This weekend I got a wild-hair to paint my surfboards. I was getting tired of looking at 3 whitish-yellow boards (getting more yellow by the day, as boards are exposed to the sun, they start to yellow) and the swell has been non-existent so it was the perfect time. I hopped on the interweb and searched for ways to paint my boards. I found a great article over at Brave Surf that detailed how to paint your board with common spray paint. and I jumped to the task. Of course I didn’t really plan it all out that well, but the results are great. I had planned on creating a nifty tutorial complete with photography, but I didn’t really do a very good job on the photography department, so the tutorial will have to wait until I do the fish board. I used my short board, the Channel Island Flyer II (which is getting long in the tooth) and my Roberts funboard as guinea pigs. It was a great experience learning how to use spray paint again. The above pic, is a drawing I made of the 5 designs I had in mind. The idea was to not get too tricky with it, but just to have fun and try not to create something too ugly.
The funboard ended up using design #1, a bunch of blue circles. it’s simple and looks super sweet
The Flyer II ended using design #2, which is a banana leaf. it looks insane. I left the bottom un-painted
and now I have 2 boards that are unmistakably mine. That’s the rub. How to give your board a personality. reminds me of decorating the grip tape on my skateboard, when I was a wee lickle shite. I have a few different ideas for the fish board which is my personal favorite, but I’m distraught a little bit. i don’t wanna get too technical with it (more variables to mess up) but I have an idea in mind, that if I could pull it off, it’d be insane. Well, we’ll have to wait and see…
The road to Punta Mita is in a constant state of being reshaped and paved, but in the 3 years that the road has been under construction, I have yet to see any one part of the road paved. As a freebie for all visiting surfers, the path to La Lancha is marked by a large temporary concrete mixing plant. It’s truly a study in opposites, to see a couple of surfers, board in hand as they make their way over the mounds of fresh earth and past the towering mixer as they slip into the jungle. This is “La Lancha”.
Living South-of-the-Border benefit #143: Living at least slightly near a city where Manu Chao can be seen playing live (MC does not perform in the US).
Translation: Manu Chao is playing in concert, this coming Sunday Night in Guadalajara, in a bull ring. trying to obtain tickets now! definite watershed potential for life changing experience.
Update: well, sunday has come and gone and no Manu Chao. ’tis a shame I tell ya. My good buddy Christian is moving today, going back to Germany. and rather then catch a good show, we stayed back in Bucerias to hang out with Christian for his last coupla days. I don’t regret it, but if Your name is Manu Chao and you’re reading this, would you mind swinging by Puerto Vallarta to play a little show for all us kids out in the sticks. gracias.
one of the advantages of being flat-broke is that when you don’t have the cash to buy new apple gadgets, you don’t get let down when they come out with new ones.
I can feel it in the air. something is happening. Tie Dye tshirts are, literally, two seconds away from coming back in to fashion. I can smell it. If you had told me this six months ago I would have laughed. mark my words. Tie Dye is gonna be huge.
Saturday we met Lisa and some friends of hers at Roots for dinner and a movie (Broken Flowers). It was a good flick, definitely Jim Jarmusch, with no resolution. killer early ska soundtrack.
After the “cho” I set up the camera for a few minutes and snapped some picks. here are a few:
A homie of ours, Adrian, opened up Puerto Vallarta’s first authentic thai restaurant. and true to his intentions, the food was most certainly authentic. To have a thai restaurant in Vallarta is great, to have one that passes for authentic is heaven. can i say the word “authentic” again, just one more time, authentic. thank you.
So the posse headed down, on thursday night - Andrew’s night off, to Vallarta to check out “Bai Sri”, in it’s first week of operation. The food was definitely a little slow to come out, Marcia’s chardonnay was red and my Tom Yum Gong came with chicken, they are definitely ironing out the “first week” kinks. But man, when that pad thai hit my lips, i knew I was home. Marcia got the red curry and believe me when I say it felt like I was sitting in my favorite little thai restaurant on Hollywood Bully, in Thai Town LA. Melvung would be proud.
