Found this on YouTube http://youtube.com/watch?v=kwW500JsbQ0
and thought it gives a pretty good idea of the surf culture up here. I don't know these guys in the vid but they have that familiar look. This looks like it was taken in the fall and most of it looks like it was shot at the North Jetty, a surfbreak at the mouth of Humboldt Bay but there are some other surfbreaks in there, too. The weather the last several days up here has been unseasonally warm, more like summer than spring, with temps in the high 70s with cloudless blue sky and exceptionally sweet surf. I've been out surfing 3 of the last 4 days and yesterday, when I didn't surf myself I spent several hours just watching the action at one of the iconic surfbreaks up here, Camel Rock ( http://tinyurl.com/5c9b7s ) Looking down from about 100-150 feet at the top of the cliffs I could see perfect breaking, clean-faced wave sets and a score of surfers at any one time stretched out and dotting several hundred yards of the ocean; the light of the late-day sun turned the wavetops glowing green and the spray into spun gold. Standing at the top of one of the trails down to the beach I'd watch the surfers as they headed down and when they came up. Lovely bodies, young men with all the suppleness and casual athleticism of youth, with their wetsuits pulled down to the waist; older men like myself, some leaner and some softer but each with a sense of chronic elation etched on their face; young seal women perfect in every way, all carrying their boards like heraldic shields. And far beyond the surf riders I could see the blowing of 3 or more whales as they head north on business or joy of their own. Marek
