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GrokSurf's San Diego by George J. Janczyn is produced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Anything on this blog copied and used elsewhere online must include attribution and a link to the original on this blog, or a citation with the URL if reprinted on hard copy.
Tourmaline is a good place to take a break from the more vigorous surfing action at some of San Diego’s other popular spots. You see a good slow ride, sometimes in more ways than one. Today’s morning surfing session includes a group of kids and parents participating in the annual Alex Szekely Memorial Ikidarod, where teams of kids harnessed to a plastic container with a passenger compete in a race. This year, Tourmaline was the starting point for a race to the Mission Beach jetty, several miles down the coast. Ikidarod mimics the sled dog racing sport of Iditarod. Alex Szekely was a prominent local resident who died of melanoma at the age of 43 (a field at Torrey Pines Elementary School was named the Alex Szekely Family Memorial Sports Complex in 2003).
The early morning waves were fun too. Tourmaline is almost always good for a relaxed longboard session. I left out music this time, just the sights and sounds. And I know I’m posting this on Saturday…it takes time to edit a 3-hour shooting session down to under 10 minutes and get it uploaded to YouTube!
The Ocean Beach north jetty is, in my opinion, one of the more interesting breaks in the San Diego area. It definitely has its own peculiar character, although being at the mouth of the San Diego River, the shifting sandbar will cause the break to vary.
My other choice for most interesting would be Big Rock in La Jolla, with its reef creating a crazy, sucking takeoff and drop, then race to make the very hollow tube section, followed by a sweeping cutback to stay with the shoulder.
But at the OB jetty, when it’s breaking, you often get a long, hollow, fast-peeling tube that is a challenge to make (if only you could go 60 MPH) where even a smaller wave can throw a solid punch–if it hits you the right way it’ll knock you right off your board.
At the jetty often you’ll get just part of a long wave that breaks up into sections…which helps moderate the sometimes crowded situation because it allows 3 or 4 surfers to get a piece of the wave without infringing on the others’ space. Sometimes there are some jetty-specific peaks if you hang out right next to the rocks.
The downside of shooting video at the jetty is that it breaks so far out, especially at lower tides. My video camera has 20x optical zoom, but at maximum zoom it barely gets acceptable shots (I’m still looking for a relatively inexpensive HD camcorder with over 30x optical zoom AND a viewfinder, but so far there is no such thing, short of a $3,000+ professional camera).
A sunny calm Friday morning at the Shores with waves just the right size for bringing out a longboard and perfecting those noserides. Bonus romance at the end.
Test high def camera: only the smallest of hands will be able to finger the controls easily (holding it with one hand, my fingers and thumb almost completely encircle it)
Today I went to the Ocean Beach north jetty to test an HD camcorder (Sony HDR-XR150, built-in hard drive with 25x optical zoom) by filming some surfing action. My own camcorder (Sony DCR-TRV103, Hi-8 cassette tape with 20x optical zoom) doesn’t do badly for standard definition–that’s what I’ve been using for all the surfing videos I’ve posted here–but I wanted to see what can be done with a high def camera.
Alas, the test camcorder’s LCD display completely washed out in the sunlight, making it extremely difficult to follow the action. Since the camera has no optical viewfinder I had to jerry-rig a cardboard hood in order to see the LCD images at all. The resulting video looks very shaky, partly because I could hardly see what I was shooting, but despite built-in image stabilization and being on a tripod, this camera just didn’t perform to my expectations when it came to shooting action, especially at a distance.
My standard definition dinosaur--my hand can grasp about half of it
My experience reinforces my earlier opinion that a camcorder without an optical viewfinder is of no use for serious photography. I don’t know why manufacturers insist on omitting this critical component; I can only surmise they haven’t tried shooting action in bright sunlight themselves. Either that, or they just don’t care. Another thing most HD camcorders seem to lack is adequate optical zoom–this test model was unusual with 25x, but most consumer HD camcorders offer only 10x optical. Strangely, many standard definition camcorders have well over 25x optical. In any case, I don’t think the camera is worth the $700 asking price. As for other makes and models, I’ve looked all over without luck for an HD camcorder with an optical viewfinder and at least 25x optical zoom. If you know of one, please let me know where you found it!
Otherwise, it was a nice day at OB…the waves just kept coming, one after the other. Combined with the long paddle to get out, it made for a good workout (a fun one, though) for everyone.
Here’s video shot with the high-def camera. Although wide-angle shots with slow panning came out okay, the action sequences reveal the camera’s weakness. Keep in mind I was using a tripod here:
March 17: For comparison, here’s video I shot with my old camcorder. Its zoom isn’t as powerful and it isn’t high def, but the overall quality is much more satisfying to me.
Waves are ankle high here, it’s a Friday Calm (the freeways weren’t that calm, though). I saw a couple of surfers and some kayakers, but didn’t see waves being ridden. There were signs up that Carlsbad Blvd. southbound would be closed for the next couple of months, starting near Palomar Airport Road. The Poseidon desalination plant will be built somewhere to the left of the power plant in the top left-hand picture. As always, pics are clickable for enlargements.
A calm morning at Tourmaline with a 7.4′ high tide (and kelp!) swamping the beach. As usual, you can spot at least a few longboarders out here even if waves are scarce. Click pics to enlarge.
The dawn patrol was out at Ocean Beach picking up remnants of the big swell of the past few days. With a series of storms expected to hit our area starting tomorrow, this may be the last clean surf we have for a week or so.
