking about buying a board. OUT.

JERRY LOPEZ GOING BIG ON HIS RON HOUSE SUP BOARD

Lopez looking good on his Ron House 8'11" quad. The pic is from Mexico a couple of weeks ago. OUT.

STINK EYE AT THE 'CON

After swearing that I would never do standup at Rincon we ended up there today and it turned out to be a good time. I don't recommend that a beginner SUP surfer or a wave hog SUP surfer go there because you wont last long. The pit crew will make sure of that!! We did get some stink eye from one of the pit crew dudes but for the most part he was cool and I think he realized that we knew what we were doing. The purpose of the outing was to try out a few new SUP boards. We had a Starboard 9' footer and a Ron House 11' single fin and 9'6" tri-fin. I took the Ron House 9'6"+28" out and the first thing I found was that the fins were to small. This board was used a few times by one of Ron's team riders and maybe he used these small fins for a reason but it didn't work for me. The board now has the proper fins so it should be fine the next go out. I have surfed this same board with the right size fins before and it kicks ass. I almost think he put those tiny fins on it just to mess with me. I'll have to call and find out. Next was the Starboard 9' footer. I still can't believe how well this thing floats and paddles for such a small board. It surfs good too. It's a board that I would have to get used to because of the width. It is 30" wide. I really prefer a SUP board that is 28" wide no matter what the length is. Overall it's a great small SUP board and it would be a good addition to the quiver. Finally it was almost time to go so I went in and grabbed the 11' foot Ron House. This by far was my favorite board today. There is nothing fancy looking about the board but it surfs like a mo fo!! I like a big SUP board that has a thin tail and is super stiff. I like to power the board into the turns rather than the board doing the turns and me just going along for the ride. In other words, I don't like super loose floaty boards because they drift around to much in the hard turns and don't stick. The Ron House 11' footer makes the surfer do all the work. It's a power surfers board. I will be spending a lot of time on this board in the months to come. FYI, the Ron House boards I am talking about aren't the Surftech pop outs. They are the hand laid production epoxy/eps boards. OUT.

Labor of love

One of my favorite things to do with my new paddle boards is to get the pad and spray grip on and stand back and check it out. This board looks fun. If the wind dies down I might be able to get these boards in the water tomorrow.OUT.

THE SUP QUIVER GROWS

Another EARLY MORNING road trip today landed me in San Clemente and a SUP surf at San Onofre. I picked up three more SUP boards from Ron House. An 11' 12' single fin and 9'6" tri fin. What I like most about Ron's boards are that it doesn't matter what shape or size they are they all surf freaking amazing! I can't wait to go out and surf the 9'6" tri fin tomorrow. The south swell season is upon us and I hope to have some more of the super glassy SUP wave pics to share with you all. OUT.

EAST CAPE ESCAPE

Had a great time in Baja. Got home late last night. We surfed alone every day right in front of the beach house. There were a few guys doing standup out at 9 palms but I didn't even bother to ask them if I could try the boards. We also saw some guys on SUP boards in town. I have to say that surfing everyday on my 6'6" was a freaking workout!! I had a blast and got waves all day but I am ready for my SUP board now. OUT.