Monday morning brought continued windswell action to the point, with some solid hollow chest- to shoulder-high surf with the am low tide.  The light crowd factor was definitely a plus.  From the top of The Cove I could see some nice tube rides up at The Rivermouth, and a few sets even connected all the way through.  Forecasts are calling for diminished windswell, but an increase in Southern-Hemi activity to keep things interesting in the coming week, though not necessarily for Rincon.

Spotlight on a local

One of the most respected locals at Rincon in this the "modern era" is a great surfer known as Baron Erik Spafford.  On any given Winter day Baron is easy to spot in the lineup, usually sitting the furthest up the line, and the furthest out - always in position when the biggest sets start rolling through.  Baron has a distinctive classic style, and he alway seems to be in the right place at the right time.  Every session during the largest swells of Winter it is as if Baron is putting on a clinic of "The Art of Surfing Rincon".  Beyond that, Baron is a true gentleman, a remarkably nice guy.  You'll never see him drop in on or fade anyone, but more importantly, you'll never see him lose his cool if and when someone does that to him.  Baron is a class act, and a key figure in the makeup of the modern-day Rincon surf culture...









An Interesting Anecdote Submitted by a Reader of The Blog...

Every so often I receive an interesting email from somebody who has managed to find this site.  The most recent one comes from a reader in India.  I think that it's worth sharing...

My name is Chris Boys. I surfed all the time in the Santa Barbara area from 1962 to 1974. Then life took other turns and I ended up now living in India.

 

The reason I am emailing is that I very much need to conduct either of two Lompoc surfers from that time period: Gary Ward or Dave Lucas. I did manage to see that Dave had posted an email a few years back on Wannasurf's site, but I could not respond to it. It had no return address.

 

If there is anyway that you can help me on this, let me know. These guys surfed Jalama all the time and the Ranch too. I surfed with them a lot. They may have some rare film footage of that time that George Greenough told me he would very much like a copy of if it still exists.

 

thanks, chris boys tony_s_sandford@yahoo.com


I wrote back to Chris, and he replied just today with this amazing personal account...

Terrific to hear from you. Well, just put the word out if anyone knows one of these guys and has an address or email or phone number. If Wilderness Surfboards still exists, then Duncan may know of them.

 

When i talked to George Greenough, he told me that he is trying to put film together of him riding his red board and especially in bigger surf, but not much exists. i told him that i had once watched super 8 footage of him at big drakes in the swell of 69 and it was triple overhead plus. he was stoked and said that would be great to have that film no matter what quality. I saw the film with Dave Lucas at Gary Ward's house in Lompoc.

 

So like I said, just do what you can. Older surfers will remember these guys probably. I mean, we were the crew at Jalama in those days. I surfed Jalama so many days and somrtimes with just five guys out. It was amazing.

 

To give you an idea of those bygone days, I remember in the summer of 66 (longboards) there was a contest at Depressions in IV. I went to it with a friend of mine who was to compete in it. It was like maybe waste to shoulder high. My friend said fuck it and let's go to Jalama. When we came up around the cliffs at Jalama in my VW it was breaking across the entire vista and right at the edge of kelp. We surfed the place all day at double overhead. Absolutely perfect conditions. Sunny, a little offshore  wind, glorious colors in the waves. We were out of our minds. Besides ourselves, there was only one other crew of three guys. These guys had come from Malibu and one of them was Buzz Sutphin who had just won the Malibu contest that summer over Mickey Dora. He was a good surfer on longboards. His crew surfed Tarantula's. We surfed mostly the crack and a little further down the beach. At times we were pinching ourselves, not really believing what we were gifted with.

 

Another very weird day I will also not forget. This was in the winter of 1970. This time I was with Gary Ward and Dave Lucas. We checked out the various spots in the SB area, and it was like a lake. I mean literally not a ripple. We were going to blow the day off, but then thought, what the hell, let's drive to Jalama. When we got to Jalama it too was like a lake. In fact there wasn't even a wisp of wind, totally glassy and not a ripple. We thought to hell with it. But then, standing on the cliff, I saw a set coming in from way out on the horizon. It was like a mathematical packet of waves. I had never seen waves so perfect. But they were only about head high, and part of a north swell, not south swell, so we would have to surf the right at the point, and it didn't seem big enough for the point. But we decided to go check it out.

 

Eventually we paddled out, and there were a few waves big enough to surf (barely). It was just an easy laid back scene. But then it started to get a little bigger and more consistent. The waves were a few feet overhead, and at that height the point going right is sort of okay to surf. All of a sudden as I was paddling out after a wave I started hearing one of our crew screaming, just out of his mind. I saw this wave maybe a few feet overhead and couldn't understand what he was going mad about, until I saw on the top edge of that wave what seemed to be another wave outside. I scrambled hard and when I came up over the first wave my mind stopped. There was a solid triple overhead set coming in. .Like that the rest of the day was epic.

 

When we came back to SB we went to a surf movie that night and told the guys what we had surfed. They said we must have been on another planet because SB never had a wave over a foot high. That was the strangest day, and I never figured out where those waves came from or how come they only hit Jalama. 

Thanks for writing Chris!  If any other readers have similar local stories to share, please submit them to me via email for publication.