It's been awhile.

Well, I think I'll try blogging again. Lots of stuff going on like trying to survive the economy, Kelly (my stepdaughter) and Bob getting married this weekend (3-28-2009) and trying to get over this nasty cold. I'm just about over the cold; surfing and windsurfing in the cold ocean hasn't helped much. But then again, when the surf is up or the wind is howling, who cares. Finally bought a new wetsuit. My 3-2 wetsuit was seven years old and full of holes and rips. Probably how I got my cold. Sunday the winds came full force to SoCal so my new 4-3 wetsuit came in handy.

The iWindsurf website was down Sunday but the wind was obviously blowing somewhere in the 25-35 MPH range. I rigged for a typical Seal Beach session, in other words a slightly larger sail size for when the wind dies. So I rigged my 5.4, still considered a small sail for someone my size sailing at Seal Beach. I think I was overpowered almost immediately but still managed to stay out 1-1/2 hours. The biggest problem was my 95L board. I really needed my 83L wave board but it was safely stored in a van parked in a meadow about 2500 miles away. Unfortunately the waves were virtually non-existent on a day that Seal Beach actually had side-shore winds. The fact that there were 4-5 foot waves predicted for Monday made things worse. Monday the winds went down considerably but at least the waves returned. Back to sailing my 6.7 in side-onshore winds.

More photos at on the http://www.tmmaui.com/ website.

Hot Hot Hot....

That's the only one way to describe the weather in Southern California. It's been extremely hot for the last seven days. Even at the normally cooler beaches the temperature has now gone into the triple digits. Needless to say the beaches were jammed during the 3-day holiday weekend. The extreme temperatures and a decent south swell jammed the beach parking lots beyond capacity, creating traffic jams along Pacific Coast Highway. I took some photos at Bolsa Chica State Beach over Labor Day weekend and posted them on YouTube.



I also posted a short video of our trip to Kauai. Still waiting to get the TMMaui website fixed.

Belmont Shore Sunsets

The remnants of Hurricane Dean are creating some nice sunsets over Long Beach. Two nights ago I went down to "Dog Beach" and took some shots of the sunset in clear skies and last night the sky was filled with clouds from the late Hurricane Dean. We even got a brief shower with some thunder early this morning. If you like sunsets, I posted the video on YouTube at:



or click on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRBgabK_3Jo

Hurricane Flossie Waves

I'm still trying to get my website back online. So far, no luck. I did manage to post the "Flossie Waves" video on YouTube. The video can be seen at:



or try this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVoTgz_Jp0s

Maui Race Series Video

I posted the 2007 MFC Race video taken during the 4th race of the Maui Race Series on YouTube. This video originally appeared http://www.tmmaui.com/. See the video at

Back in Long Beach

Well I'm finally back in Long Beach. The shock of driving down a 10-lane freeway, jammed with more cars in a 2-mile stretch than all the cars that exist on the entire island of Maui, instantly sends you back to the reality of living in Southern California. It always takes me a few days to get readjusted to the traffic, weather and the massive amount of people who live here. I have posted a few photos taken at Ho'okipa a few days ago when the Hurricane Flossie waves arrived. The photos can be viewed at www.tmmaui.com.