Latest Surfs...

[dtc]

I used the same ocean and earth ones and recommend them as well. The only problem with the thicker ones is that it can be hard to get all the kinks out from the way they are packaged. Personally I'm not convinced there is a huge differential in drag between a 5mm and a 7mm, or whatever, but some people are more sensitive than me

The only argument against a longer leash is if you are surfing over shallow rocks/reefs where the leash might actually catch on the rocks (instant body slam!). Otherwise I think the 'round up to the next foot' for length is a good idea for the reasons Big H has eloquently stated

[Big H]

I should amend to say not just heavier but longer makes for a bit more drag, esp when said leash kinks up in such a way it creates a loop with draggy surface area....good point about long leashes and shallow reefs....that could be a real showstopper....

A happy accidental discovery about kinky new leashes....I rinse and hang my leashes over a clothesline in a covered outdoor service area at my home. Carryover from my diving days, I figure a freshwater equipment rinse will prolong the life if the swivel and prevent and and salt buildups that could spoil the function...we always rinsed our diving gear so I do the same now that it is surfing stuff....anyhow, I discovered that hanging them takes all the kinks out....I dunno how much warm weather plays a part, but they don't get direct sunlight, always shaded, and the ends are not weighted....kinks just aren't there after rinsing and hanging a couple days.

Cheers!

[dtc]

I may have to try that - one of my leashes has kinks even though I hung it full length from the stair rails with a weight on the end for about 5 weeks (at an empty holiday house, so it wasn't bothering people all the time). Might have to try some water and sun

[IanCaio]

Thanks a lot for the help!
I don't think I'll be able to surf 4m waves in a short time, so maybe 8mm thickness is a little too big for now.
I will have to step up on wave size progressively, since I won't build arm strength and cardio so quickly. Guess I'll go for a 7ft or 8ft 7mm leash. I'll search online, and if I find anything interesting I'll tell you guys about it!
Short reply today, cause I can barely read anything. I usually swim on the pools without googles, but this was a smaller pool. Guess the cleaning products irritated my eye, and now I'm seeing those halo lights. Maybe I should get some googles, even though I hate swimming with them

[oldmansurfer]

I missed my usual surf yesterday due to work but got to the beach today. Fun waves head high or a little bigger, brown colored water due to rain. But no one out but me and my wife who was playing around in the shore break inside of me and I was at the middle of the beach sand bar break. I caught a couple waves that broke on me as I popped up and made them. I did one cutback and caught one really nice wave but only did top to bottom turns on it but it felt good. I did get one closeout tube cutout and on my last wave I did a closeout full on over the falls floater right in front of my wife and landed it in like less than 6 inches of water (sand bottom), I kicked the board forward while jumping feet first toward the beach but landing flat on my back in a couple inches of water. My left elbow hit the sand but the rest of me kind of skipped a bit like a stone and then when the wave hit me I put my feet down and it stood me up so I was walking along with it toward the beach. When the whitewater died down I was in one inch of water. Anyway fun day and it made up for missing yesterday

[Tudeo]

I was out yesterday in big waves, by my standards, it was double overhead, pitching, and clean. And nobody out..

Intimidated by the size I studied the break before I paddled out, and first sat there safe on the left shoulder just watching those beasts break. It was beautiful and scary at the same time.

What I hadn't seen from the beach was a strong current to the east straight from the safety of the shoulder into the impact zone... I found out when I saw a monster set coming, ohh sheep.. I was in the middle of the breaking zone and could impossible escape the white wall bulldozing towards me. Duckdiving my 6'6" 48l hybrid wasn't an option so I aborted my board and made the best of it diving as deep I could under the waves.

It worked out fine I could get under the turbulence most of the time, but the breakers kept coming and pushed me all the way back to the beach. And I started way out like 300 meters.. A broken legrope would have been bad..

Now I just went out to catch my breath, drank some water, and after a few minutes went in again. This time making sure to stay out the dangerzone. The water was rising rapidly and made the waves a bit more forgiving, still I didn't dare taking of from the peak. But it was hard to catch them on the shoulder, many of them I tried but just couldn't get in with my 6'6". I had to move up to the more critical section of the takeoff zone.

Here I was able to catch one, but initialy it kept me hanging in the lip, it was like the wave was trying to outrun me. But I threw my weight more forward and gave it 2 more strong dubblehanded paddles, and there I went. Such a wonderful feeling in that moment of victory, by lack of better more accurate words just call it stoke, I popped up in time and turned in the backside wall to my left. Then it all happened fast, before I could even consider doing some turns the wall shaped up and started feathering in the top. I moved more up in the face and just before the massive closeout shot down and put some distance between me and the angry whitewater. Soon it caught up and I squatted trying to ride it out, but the powers were too strong and threw me off. In the fall I dived back through the whitewater and was safe. Then took the next whitewatertrain to bring me to the beach and called it a day.

It was a great experience, I want more!

[oldmansurfer]

Brave of you to go out alone but be careful. The bigger the waves the stronger the current. Somewhere around double overhead the risk for injuries starts going up rapidly

[Tudeo]

Yeah it is not without dangers, but what a rush!

[Big H]

Yesterday was decent size and currents were up for sure.....I went to Kuta with my girls and where we were riding whitewater on the 7'6" mini mal I got them....I managed to get out back for a few too when they'd had enough....nice waves yesterday, not double OH at Kuta, more like 1-1.5 on the sets....but yeah, currents were ripping....broken leg rope and no one around would not have been good at all.....told you the friend of the family that drown last week? Be careful...every big swell someone turns up dead.

Tomorrow morning is going to be the downside of this afternoon's peak....still big. Screwed the pooch on one drop and as I was skittering down the face of the wave like a disjointed bodysurfer, all I could think was that I hadn't taken a breath before wiping out and how long it was before I was going to get the chance again.....

