Iceland

We had a fantastic week in Reykjavik Iceland in March of this year.  We weren't sure what to expect, but nearly all of our experiences were great.  We stayed downtown in a wonderful old hotel near the harbor, which is very scenic and functional .

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The town is colorful and with endless geothermal energy and greenhouses, Iceland grows veggies, greens, fruit and beautiful flowers year round.  Imagine eating fresh strawberries for breakfast when it is snowing and 20 degrees outside!



The city has several wonderful thermal pools that are only a few dollars to use for the day.  A typical facility has 2-3 large indoor and outdoor pools and numerous hot tubs of varying temperature in both salt and fresh water.  Nice.



Reykjavik is full of great cafes and restaurants, all with great food and of course alcohol.  I quickly found a favorite local toasted porter.  Yum.  Lots of live music too, that is if you can start your evening out around midnight!  You may have heard of the famous hotdog stand downtown.  We had a late night hotdog here....i'm not sure why they are so famous but they serve about 200,000 a year! They are good, but, for me, not worth eating again! Oh, try the Minke whale.  Pretty dang good.



We spent a couple of days out in the interior, riding horses, visiting glaciers, water falls and the great rift zone.  Iceland sits on top of the mid-Atlantic ridge spreading zone, and thus is growing yearly by several inches.  The rift zone is characterized by a several mile wide area of down dropped blocks, with a very large lake in the middle of the low spot. Essentially a massive sag pond.  Each side of the zone is characterized by tensional faulting in the basaltic lava flows, and submarine lava flow are visible (below). Very cool!



Gulfoss waterfall



All of Reykjaviks water is glacially derived (no surprise).  The glacier is located more that 80 km from the city, and it takes the water about 400 year to travel underground to where the production wells are located. Needless to say, Iceland tap water is really good!



We did splurge and spend a night out at a very remotely located hotel by the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa.  What the internet pictures and the sales ads don't tell you is that the spa is co-located with a geothermal power generation facility!  It is clear on Google Earth if you know what you are looking for.  With the power plant, hotel and spa at your back the landscape was pretty rugged and eerie.



Really nice, private hot pools at the hotel.  The pools are all natural and the bottom is coated with 6-8 inches thick of a white silica ooze.  The lava is rich in silica.  As the naturally 135 degree hot water is produced in the wells and transported to the pools, the silica comes out of solution and ends up on the bottom.  Most everyone just scoops up gobs of it and spreads it on their body!

5 10 Simms finally done

I've had this out for two sessions now in 3-4' surf.  It paddles well and is definitely fast.  I'm still working on finding the sweet spot, but that will come with time.  Too far forward, the fins release and it gets squirrley, and too far back it does not want to turn. Ray Meek aka Stingray did a nice epoxy glass job and did  cool old school leash loop.

5-10 Mini Simms Part 3, off to the glasser

Here is a bit of construction history:

2012.  Here is the start of my new simms style board.  The bigger simms is really fun, but it has so much rocker that it needs bigger/jucier waves to really work.  This smaller one will be flatter so that it will work better in smaller, crappy summer surf. 

Ingredients: (1) sheet of 1/4" sandeply, ripped in half, (1) 2x4x8 clear redwood ripped into strips and two nice keel fins. 

Nose blocking going on.  I added a nice strip of hardwood to contrast with the soft wood ply.

 Bottom skin with the first rail strips in and the rough-cut ribs ready to shape.

Outline.  

 The ribs are in and the rocker table is set up so next the rail strips go on.

Blocking for the fins. At this point, I lay a batten across the top of the ribs and check for fairness of the deck line, especially near the nose. I'll make minor adjustments to the rib now before the rails go on. 

Finally got a bit of time to work on the board.  Here's the progress:

 Ready for the top skin.  The top of the rail wood is all planed down to accept the deck.

I built a center truss beam in-place after the ribs are installed, while the assembly is still in the rocker table.  This little stick beam replaces the conventional solid keel.  It is very stiff and very light.  I've also started adding left over bits of 1/4x1/4" stock to the ribs for additional gluing area for the top skin.

