local color

..... their eyes were crystal clear, faded blue from gazing out to sea, sunbleached and salty......

this is why....

this is why i love it here.

where life happens

someone asked me recently if newport was home. i thought about it for a minute or two, then replied 'yes...'

home is where your life happens. for many of the last 8 years (since i started surfing) i would sit around my portland home, always with a sense of anxiety... what was happening at the beach? was i missing something? i had projects to do: food to grow, boards to fix, paintings to paint... but somehow i was always having to divide my life between gardening, art, work, surfing.... and much of this divide involved driving my car for hours at a time, always going to and from the beaches, trying to find a balance between city life and beach life.

i wanted to move to the ocean, but was fraught with indecision-- the oregon coast seemed too rainy and cold, and why move, i thought, if not to a "perfect" location. i spent years searching for the ideal location. california is great, but insanely crowded, trafficky and expensive. hawaii is beautiful, but after 5 months there i had island fever so bad i thought i would crawl out of my own skin. i dreamed of central america, new zealand, etc, etc.

then, by chance, i was forced to move to the oregon coast this year. initially i resisted, my inner child kicking and screaming. i had two mortgages to pay in portland... i didn't have work at the coast... it was november and it was dark, cold, grey...

but there was surf! alot of it, and empty. the surfers, men and women, became my friends, and soon i realized that this was what i always wanted: good surf, good friends to share it with, and a wild environment relatively untouched by the masses. it was so obvious, i couldn't believe that i hadn't seen it before. in time, life works itself out. i still pay for my two portland homes, and now rent a tiny little hovel 1 block from the beach. i happily gave up my hardwood floors, old pdx architecture, late night sushi spots, wine bars, brewpubs, and other urban comforts for this simpler version of life. now i can surf every day. my New Yorker subscription was forwarded here... i still have a great coffee shop and good thai food. what else do i need? i keep up with the world on my own terms. everything else is just bonus time.

now, summer is ending, and fall is coming. the days are warm, sunny and lovely. we find each other here feeling autumn in the breeze: on the beaches and in the water we are making plans for winter. dinner parties, movie nights, surf trips.... the darkness is surely on the way, and we know that oregon winters are not for the weak. somehow, this adds to the appeal. we become galvanized. folks come, visit, then leave when the going gets rough. those of us who stay here know this. we are rewarded for our tenacity with all of this raw beauty, deep ocean, cold nights, clear mornings, fullness and emptiness... the crucible of our coastal lives.

the blue terror

about 5 years ago i bought this board in morro bay for 130 dollars. its a hull, very heavy, very fast, and very difficult to surf. 1960's era 9'8" with 2 redwood stringers and a wooden fin. those of you who know me know that this board inspired the creation of the north pacific log club and TRIM magazine, as well as numerous "log jams" over the years. faron excels on this board. i gave it to him a few years ago and he recently spent some time restoring it. now its back in the water.

today was a perfect day for it: fast, steep, lined up. too bad my crappy camera and poor photography skills can't do it justice.

the blue terror lives... i dare you to come surf it. this board is, was and always will be the patron of our newport board collective. like old boards? want to surf lots of interesting shapes? join in the fun. any time, as long as there are waves.

fix your board. you can do it.

fixing surfboards is relatively easy. you need a few basic supplies including: polyester resin, catalyst (MEKP), surfacing agent (a type of wax that makes sanding easier and provides a smooth finish), measuring cups, tape, some sanding blocks (made with sandpaper stapled to pieces of 2x4) old scissors for cutting fiberglass (fiberglass cloth will ruin scissors, so don't use your mom's favorite sewing scissors) and a few cheap paint brushes and popsicle sticks. some rubber gloves and acetone help keep the resin from following you around for the rest of the day. if you have an epoxy board, the supplies are basically the same, except you will use epoxy resin and it's own type of catalyst.

if there are major soft spots in the foam or glass, you will have to sand away all of the shoddy stuff until you get to a point where the glass and foam are strong and well bonded. this is difficult for people (emotionally) because it involves making the ding bigger before finally getting to the point where you can do a good, solid repair. don't worry: you can fix it. but first, you have to get rid of all the bad stuff... brown foam, cracked glass, any place on the surfboard that you can "squish" by pressing into the glass... all this crap needs to be gone.

this is a repair of another repair gone wrong. the initial repair didn't get all the old foam and delaminated fiberglass out of the way, and eventually the nose of this board went bad.

