Visit to Cental \ Northern Cal

Hookup
1

Hi, Hopefully somebody here can help.

I’m thinking of a quick trip to Cal in October for a weeks surfing. I live in Scotland and the reason for chosing California is that I’ll likely be travelling alone and I’m fairly familiar with travelling and camping there (many, many trips to Yosemite\JTree\Eastern Sierra in my halcyon days).

I’m not a very experienced surfer (two and a bit years) and as I said I’ll be travelling\surfing alone; therefore I’d prefer an area with a high proportion of beach breaks - or nice mellow (relatively safe!) points.

I’m getting old (why I stopped climbing) and I’m happier on a longboard so areas with good longboard waves would be preferred.

The only coastal campsite I’ve ever stayed at was out at point Reyes - Can’t remember too much about it as I was chilling after climbing. I certainly didn’t see any surfers there.

Don’t mind cold water - we’ve got a plentiful supply of that here!

I assume there are numerous surf hire places where I can hire a board for a week but local recommendations for suggested places would be much appreciated.

I intend to splash out on a new longboard when I’m there so anywhere that does demo boards would be useful too.

I’m not really good enough for nose riding or anything like that. I like to go fast (or what feels fast to me) pretty much in a straight line - a simple soul really so a board recommendation or even a general pointer would, again, be much appreciated.

New here guys so go easy. The Surfer mag guides to Cal seem to be out of print here so my research has been restricted to stormrider and Wannasurf - which aren’t really that useful in this instance.

Thanks in advance for any and all feedback.

Phaedrus

2

Just south of Point Reyes is Bolinas. It’s not a very challenging wave, but it’s fairly consistent and the crowd - which can be considerable on weekends - is friendly… partly because it’s mostly beginners. You can rent boards from 2 Mile Surf Shop - 415 868 0264. If you ask for John, and tell him I told you to call, he may let you try some of his “real” boards. He shapes “Mystic” surfboards.

North of Point Reyes is Bodega Bay. You may be able to rent something from the Surf Shack - 707 875 3944… but I’m not sure.

North of that gets pretty wild… and sharky… and there aren’t a lot of shops to rent boards from.

South is San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Monterey, and the whole central coast.

October isn’t a big-wave time, but it’s the best weather of the year. No wind.

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Kendall,

Many thanks. I don’t really like the sound of the zoo as I’m used to being in with a maximum of around ten people!!

Having said that it has been my intention all along to surf midweek and leave the weekend for the locals - wherever I go.

Based on what you said I had a look at Monterey and I like the sound of the area around SLO so that’s where I’ll probably head late October early November.

The water sounds positively warm compared to what we have here on the North East coast of Scotland .

Thanks again.

4

Try to make to our Big Sur camp out Oct. 17th- 20th lots of boards and good friends.

pm John Mellor for all the info.

Mark