Good times!

[Tudeo]

It's a (very) bad quality picture taken with my phone after my session. Later there was another surfer, here he's doing a bottom turn on the right. It's not more than a little black spot in this lowres photo, but it gives an idea about the size of the waves that day.

[IanCaio]

I was looking at the picture and at first I thought: "It doesn't seem that big". Then I noticed that small dot that is supposed to be a surfer and it seems big as sh**! What difference a small reference can make, huh?

Guys, sorry for asking this here, didn't think making a whole new post for that was necessary, since dtc and Big H gave me some tips here.
I was just wondering if this Leash seems good for moderate surf about 3ft to 6ft Hawaiian, 9ft faces maximum. Don't worry, I don't plan on killing myself, just trainning to increase my confortable zone on big surf, and wanted something that lasted for a while.
http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB- ... mm-x-8-_JM

It's in portuguese, but the leash is 8ft (2ft bigger than my board), 7mm, has two steel swivels and an important detail: It's cheap!

[Tudeo]

I was looking at the picture and at first I thought: "It doesn't seem that big". Then I noticed that small dot that is supposed to be a surfer and it seems big as sh**! What difference a small reference can make, huh?

Yup

An 8 ft leash must be able to handle 6ft Hawaian, the longer the better suited for bigger waves. Also in bigger waves the drag of the longer leash isn't a problem cos the power of the wave.

But always do a little stress test and inspection before usage. I had a new leash from a well known brand that broke on my first surf in moderate waves, like 4 ft. The plastic of the connection just broke. It was an construction error and I could pick out a new leash in the store..

The leash broke on a wave about 300 meters from shore, luckily another surfer on a longboard gave me a lift back to the beach while another guy 'saved' my board. My swimming endurance wasn't tested that day..

[oldmansurfer]

first time on the 7'6" board with quad fins and really I didn't notice any difference yet. didn't even think of it till I did a cutback that was smooth as silk.....it was really nice nearly perfect except for the part where the lip hit me after I hit the whitewater but before I could get the turn completed to go back down the line and knocked me off the board and bounced me around a bit. Weird waves today head high at least but breaking oddly. I took off on one wave and got hit as I took off but ended up with my feet out of position on the board and probably looked like a goof trying to get it to do what I wanted. It is a constant learning process when you surf irregular sand breaks. What is it like today? Some double waves some not double some crumbling all the ways some crumbling at the beginning and then getting steep some jack up steep from the start some jack up and crumble and some jack up and go flat and break on the inside.

[oldmansurfer]

Small crumbly mushy surf today so I went to the rivermouth. The same couple was out there today that was out a couple weekends ago. I caught no waves worth mentioning but I did get a lot of paddling and practice popping up and exercise so I should be good if there are some waves next weekend.

[oldmansurfer]

In my last couple of weeks I had two accidents happen that normally don't happen. Last weekend I hit the bottom unintended. This is such an infrequent event that I can't recall when is the last time I hit the bottom unintentionally but well over a year. The other was I got hit by my surfboard. I didn't mention this but yesterday I rode a little wave all the way to the shore and jumped off and grabbed my leash to keep the fins from running into the sand. When I lifted the board out of the water by it's leash the wind caught it and it swung around and smacked me in the face. Now neither of these resulted in injuries needing treatment. The board to the face had no noticeable effect and the bottom encounter just some skin by my elbow that was red for a few hours. I just hope this isn't a trend and is just a coincidence that it was close together.

[IanCaio]

Thanks Tudeo, I think I'll buy this leash! And will definately do a gear check and stress test before jumping on a 5ft day

OMS, may the surfer who has never been hit on his face by his board throw the first rock!
I've done it in surprisingly awkward ways, like belly surfing to the sand. I accidentaly jumped forward instead of for the sides, and had the nose hitting me in the mouth when I resurfaced. Had a minor bleed, but pretended nothing happened as walked at the sand.

[dtc]

OMS, may the surfer who has never been hit on his face by his board throw the first rock!
I've done it in surprisingly awkward ways, like belly surfing to the sand. I accidentaly jumped forward instead of for the sides, and had the nose hitting me in the mouth when I resurfaced. Had a minor bleed, but pretended nothing happened as walked at the sand.

Huh, I surfed my longboard down a wave and continued with the white water for the last wave of the day. Somehow when 'jumping' off in 1ft of water I must have pushed the board slightly backwards and underwater and it shot back out and the nose smacked me in the side of my neck (was going for my face around the jaw but I did that last millisecond shy away thing). Oh so close to disaster, just had a sore neck for a week or so. Managing to hit myself with my own board (a) in the white water (b) in 1 ft of water (c) while getting off and (d) 10m from the beach where everyone was sitting was a great effort.

I know a guy who went to do one of those 'go over the back of the green wave and jump off the board' dismounts out back; but the leash had wrapped around the fins. When he kicked his board out the tail went about two foot and stopped and the nose swung around the fulcrum of the leash/fins and the nose hit him right in the eye socket. His eye itself was luckily ok, but fractured socket.

Given the rate of injuries in surfing I may as well have continued to play rugby! (actually that board in the head is probably my worst injury)

[oldmansurfer]

Well one thing you don't need to worry much about is sharks since you are more likely to die taking a selfie than by getting bit by a shark http://mashable.com/2015/09/21/selfie-deaths/#i5pLRewhZkkk

[oldmansurfer]

I went out today well overhead. Caught one nice wave and took a bunch of waves on the head. I needed a bigger board. It was too difficult for me to catch them. Oh well hope it holds up tomorrow, I'll bring my 8 foot board

[oldmansurfer]

I almost forgot how much I love that 8 foot board. It gets into waves so much easier. I had fun playing around in the overhead storm surf.