There seems to be a yearning these days for a much simpler life...! Note the SMILES.😎
Lou
Jan 18, 2021
Jan 16, 2021
From Geoffrey/Instagram
There’s been large swell running for the past week. Our trip to Santa Barbara Island was bumpy and dive conditions questionable. But what we found in light of this was a wonderful surprise: surfing sea lions! None of us had ever seen such sustained and enthusiastic wave riding from pinnipeds before. It was a joy to watch! 🎥 by @lawofthelandnsea
Video here ...
Jan 14, 2021
From The Wahine Kai International Surf Club Newsletter
How Riding a Bag of my own Air Transformed my Surf Journey
By Julie Benn
It was the summer of 2020 and I was knee-deep into months of physical therapy following surgery in 2019 to replace a ruptured ACL, repair a torn meniscus, address a large piece of cartilage that had broken off and tend to a fractured femur. Whew! All from surfing big waves at Waimea. Yah, uh, in my dreams. It was actually from doing a “football move” of jumping over a pair of stray Birkenstocks that weren’t where they were supposed to be (read: the closet, not the middle of the bedroom) and landing wrong.
I’m a surfer who’s ridden longboards, egg boards, body boards and my favorite, knee boards. To be told by my surgeon that it would be a year before I could get back to surfing was a tough reality to face. But I did it, grinding through months of intense physical therapy and endless home exercises. One day, as I was watching surfers on YouTube (a frequent activity—living vicariously through others), a video popped up on something I’d never even heard of before: mat surfing.
I clicked on the link and watched (for hours) video after video of surfers riding an inflatable bag of air and just absolutely flying across the face of the wave at speeds I never thought were possible on a non-motorized watercraft, let alone a freaking raft!
I was mesmerized.
A trek down history lane reveals that it was 1934 when a physician from Sydney, Australia invented the first surf mat. They became incredibly popular and by 1938, the surf mat had already its own division at the Australian Surfing Titles. In the 1940’s mats made their way to American beaches (and New Zealand, Hawaii, the UK and South Africa) and thrived as the mainstay of wave hungry kids and even older folks who used to rent them at local beaches for like 50 cents a day. It wasn’t until the advent of Tom Morey’s Boogie Board in 1973 that signaled the (almost) obliteration of the surf mat. It faded from surf culture and line-ups until recently.
Today this “lost art” of wave riding is making a comeback in underground (or, underwater, more appropriately) pockets around the world. World-renowned surfer and inventor of the modern surfboard fin (as well as huge contributor to shortboard design, kneeboarder, cinematographer, and all-around amazing waterman) George Greenough has said that his wave-riding vehicle of choice is actually the surf mat.
“The funny thing about mats, is that they’re the easiest thing to ride on a beginner level, but the hardest thing to ride on an advanced level. I’ve been riding mats for over 40 years, and I’m still learning things,” says Greenough.
One of the most challenging things about transitioning to riding mats is that you almost have to forget what you know about board riding. The nuances, the way you position yourself on a wave, where you put your hands and even how you move your fingers can affect your trajectory. After all, it’s a bag of malleable air you’re on and it’s as changeable as it is the sea itself.
It seems like it would be just like body boarding, but it’s really not. You can feel every bump and ripple as you are intimately connected to the ocean, riding at eye level, in some ways learning the dance all over again from the perspective of a sea-foam bubble! I am on a steep learning curve myself, but I love being a student in the School of Ocean.
Some days I get clobbered, other days I find the sweet spot and just soar. Every paddle out is different, and, as is true with other kinds of surfing, it feels like freedom. Yet this time out, there are no tangled leashes and no cumbersome fiberglass, just a small mat filled with your own air bouncing around in the wild as you giggle your way onto shore. And, when you’re done, you simply deflate your surf craft and throw it in your backpack. Easy peasey.
Another thing that is missing from the surf mat experience is ego. Honestly, this is hard, but you really have to check that at the car door. You may be the best board surfer in the world and have all kinds of street-cred in your local line-up but when you paddle out on what is akin to a camping air mattress, that all fades away. You’re not competing against anyone anymore. You are risking looking like a kook (and you probably do), and you are simply having fun—riding the wave faster than you ever thought possible, making section after section and squeezing every last droplet of momentum out of what was possibly just the longest ride of your life. Epic!
As many surfers do, I got into riding mats due to an injury. However, as Paul Gross of Fourth Gear Flyers custom surf mats says, I will likely stay a mat surfer due to the pure joy of it. Plus, due to its convenience and lower injury risk factor, this is a form of surfing that I can likely continue into older age.
I am amassing a quiver of mats and happily getting others into it with me. I have extra fins and wetsuits to outfit my friends and am also looking forward to bonding with others who are much more experienced than I am. (I heard there is a 7 to 9 am bodysurfing and mat surfing group that convenes daily just north of the pier at San Diego’s Ocean Beach—planning on checking that out soon!)
There are a handful of surf mat makers out there. Some located in the UK and Australia, and there’s the aforementioned California local Paul Gross who handmakes each mat to order. Every builder has a distinct styling to their mats and it’s just a matter of trying them out to see which one feels best to you.