Thank you, Adrian, for a wonderful dinner. we look forward to come back, week after week, as you ply us with the best thai food to be had within a 2 hour plane ride. you rock!
The photos above mark the return of my little canon sd 110 and are of us messing around as we got plastered waiting for the food to arrive. Adrian is the boss in the middle.
R.I.P HAROLD HUNTER 1974 - 2006. immortalized by the crazy film “kids”. i skated with this guy once or twice back in the day, in nyc. i wonder what happened, sad to see.
Picture taken by my homie, Christian, of the massive amounts of boards strapped to the roof of my truck:
Sunday afternoon, Marcia and rolled back into town, from a much needed mini-break in Guadalajara, days filled with stuffing our faces with Funicula pizza and salad the best stuff on the planet. The second we got back, Christian and Andrew were at my front door, ready to go on a surfing adventure. Turns out it’s a full moon and the boys have organized a trip to Burros for some full moon surfing action. Salim decided to join us and we hauled it out to Punta Burro, just in time for the killer sunset. Dean and Yumiko met us there and built a nice little fire pile for after the surf session.
The moon hung over our backs as we stared off into the bay, eyes peeled open hoping to distinguish the size of the waves as they rolled in. Luckily for us, the waves were small. Even with a full moon, it was hard to judge exactly how big they were and when to take off, so mostly we’d all take off at once, and some lucky soul would get themselves a nice wave. I had one or three good waves over the course of the 2 hours or so that we were in the water and so beautiful I wish there was some way for a camera to capture it. The moon hanging over the beach, moonlight peeling off the crest of the wave as I manuevered along the small curl, not quite being able to see my feet. gorgeous.
Overhead chunky monkey close-outs marked a sunset surf session at La Lancha. The waves were high and heavy, heaving masses. A few were nice rides, but most were either close-outs or slouching phantom waves that mushed out just as I was ready to take off. I still love La Lancha though and to avoid the rush-hour traffic jam at Burros, La Lancha’s long walk through the jungle makes it a bit rougher of a diamond. Four of us in the water, as opposed to the eight of us in the water at Burros this morning. Did I just say that I was at Burros this morning? Well, yes I did.
Andrew, Christian and I got up again, for another sunrise session. There’s a nice size swell coming through right now. a little inconsistant and prone to half-hour waits, but a nice overhead wave packed set, when it decides to grace us with it’s presence.
Back to the story, so this morning, 7:30 and eight people in the water. Burros has officially jumped the shark. If it weren’t for the re-instatement of my drive-up-to-the-break status at Burros, I’d have to make La Lancha my regular spot.
Anyways, it was a good day with two could-have-been-better sessions, surfing is like pizza, even when it’s not so good, it’s still pretty good. and with overhead sets coming through, I can’t complain. Tomorrow we leave for the weekend to Guadalajara to visit Marcia’s family and to stock-up on the much needed things in life like Funicula’s Pizza and Levi Jeans. ahh, the good life.
This is the first time I’ll have brought the new camera, so I’m looking forward to some new wicked shots. can’t wait.
So Saturday night I gathered the troops to wake up early Sunday morning for another sunrise log rolling session. Christian, Andrew and I all dutifully woke up before dawn to catch the small little waves, even smaller then Saturday’s. None-the-less, we had a ton of fun and used what we had learned the day before to improve on our movie-making skills. Here’s Sunday’s movie:
Induced by recent viewings of surf videos with odes to longboards, I got up at 6:30am and accompanied my buddy, Christian, to slide the morning away. We trucked it out to Burros and caught the sunrise. There was absolutely no swell and tiny little waves, but that’s why sliding is so much fun, you don’t need big waves. I brought along the Pentax Optio WP camera, the little underwater jobbie. We played with the video setting and this is the result:
Hi, my name is Ed Fladung, I'm a recovering web-designer who moved to Mexico about 4 years ago. Learned to surf, got married and bought a nice camera. This is my weblog/photoblog. It covers broad subjects like becoming an ex-pat, surfing, photography, graphic design, music, art, architecture, living in mexico, all things Apple and WordPress related, etc... You can find more about me here. I hope you enjoy.
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