Santa Barbara Surfing ... You *Can* Go Back

Surfing in Santa Barbara means contending with consistently underwhelming waves. The upside? Plenty of time to hone kayak fishing techniques, spear fishing tactics and campfire tending skills.

That's exactly how it played out at Refugio state beach on Spat Out in Glory's latest barrel quest. One with local knowledge might question the choice of destinations: Refugio? AKA Refoofio? AKA the least barreling wave on California's central coast? (Video after the jump.)

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Super 8 Surf Cinematography: Last Rincon Reel

Spat Out in Glory burned three reels of Super 8 at Rincon in mid-April: Here's the final installment.

The faults in the footage have been made clear in the first two reels. Ektachrome 64T casting its weirdly bluish tint from lack of proper filtering, mostly. Video after the jump...

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Super 8 Surf Cinematography: Reel 2 at Rincon

Next verse/Same as the first/A little bit bluer/And a little bit worse ...

Below find Reel 2 of the Rincon Super 8 surf test shots. This one runs the Beaulieu 4008ZM4 through the paces with a 102mm Canon TV lens. No 85 filter, which of course is necessary to make Ektachrome 64T work in outdoor lighting. ...

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Super 8 Surf Cinematography, From A to B

Is Spat Out in Glory's quest to create a Super 8 surf film an exercise in audacity, doomed to failure by excessive hubris? Certainly. But Spat's willingness to humble itself equals its delusions of grandeur.

Thus the following video, running Kodak Ektachrome 64T film through every setting the Beaulieu 4008ZM4 has on its heavily knobbed, knurled and buttoned chassis. Shot mid-April, at Rincon. ...

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Sasquatch Surf Sighting: Rincon Nose Rides

Spat Out in Glory is claiming its rightful place alongside the Patterson film as the best evidence yet that North American Great Apes walk, and surf, among us.

Sasquatch deniers are reaching for the nitro glycerin pills.

Spat had set up on Rincon Point, south of Santa Barbara, to run some test reels of Ektachrome 64. There was a rustling in the bushes and out of the foliage strolled a southern variant of the N.A.G.A., carrying a 9'6" Yater. Paddled out and took his place at the peak. The wolf pack parted in sure knowledge that the pecking order had been re-arranged.

In the video below, note the Ancient One's light footwork ... no mean feat with size 24 flippers. Nose walks, hang 5's, an attempted twirly. All old school, all fluid, all legit. The wolf pack hooted him into curl after curl. Respect for the N.A.G.A. is not optional. ...

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Surf Query: Does It Count If It's Just the Head?

A droplet on the lens obscures the key pixels in this masterpiece of surf cinematography. To wit, Spat Out in Glory takes off, makes the bottom turn, lines it up, then shoots for the barrel.

By way of full disclosure, we use the term "barrel" in its most limited sense here. Total diameter: 18 inches. Duration: .75 seconds. But for a moment, the cranium was in the air pocket. It sounded like a seashell clamped around the entire head. ...

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Devereaux Devolution: Surfing's Inner Simian

Evolution doubters suffered a terrible setback today at Devereaux Point in Santa Barbara. Exhibit No. 1: The embedded video from Spat Out in Glory conclusively demonstrating that ape DNA runs strong in humankind's veins.

This is the kind of thing that could end up in Geico commercial. Note the dull gaze. The tiny, low forehead. The haunchy, straight-backed crouch. The knuckles dragging on the surfboard deck. A dead stick hanging from the evolutionary tree. This specimen, like many recent iterations of the hominid family, lacked body hair. It also seems to lack the instincts and athleticism of its arboreal cousins. Darwin is rolling in his grave. ...

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Nica Post: Video...Wipeout Taxonomy Part 2

Spat's taxonomy of surfing failure generated so many reader questions we were compelled to return with a new series of video wipeouts and their descriptions under the classification system.

Watch the video, refer to the classification system, and name that wipeout.

The amount of wipeout footage being generated by each session at Playa Santana in Nicaragua threatens to overwhelm our digital storage capabilities. The surf remains small...maybe waist high on the high tide. Spat is relieved. The inability to navigate waist high waves would translate well into overhead stuff. The differences would manifest in the realm of bodily consequences...

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Nica Post: Good News, Badly Needed

Spat nabbed its first ride in Nicaragua.

How can it get better? The Camera Monkey was filming the moment at 48 frames per second on the Beaulieu.

Better still? Caught the whole thing on the GoPro board cam. Video after the jump.

To misquote Churchill, this marks the beginning of the beginning. ... The CM's remark upon Spat's return to shore: "Baby! We really needed some good news!"

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Nica Post: Fresh and Tiny ... New Surf Video

The morning's dawn patrol yielded some tasty bocadillos, video-wise. Check it after the jump.

The 5:20 a.m. wake up got Spat on the beach in time to attempt another time-lapse sunrise, which may actually have yielded results. Tomorrow's effort will zoom tighter on the giant glowing orb.

The swell has dropped to about nil, but that didn't stop Ed Pickett from North Carolina and Jeb from France. See video below for the two surfistas giving it a shot. Set up on the viewing stand between Buena Onda and Rancho Santana, using the HV30 and the 1.7x lens with polarizing filter.

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