Happy Halloween Leucadia

Enjoy Handplane art by Erik Baldwin.

Treasures for Trash Beach Clean up - Sunday June 19th.

Our friend and neighbor Erik Baldwin from Nirvana Surfboards is co-hosting a beach clean up at moonlight beach tomorrow (Sunday - June 19th). There will be a raffle, BBQ and bonfire. Sounds pretty amazing. Thank you Erik for doing such a good job in our community and for all your hard work that goes into a community effort like this. 

Erik's Moon Plug

Our good friend Erik Baldwin finally got his experimental board done called the Moon Plug.  He and Dennis Murphy got together on this project and co-created it. It was Erik's brain child and he even did the art and glasswork on it.  I'm hoping to take her for a spin! Here's what he had to say about it.

Well, she's finally done! ...and her maiden voyage this evening was  spectacular! I can't explain how cool this board feels under my feet!  its quite a responsive yet very retro-ish' in how it glides through  flat sections. As for the performance, it seemed as if the better the  wave, the more it opened up.  Foot positioning was also very  comfortable, as the sweet spot seemed to be pretty big! It was hard to  do something wrong!  Oh yeah, it flys really well! Punts are a natural  reaction for this plug! Yew! ... Sorry it took so long. 

Erik Baldwin and his Hydroflex

Here's a cool shot of my friend Erik on his 5'5" Hydroflex keel fish. It's a board designed in Germany that is EPS/Epoxy, stringer-less and has an air valve that lets you control the flex. 

I have one now that I have been riding and really like it. It is ridiculously light. I mean you pick this thing up and it almost feels like it isn't there. The rails are really full, which I like, and has tons of float. The one I'm riding is a 5'7". The light weight lets me do foam climbs really easy and these tail slide cut backs that I usually fall on but with it so light I can get it back under my feet. 

For a fish it is really more of a performance type of board. It rides like a fish but you get a more lively feel under your feet.

If you want to demo these or fondle them yourself, stop by Nirvana Surf Shop in Cardiff and talk with Erik. www.nirvanasurfboards.blogspot.com

Photo: Sam from Transworld Surf

Erik "The Punt Master" Baldwin

Dirty Wax Art - Day-glow Surfboard by Erik Baldwin

I love it when people send these in. Keep it up!

Erik Baldwin's - Enjoy Broken Board Handplane

Our good friend Erik has been a huge supporter from day one and has been hooking us up with a bunch of foam and giving us some great feedback. Yesterday we hooked him up with his very own Erik Baldwin B&W Model.  If you have ever seen Erik's boards the black and white fits right into his quiver.

Last night we both got a chance to take her for a spin and had a blast. I haven't heard him laugh so hard after a ride in a long time. He was stoked. It was really fun to watch. I was stoked!

We made this one with a GoPro mount as well. Our camera is coming any day and we'll see what kinds of situations he can get himself into. This will be fun to watch.

Thanks Erik for helping us out and I'm glad you like the Handplane! Enjoy!

Erik Baldwin

Erik is a good friend and always inspires me in the water. Every now and then I take a look at his site to see all the photo's he's got going on. This one stuck out to me and I had to share. It's a pretty darn good example of how much power he puts into his surfing.  Enjoy.

Checkout more here .

Erik "The Ninja" Baldwin

Poached this shot from Erik's site. Classic. Kee-ya!

Check out more shots here ...

Photo by Lauren Tolford

Free Wax At Nirvana Cardiff

Erik Baldwin over at the Nirvana surf shop in Cardiff (across the south side of street from Patagonia) is giving away free organic colored wax. Stop by on your way home and pick up a bar for your kids. Check out the promo . 

Erik Pulls 501 sessions for last year (The neck tan proves it)

My good friend Erik Baldwin started a goal on the first of last year to clock 500 sessions by the time 2010 came around. I, like many of his friends, have been paying close attention over the year to his progress.

The road to glory is not always paved with glassy waves and shakas. Over the course of the year I watched (and was dragged out to many of them) as Erik paddled out into every condition imaginable. While the rest of us were home sleeping on that cold blown out morning, Erik was paddling out. After it dumped and the water was all brown, Erik was out.  While it was dumping Erik was out. When the rest of us where curled up in the fetal possition from that cold that was going around, Erik was out sneezing in the lineup. 


To reach this kind of goal you have to take the good with the bad, the crowded with the empty and double over head with the knee high slop.  You have to preservere.

When Erik gave me the final count I wasn’t really surprised he made it because I saw how hard he was working at it. But I was surely taken aback by the feat itself. 


To give you an idea, the average surfer maybe surfs twice a week or 104 times a year with 261 days off to do other things like work, be with the family, or go to sporting events.


I tend to surf a lot and if I'm lucky if I get to surf about 4 to 5 times a week. I maybe clock  200 session a year leaving me with 150 days or so that I don't surf.  Frankly, I can get surfed out at 4 to 5 session a week. 


Erik on the other hand only missed 7 days last year! That means 358 days last year Erik was in the water and just under half of those days he had either double or triple sessions. That is staggering. I would say that there are few other surfers in the world who have clocked that kind of water time. 


Erik, my friend, well done. You have lived the dream we all wish we could. Now, I beg you, take some time off and work on smoothing out that wetsuit tan. 

Erik's New Board

Erik had a new board shaped by Roy Sanchez. It's a 5'7" quad/thruster made from a double stringer blank that was headed to CI for Kelly. Erik did the air brush himself which I am really digging. I can't wait to see him ride it.

Secret Stash of Keels

I went rummaging through my photos this morning to find this shoot of a secret stash of what I think were Pavels. I went with Erik one day to see Roy Sanchez and we stumbled on this room. Both walls were like this. It was quite the sight. I think I stood there for a few minutes speechless. Seeing J.P.'s post of boards at Moonlight jared my memory of this shot. I hope you feel the same sense of excitement I felt that day. I really wanted to take one home with me.

Erik's Pumpkin

Every year at SRF they do a pumpkin carving night. The best ones get displayed in downtown Encinitas for all the kids to see. Erik showed up and carved this one in 45 mins on a whim and they liked it so much they displayed it. Really cool.

A Few Of Erik

Grain Update - Deck is Glassed

Monday was the day we got everything ready to glass. Kipp, Erik and I sanded, taped and prepped everything and cut the glass to size.

If you ever want to get anything done, invite Erik over to watch. Erik can't stand to be on the sidelines. He is also good at everything.

He took over and went to work.

Sanding.

Masking.

More masking.

I put the camera down and helped out.

It took a bit but it was ready for glass.

Kipp showed me how to trim the glass.

He did the tail himself as it was a bit tricky.

I love how the glass glows.

It looked like a spaceship.

Today was the moment of truth. Time to glass the deck.

I was excited until It was time to drop the catalyst.

Then I got nervous. I'm calling out, "Wait I'm not ready!"

Game on. Kipp didn't listen and he set it off.

We have less then 10 minutes.

It really is a rush. You get into the moment and completely get absorbed in it.

Yet again Kipp was a huge help. David was there as well to document it.

Time to clean up. Kipp is really good about reusing everything. He cleans everything and never throws anything away unless it is completely trashed.

Resincicle.

Oh my. She is beautiful.

Time to cut the the lap and pull the masking.

This was a bit harder then I thought and made a few mistakes.

All and all it was a blast.

Tomorrow we glass the bottom.