Surfing early during the Winter can be hard sometimes- even in Southern California. With fog, feet-numbing sand, and even colder water that dishes out ice cream headaches, it’s often easier to stay in bed. But when the sun creeps up over the newly snow caped mountains, saturating the glassy ocean in gold, it suddenly becomes easy to forget how numb my feet may be. It becomes even easier to forget the cold when the only two people I see out are my friends… trading fun peeling waves as the sun rises higher. Getting out of the empty early water and trudging back up the sand an alarm clock goes off nearby. As I peel off my wetsuit I realize once again that the Winter is not so bad.

Get your Almond Wetsuits!

Here is part two of the Santa Barbara camping photos- Day edition.

I spent  last weekend on the Santa Barbara coast camping with friends and relaxing. The weather was perfect, with sunny crystal clear days and cold fall nights under a blanket of stars (which are absent from my usual LA night sky). Some surfed. Some fished. We all ate… and ate well. My favorite meal of the weekend : barbequed tri tip steak, corn salad,  and freshly harvested mussels off the rocks on the beach. I separated the few photos I did take into “night” and “day.” I’ll post the “day” photo set soon.

A few snapshots from a little Los Angeles outing.

*Bonus iPhone photo of Charlie and Katie. Staying cool.

A few photos from summer.

So here is The Berkshires Pt. II… Barns, lakes, meadows, trees, greens, blues.

“A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.” – 9. The Ponds, Walden, Henry David Thoreau

Last weekend I traveled out to the Berkshires in the Northeast United States with Adam Sjoberg. We were met with the first weekend of cool fall air, the slight hue change of leaves, and a morning frost. We stayed on a farm, hiked through the woods, and drove through the countryside surveying lakes to jump into. Although there was much work accomplished on this trip, I did find time to sit on the back porch with the neighborhood lab to watch the sun drop through the trees and  over the rolling green hills.

A few more images of the Almond crew from last Saturday.

On Saturday I hung out with the Almond Surfboards crew down at San O and photographed some amazing and inspiring wave sliding. Below are a few of the many great images from the day. Go over and check out the Almond site HERE or swing by their shop in Newport.