Which way, the green room?

OK, I admit it: I've gotten a little obsessed with barrels. My bodyboarder friends have all gotten their share. Somebody once compared it to losing your virginity. Maybe because everyone has been in that situation at one time in their life, but until you've popped your cherry you're not so interested in talking about it. Or maybe that's just a guy thing?

A week ago Friday was hollow with howling offshores and sets at least head high. My heart jumping, I grabbed my single fin pintail and ran to the water. Every wave, I was cranking a bottom turn, pulling in tight and trying to get inside. I got destroyed a lot in closeout barrels. But there were some good ones between the closeouts. Once I briefly saw the inside of a tube but it squeezed shut on me.

Later in the day my friends showed up. I was pretty tired and chilled, but they razzed me until I got back in the water. (That's one of the things friends are good for.) The swell dropped a foot or so in size, but lined up a little better. I stopped trying to pull in, and instead went for longer rides. A woman snapped my picture.

So I guess the ocean won't give it up to me yet, but damn I'm so in love with single fins.

Dude, Lightning Bolt?

As I finished prepping an old board for sale this week, a pretty rare opportunity presented itself.

I grew the quiver to a fair size this year, picking up interesting cheap used boards to experiment with. Now, as I'm looking to sell off a bunch to narrow the quiver to perhaps 4 boards, a semi gun was on the list. I'd envisioned more of a 7'2-7'4 pintail thruster, but suddenly what appears online?



A 7'1 single fin pintail semi gun. With a Lightning Bolt on the deck. At a good price. After a quick consult with the helpful, Bolt-obsessed Damion Fuller over at Boardcollector.com (thanks D!), I immediately began a campaign of begging the seller via email for first crack at this piece of history. I imagined he probably thought me a bit weird.



I showed up at his place and not only did it turn out we'd met briefly at my home break a couple weeks prior, he turned out to be quite a nice guy and very interesting - a German photographer named Marian living and working in NY.

After he helped me pack up the bolt in cardboard for the subway ride home, he was kind enough to take his quiver down off a high shelf, and here (pictured below) are three more Lightning Bolts! At right is a classic Vespa he and a friend dragged 5 stories up a narrow Chinatown staircase to his studio apt for restoration.



My new acquisition has a number of layers and unsightly (though watertight) repairs. The green bolt and pinlines are made of some kind of thin, very strong tape that's bonded tightly to the top. A thin layer of resin below the tape is an "Ed Angulo/Hawaii" decal. Who knows what the story is behind this board? But it's clearly been around for a while, and as I'm a rider not a curator, at 7'1 x 19.5 x 3, my new friend looks like it's begging for some big hurricane waves. And I hope that maybe, just maybe, on the right day, my feet will feel a soft whisper from 1975 Hawaii.