For a 55 year old surfer that used to live in HMB and surf up and down the coast this was a beautiful reminder of how OB can get. Now living on the east coast and it is snowing but still surf I can feel the burn of this paddle. You pull up and it looks perfect and easy paddle out. An hour later and 5 beat downs you make it outside glad to be alive and exhausted while your kook buddy paddle out and never got his hair wet, that is OB lol. Beautiful footage and dedication, thank you for sharing. Now I want a Tres Amigo's Burrito!
I'm that kook. 60 year old here. I lived on 8th and Fulton 35 years ago. After taking an hour to get outside, I never had the strength to do anything but go over the falls a few times, then head back in. I switched to boogie boarding. Regardless, the burritos afterward were the best tasting thing ever.
I am a 74 year old surfer from Manhattan Beach! I went to Mira Costa , and lived all over hermosa and Manhattan.....I now live in the Montana wilderness at the Canadian border.
Picture perfect waves, the kind I'd sketch on a Pee-Chee folder when I was in school. Thanks for sharing the waves with us my friend, good stuff indeed! 👍 👍
The best book about surfing I've read is, 'Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life,' by William Finnegan'. He was a staff writer for the New Yorker. He writes about many surf spots he surfed and has several pages on his days surfing Ocean Beach. They are the most intense pages in the book since big Ocean Beach is often really hard to paddle out and really hard to stay positioned with the currents. A fantastic read.
I lived on 48th ave and Judah 2 blocks from Ocean Beach in 1987 - 1991. I could see the waves from my living room and I had a roof deck and you could even see the sand. I saw many days with waves that good but often by the time you paddled out the conditions would change drastically. Wind or fog and it was really hard to keep from drifting south. A couple times when I didn’t bother to keep from drifting, I would end up a mile or more down the beach by the time I got out. It is one of the hardest places to paddle out anywhere. But in those days in front of my house I surfed alone most of the time. It could be scary out there all by yourself. I surfed many days as good as it got, alone. Often it was to big to go out. I remember one stormy day, it was the biggest I ever saw it or anywhere else by far. One wave continuously broke all the way from the outer reef (about a mile out) to the shore. It must have been a hundred feet high.
I was wondering if somebody was going to mention Huntington Beach cliffs. I used to surf it, and the very first time, like an idiot, I tried to stay in one spot. It didn’t take long for me to figure out I was wasting energy so, I let the drift take me, and then I would take the long walk back😂😂😂
@@jasonjackson5696 They had a Surfing Contest at the cliffs and all the competitors had drifted outside their boundary and I was the only one within their boundary, I guess you can say I won that day. Every Kook has his day.
Yep that's OB changes in a flash. That's when the line from "Endless Summer always came to mind "Should have been here yesterday, you really missed it."
In the mid 90’s to early 2000’s I was out there every year about this time and I think I may of caught the place like that twice in that ten year span…great footage, thanks!
I surfed there in the 90's. It's the toughest riptide I ever dealt with, sometimes where I paddled out and where I came back in would be over a mile apart. Only the best and most experienced are able to surf Ocean Beach. The guys on this video make it look easy but surfing Ocean Beach is anything but easy.
Ocean beach at it's user friendliest. Not too many days like this happen so if you missed it you probably have to wait a year for the next one. I've caught a few days like this and I still remember them.
Beautiful footage, thanks for sharing! I do not recall ever surfing there with these type of conditions- looks like a rare gem of a day. Most times it was a cold grey hairy beast, even on modest days. Loved it though because it was so open and never had to fight for waves.
This looks like Indicators just North of Lanada Bay in Palos Verdes. Oh so many years to remember those winter swells. Nice peaks, good video....thanks for the memories.
The more I learn about OB and the surfing scene in SF, the more I like it. It’s a shame I could only be there for a day, could have a blast just watching from the shore.
OB...........Damn, I miss that place. I went to college at SDSU back in the late 80's. Tuition was $500 per semester and my apartment in OB cost $450 a month. Man those were the days. Please someone! Invent a time machine. Take me back to 88. Things were really good and anything was possible.
@@weareyouthere ohhhhhh!? My bad. I wouldn't mind going back in time to SF. It used to be my favorite city in the world. We all know what happened. Hey watch out for sharks. They're everywhere down south these days. Big ones! Someone's bound to get munched soon.
@@andrewwhite9739 yeah I've heard about all the sharks down south. SF has always had it's ups and downs. There's lots to still love about the city. OBSF certainly has become more crowded on really good days, but there's still empty days out when the surf is wonky.
Good work Donaldson, If I ever re edit my Santa Barbara footage, I will run music over it with the type you used. It sounds like Trip hop or Ambient Rock with cool echo. If I can I will watch and hear your clip for years to come... you've got good taste
