Surf Talk Guru

Sea lions are out in full force this fall and often times get in the way in the Oregon surfing line up. They surf the waves, pop up in front of you, and bark or growl at you. They are nerve-wracking and annoying in groups or alone, but they won’t hurt you, or even touch you. Sea lion attacks on humans are extremely rare.

They are social animals and are only curious about your presence in the water and possibly trying to exert their dominance. Most migrating sea lions right now are juvenile males being territorial. If you are in the water, they won’t leave you alone, and are making you nervous, here’s something to try. When they surface, raise up your arms to make yourself big and yell at them.

When economic times are tight, we tend to try and do all kinds of things to save a little money. Maybe you shop at Wal-Mart more often, go to Costco with a card-carrying buddy, or go to a valley surf shop for your basic surfing needs.

If we want surf shops at the coast, we need to support them. These shops may be smaller and more specialized than larger stores in the valley, but the people at these shops know what they’re talking about. You can’t go into a place an hour inland and find out any details about the local scene. You can’t expect a college kid from the city to give you updated information on how the sandbars have been breaking lately.

Valley stores are used to dealing with mostly beginners, people who want to get into surfing, but aren’t going to get over to the coast much. Service workers rarely get to try out new products and have to read magazines to learn about the latest gear. Coastal shops, on the other hand, deal with surfers of all levels and therefore understand their customers’ needs better. When they get new products in, they can easily test them out gaining first-hand knowledge of products they sell.

Support your local surf shops and, for that matter, your local gas stations, grocery stores, and clothing retailers. Keep your money local and it will come back around to you.

OSU Researchers Need Surfers’ Input:

When health advisories are issued for specific beaches, it’s because tests revealed a high level of fecal matter, indicated by a certain number of enterococci(orgs) per 100 milliliters of water. With the off-the-charts test results at Nye Beach recently, I looked up some sources of beach pollution. The most common cause of this pollution, especially in larger cities, is urban runoff, which includes domestic wastes, storm water runoff (storm water washes over rooftops, parking lots, roads and picks up fecal matter from animals), agricultural runoff (discharges from farm animals, overloaded septic systems), sewage overflows, sewage treatment plant malfunctions, and improperly handled boating wastes.

Although we’ve had a lot of rain lately and probably have our fair share of urband and agricultural runoff, Newport also has another problem: the Georgia Pacific Pulp and Paper Mill up the Yaquina River in Toledo. GP’s wastewater permit allows for the primary outfall of the mill to be directed by pipe right to Nye Beach in Newport. Thankfully, nobody surfs at Nye Beach, but those tourists who unknowingly wade or swim in the water there may be subjected to nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache and fever, ear infections, eye infections, and skin rashes.

Overall, Oregon surfing is safer and less polluted than in almost any other area in the states. On the west coast, only Washington, Alaska, and BC are less polluted.

A study by Oregon State University shows that surfers are at a higher health risk in the water than are swimmers or divers because they ingest ten times more water in a session than other water sport partcipants. According to OSU scientists and the Oregon Dept. of Environmental Quality, this puts surfers at a higher risk of contracting gastrointestinal (GI) illnesses when surfing in contaminated waters.

The good news for Oregon surfers is that since the beaches are overall less polluted than more popular surfing destinations, such as California, Hawaii, or Florida, the risk of GI illness is lower for people surfing the frigid waters of the Oregon coast. But the study’s findings suggest that even Oregon surfers who spend longer periods of time in recreational waters, or who surf in more contaminated locations, are at higher risk of contracting GI illnesses.

The shell necklace means #1

Did I call it or what? I said Newport’s Ollie Richardson was one of the best longboard competitors around, and he proved it last weekend at the Noll Longboard Classic in Crescent City, CA. In his new Xcel wetsuit, “The Real Deal” Richardson beat out all other contestants from Oregon and California alike, in the Hot Shots (ages 30-39) division, coming in first place.

I had predicted rain, wind, and junky surf, but Ollie said the weather was beautiful and the conditions were perfect. I’m glad I was wrong about that.