It has been International Surf Week here on the Oregon Coast. The Convection North Wind took a break allowing our coast to offer up some beautiful waves. Tiny – Longboard – Beautiful fun waves. Even the Pirates came to port to watch our local surfers. Ahoy Matey!

Although it may not sound like many to the California Surf Crowd – we enjoyed a large group of about 16 surfers this week. A text went out and circled most of our friends, and we were glad to be included. Although this was a pretty small swell day, it made my heart swell. Two of those kiddos out in the water are lil groms. One lil gal, I think on the far left, surfer’s right, just got the confidence to paddle to the outside every time, and charge every  wave that comes her way.  She’s tiny – strong – and passionate about surfing. Keeping her own in a line up with amazing surfers? Pretty cool.

Last year at this time, Lil Jonee was coming home from the Clean Water Classic – Just learned how to drop into a wave, and had spent the spring building up the muscle to paddle to the outside on the bigger swell days. We were off to the Otter Rock N Roll, a local 18 and under party on the beach – and rented a red surftech softop longboard for the no wind no swell day. It was the beginning of an amazing year of surfing. I’ll write more about this transition next week. 

International Surf Day, ISD, is an event that is a marker for us. We joined a group a couple of times to get into the water, but it was ISD 2 years ago – that Warm Current put our boys in wetsuits and handed them a foam board and spend several hours in the water, one on one, giving them the confidence to love surfing. It was on that day that we heard about the Tigersharks Surf Club – which would completely change our lifestyle.

Jonee is 13 this summer, and looking forward to a great season. He’s been a fearless charger, been thrown through a few rinse cycles that put the respect of the ocean into him, he’s spent hours/days working on fine tuning a trick or a skill, and his favorite activity is just going out. I spend hours and hours watching him surf with his friends. And love every minute of it.

All of the photos above are from this week. The photo below is from Weds, a pot of whales came by, you can see two little black spots in the water.

So happy International Surfing Day. You never know what will happen to that lil grom that you invite to surf, loan a board to, glue up a suit for, and throw into your jeep on the way out to the beach.  From all of the Grom Moms – to all of the amazing surfers who spread their passion – I say – Thank You. And thank you Surfrider in the Pacific Northwest!!!!

A special lil shout out Thank You to Russo Surfboards,
the Oregon Surf Shop, KLG Adventures, and
the Tigersharks Surf Club!