If any of this piques your interest, I encourage you to check out the list of videos and websites below. And, if it looks like something you’d like to try out, hit me up if you’re in the San Diego area. Would love to paddle out with you and am happy to share my mat collection with friends looking for another way to fall in love with the sea all over again.
Julie Benn
thewordnerd@yahoo.com
Useful links:
The Mat Professor |Surf Simply
What is a surf mat? (surfertoday.com)
Videos:
This is the video that first stoked me out on surf mats: (245) SURF MAT TURBO TIME II : NEXT LEVEL - YouTube
Cool portraits of mat surfers: https://youtu.be/ocDDmYHLBU0
Fun mat surfing video at Huntington Beach: https://youtu.be/q40r69mDDp8
The ultimate magic carpet ride: https://youtu.be/wxx-ag8d6Lg
Nice POV angles from Imperial Beach surf mat session: https://youtu.be/rVXHbkVlKP4
Jan 13, 2021
Jan 12, 2021
From This Week's New Yorker
Our own Jeremy Grosvenor making the best of the end of 2020. (More on the Friedrich-Grosvenor family here...)
Jan 5, 2021
Jan 4, 2021
From Bob
Someone has a beef with surfmats!
Peter Steynberg sent me the image from Hawaii. He lives in Hilo now, but used to own the Steynberg Gallery in SLO. He is one of my surfmat recruits and you made a mat for him. He is ocean swimming daily and enjoying retirement.
Bob
Bob
Dec 20, 2020
Dec 19, 2020
Spotted By Steiny
Santa set up shop in Santa Cruz recently, and brought along his Vespa in case he had time to crack it. (He's strictly a westsider, BTW...) Between go-outs, he used his favorite roundtail up on it's nose as a door to his inflatable workshop.
"Ho Ho Ho! I'd like to drop a few LBs by this time next year, and get a Tracker," Santa commented hopefully.
The candy cane window dressing is serving as high-carb chow for his reindeer as they chill before launching next Thursday night!
Dec 8, 2020
Dec 4, 2020
Nov 24, 2020
From Matthew
Hey Paul,
This is from our trip to South Africa last year. A great trip with great friends and great waves. This is a section of a movie that Josh Simpson is slowly working on. It features Ellis Ericson, Beau Foster, and myself.
More to come maybe.
Thanks for the fun, we always enjoy the ride.
Cheer
Crowe
Nov 21, 2020
From Don
Paul,
Since in all my years of matting I have had only one picture taken I was
sort of stoked to see I was captured on the Surfline cam yesterday. Fun
on the Tracker, this has been a pretty great week. Here is the vid, going
right. Thanks for your mat designing skills!
Don
Nov 12, 2020
From Nilus
Hey, Paul!
So it's been more than seven years since I bought my Omni from you and it's still going strong. Actually, after largely neglecting it for a while, I started taking it out more frequently in the last couple years ... Including some good Rincon sessions with other mat riders. Such a blast.
I just got back from a trip to
the Outer Banks (my daughter was competing at NSSA nationals) and found
some really fun tube opportunities at a mysto sandbar that was like a
reverse sandspit. Also rode it at the Waco wave pool last year. (Pics of
both attached.)
Nilus
Nov 4, 2020
Nov 2, 2020
From Sounder The Beagle's Mom
Hey PG,
Just
got out on my Fatty for first time this weekend. I paddled out at Del
Mar yesterday. It was a clear and gorgeous fall morning. To my complete
surprise, a dude was out there on an Omni showing me how it's done. I
was so stoked to see another 4GF!! He said he was from Newport Beach,
but I didn't catch his name. I asked him for some pointers after which, I
caught a nice left. I'm getting used to riding bag of air. There's a
learning curve for sure but having fun in School of Ocean. Thanks Paul!
PS. Hey,
wondering about surfing with other San
Diego locals. Do you know of any flyers in SD Country
that might like to do a meet up?
thewordnerd at yahoo dot com
Thanks PG!
Julie
Oct 29, 2020
From Jon
Hey Paul,
I hope you're having a great week! I wanted to send along a shot from this past weekend that my friend Nick Lavecchia
took of myself headed out on my Tracker along with my buddy Ty who's a
boarder. We had some great swell here in southern Maine and NH and I
rode five sessions from Thursday night to Sunday morning all on the
Tracker. It was good size surf, Saturday was 6-9ft in the evening, so
the paddle out and the few times I got caught inside were an adventure
to say the least.
I lost the mat a couple times each session and had to
bodysurf in, pick it up, and make the paddle out again. But, the big
waves and fun shoulders I caught made it all worth it. I felt like my
riding made some steps forward where I was able to chain multiple
sections together, make some great cutbacks, and FLY on some big
shoulders.
Sadly in the next month or so the
water will get too cold for anything but mittens here, which I think
will make it too hard for me to keep a handle on the mat on big days.
Thanks
for making such an awesome product.
Cheers,
Jon
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