at this stage, where everything is sanded away, you can start to build a tape wall around the part that you want to rebuild. once you have a tape wall up, you can fill in the old repair with a mixture of resin and microspheres, also knows as "Q-cell" which will take the place of foam and give you a solid mass that you can then re-shape.

this is a birds-eye view of the tape wall, or tape dam. you want to build it up high enough to hold in all the goo that you are going to put on the damaged places. remember, you want it at least as high and as wide as the rest of the rail shape. bigger is better. you will re-shape this after it hardens.

after the resin "kicks" you can pull off the tape dam and then wait for it to harden a bit more. once it is hard, you can sand it down to the original shape of the board.

the next step will be glassing.... or for people who really like their original aesthetics intact, you can either paint the repair now with acrylic paints, or else tint the glass. but before you glass, you want to sand down the area around your repair so your glass will sit flush with the rest of the board once its all done. then, tape off the area, remembering to leave about 1 inch or so around the repair so that the new glass you are about to lay down can overlap onto the board and make a nice strong repair. rails should get at least 2 layers of glass. decks should have 2 layers as well, and bottoms can probably get away with 1 layer, if the repair isn't too big.

...... coming next at the nye beach center for discovery ...... glassing and sanding....

.....the final stages! you can do it!

bounty hunter

putting roots down means letting yourself grow deeper into a place
which is a different kind of growth, not the spreading wide of branches or
rambling of tumbleweeds, but settling in,
growing in literal and figurative ways: growing one's own food
growing closer to the local people
taking care of your community, late night hospital shifts,
fixing the broken people
watching the new babies of newport be born into the world,
holding the hands of those who are dying.

each day the ocean schools us, bodily and mentally,
today: head high + glassy walls,
the usual suspects in the line up
friends, these once-strangers-now-smiling-faces
yelling each other into silvery walls
gliding across zipping lines.
patience, the secret rhythm of the sea
short bursts, then lulls, then ferocity
more waiting-- this is just like life
life-like
life.
shedding water in the parking lot
our brothers are laughing,
planning another dinner, another bonfire
another day, another year, another week
together.

at dusk, i go to the garden,
harvest some recent cold-weather vegetables
thank god that i dont live in a place
where the sun shines constantly
and where millions of people would want to share
the land with me.

now as night falls, quiet descends.
only the continuous pulse of waves
pounding the sand outside my window
filters in through the salt air.
the ocean brings gifts,
and the almost indiscernible sound
of relief.

graffiti

daily surf checks, the smell of salt water wafting in through bedroom windows,
bouys and fog, fishing boats fighting the out-going tide,
wave sounds filtering into dreams....
these things can't be bought, or bargained for...
life by the sea is a complete experience, the essence of surf.
each day my car gets a little rustier,
the surfboards get a little yellower
the walk to the beach feels more like home
the city life becomes more remote
... no more commuting
... no more time wasted on dreams unfulfilled
thread by thread i am woven into the nye beach tapestry:
ocean whales storms wind sun sand family tides agates nellyda

alaska

did i tell you about my time with the bears,

sleeping under trees

listening for wolves?

waiting through the night

for fear to mine

the quarry of my heart

morning, dusk eternal, grey

quiet awe

wolf teeth

salmon

the solitude of alaska

this is your life

original watercolor, N. Anslow

have you accepted your mortality?

hydrogen/oxygen

low pressure

sleep. eat. surf. repeat. wake up in the sand. surf where you live. be good to your friends. xo

the edge of the world

what are the newport kids up to tonight? i don't know.

i passed him on the way out of the ocean, going surfing

coming and going from the sea,

(this is how we meet)

the hamlet, the hovel, the neighborhood path--


"how are you doing?"

"i am sad"

"me too"

"maybe later we can walk on the beach, drink tea, talk"

"sounds good"

and so the the rhythm of days moves us forward, brothers

we are travellers on earth, together

few of us, hunkering down together in this little village

fishing, surfing, dying on the shore

holding one another when the days begin to shorten

drivers, passengers, walkers, fire builders

you, going into the salal brush at 1:00 am

looking for her dog, chased away by fireworks

he, barefoot, legs bleeding from scratches

she, angry in a small cabin, jealously driving friends away

mother, closing doors, wishing for more dreams

a heart attack, a fight, deep night,

asleep on the beach, waking up to candles still burning,

early morning surfers already getting out of the ocean, going to work

fog, heavy now for days,

ocean glass, oily soft, perfect waves,

ever-giving, every day sacraments

the saline, the smell of starfish in our nostrils,

the reasons we live here, at the edge of the continent:

the edge of the world.