San Diego Vacation Day #1

Mission Beach breakfast view from the Wave House. The beach breaks were walled up and shutting down. The wave in the picture is probablyoverhead high.


Butch and I surfeed PB Point and Tourmaline's on Saturday. This is a pulled back water shot of Butch dropping in on the second break and I'm paddling back out.

This is the middle inside section were the wave hits a shallow rock and clams up before rolling in to the inside section. The bottom drops out from under you. I caught some air drops on this section that really flexed the ISUP. I believe the guy on his belly tried to drop in on the inside and got worked.

The "Golden Bear" cruising. This is a great spot for stand up. The inside section is 1-3 foot and can roll perfectly for about 100 yards.

We woke up early and were in the water at first light. There's a lot of room when the waves are big to catch inside and outside waves. This day started with sets a foot or so overhead. The outside reef was a little bigger but a crowded take off.

First ISUP Surf.

Lots of waves on yhe blow up!

First thoughts, lots of flex. Second, good stability for a 9'3" SUP. Today wasn't the best day for SUP, I would have not gone out or surfed my short surfboard because of the conditions. The waves were chest/head high on sets with a low tide, straight east swell, no wind and lots of rips. This was as hard as it gets for stand up. Lots of water from all directions and short period swells that road each others back. My legs were shaking because of nerves and stability. You know like the first time you tried to stand up surf! The blow up board is a fast paddler! Faster than the SUB V I think. I know. I paddled into waves off balance and half holding on. The first several waves I took for granted and nose dived at the bottom on the chop. I found you have to draw out your bottom turns more. You really have to sit back bacause the nose bounces. But! The board can handle a tight rail on take off. No off the lips or tail slides today because of conditions. I know I will have fun with it in clean conditions. Hello SD!

I almost went postal!

Decent rocker. That's a double quatro in the deck for scale.


Looks like I'm going right and right and right... Hopefully the air dryer will straighten them out.

Inflated in a few minutes. No way to check the psi. The pumps gauge doesn't work. From what I've read on the ULI blog it's common.

A shot from last Saturdays session.

I'm optimistic about the blow up. It was easy to inflate and the shape looks pretty good. The board is light! The deck seems to have some concave. I don't know if that's common with inflatables, but with the extra buoyancy it can only help. It reminds me of the foam board's flex. Tomorrow I'm doing a test surf and rolling it up for the trip. I'll video everything. I don't expect it to manuever like a hard board but if it surfs anywhere near the foam board I'll be happy.

I never would have given up performance and been happy prone surfing, only frustrated. With SUP new and different is exciting.

Oh yeah. I waited all day for the postman, till 4pm. No package and I was distraught. Went to work like depressed, which aint like me. How could the post office do this! I was borderline crazy. And then I told myself to relax it will all work out. Call home later, guess what? Going surfing tomorrow... Holla!!!!

Waiting for my ISUP.

9'3" C4 ISUP (Modeled after the SubVector)
Weight: 20lbs versus 22lbs SubV
Floats up to 230 lbs.



This is the 10'6" C4 Isup modeled after ATB
Weight: 22 lbs
Floats up to 275lbs

The ISUP boards should be lighter with greater buoyancy. Both boards are just under 30' wide. I'm thinking the boards will be less responsive but may release the tail on power turns which could be a bonus because of the fins. I like having a tail pad for this reason.

My board should be here Wednesday, just in time for a test run before leaving for SD.