To the indefatigably stoked crew:

I'm land bound till at least August because of surgery. In the meantime, I've got a quiver of boards sitting around like bird dogs with no quarry. They're pent up and need to get wet. If anyone's going on a trip, just wants to try something new, or has a friend from outta town hit me up here, on email or twitter.

A challenge to "Big-Wave" surfers everywhere: you're surfing anthills! You think you can handle real action? Try surfing ocean waves that are 150m @ 20-30 min periods. Of course, there's the minor problem of these waves being in rather than on the ocean. But no excuses. You either got sack or not!

"In some spots off Washington state and Oregon['s coast] , the almost complete absence of oxygen has left piles of Dungeness crab carcasses littering the ocean floor, killed off 25-year-old sea stars, crippled colonies of sea anemones and produced mats of potentially noxious bacteria that thrive in such conditions."

"In San Francisco, where I live and surf, there’s almost always a stand-up paddleboarder in the lineup on any given morning." Where in SF? Aquatic Park?

"On days when there aren’t many waves, I envy the cruise-y ease of the paddleboarder as he maneuvers through flat water, getting exercise all the while."

Unfortunate news today. "At approximately 9:17 a.m., the Coast Guard was notified by the captain of the ferry vessel Peralta of a possible person overboard." Stay safe, folks.

Scientists funded by NOAA and the National Science Foundation recorded the deepest erupting volcano yet discovered, describing high-definition video of the undersea eruption as spectacular.

USCG ... gotta love having those guys around!

Last week Grumpleflump posted an article about an Aussie grom that survived an intense head blow. George Greenough offers an unusual point of view on reducing the intensity of surfboard nose-to-human head collisions.