 This is the rear with the blocking for the fins.

 I'll glue on a solid tail block once the top skin is on.

 You can never have too many clamps when the top skin goes on.  When I test fitted and clamped the skin on, the right half of the ply skin broke away from the hardwood decorative stringer I had glued into the skin.  So I glued on the left half, and the other half will go on in a few days.

Gluey, gluey, clampy, clampy.

September 2015:

Finally, all sealed and ready for the glasser.  Hey, it only took like 3 years to get to this point!

As always, this will get a single layer of 4 ounce cloth and epoxy resin.  Fin set up is twin with a tiny trailer near the tail.  The fins will be epoxied into the grooves after the lamination coat.  This is a nice clean method, and in case the fin breaks, the skin or glass job is not damaged.  I would just rout out the groove again and install a new fin.

Here are the fins.  I had made a small set (bottom) for the board, but a shaper friend convinced me to use the full sized fins on the top.  I tend to underfin a lot of my boards so I agreed to try it.

They are single foiled and only about 3/8" thick.  I thought this was way too thin, but my friend John Cherry guaranteed they would perform, and yes they do!  The trailer is in the middle.  It is only about an inch high and 3" long, but it makes a huge difference in performance, giving significant hold and drive on a bottom turn and taking out any tail wiggle that is typical in a twin fin set up.

Deck and side

Ok, more pictures to follow after she's all glassed up and shiny!

New 5-6 alaia for belly riding

I've been riding 47" long belly boards for a long time now.  They are super fun and fast in small surf but I wanted something longer that I could get my hips and knees up on to, and that would maybe work a little better in bigger surf.  The nose is 18.5", hips 16.5" and tail 19.5", length 5' 6".  Thickness is 1/2" - 5/8", so its really flexy.

I'm finding it to be really fast across a steep face.  Fore to aft balance is pretty critical for staying in control.  Too far back the tail slides out and too far forward the nose does the same thing.  But if you find the sweet spot it is quick and maneuverable.  

 Cedar with thin mahogany stringers

 Rough shaped

Andreini Vaquero

 9'2" Los Vaqueros

I know it's not wood, but it's definately the sweetest riding board I've ever owned.  

Life is good....

I have not built a new wooden board since the summer of 2012 and that 5-10 mini simmons style board is still sitting up in the rafters unfinished.  I did start a pod of hand planes late 2012 but life got really busy and they are sitting in an orange bucket waiting for me.  I started a new job with the state in the late summer/fall of 2012 which was a big switch from private consulting out of my house. The job is great and I've been super busy getting up to speed with petroleum and reservoir engineering, well testing math (ouch) and modern well design.  Plus, within that first year with the state, I fought for a promotion, convinced HR that I should be able to interview for it and got.  Stoked!  Thats all good.  In January of 2013 we started looking for a house to buy.  We were in a nice rental but we did not want to sign a third year long lease.  After owing 5 homes over the previous 20 years, we did not like renting!   Over 4 months we offered on 7 homes, even offering way over asking price and lost every time to cash buyers.  Man we were discouraged.  Buying a home had never been like  this for us. I was ready to go secure a 50 foot slip in Oceanside harbor and use our cash to buy a 50 foot cruiser and just live aboard! We eventually offered on a little house near the beach in O'side and our offer was accepted.  We've been in our new old place since April with our two cats.  Rum the surf dog died after 17 years with us and Andy's iguana died in 2012 too.  All three kids are now young adults and have moved out to start their own lives in various spots in California.  For my wife and I, this  is like starting our life all over again.  Both exciting and a little scary all at the same time.

We are waiting for a permit to build two new structures at the new house, one of which will be a dedicated shop for me and the other a garage with hobby space above.  This is super exciting because I have always had to build in a make-do garage space.  Maybe they will be built by the end of the year.....but how knows?  Right now all my tools are stored with all our other stuff in a tiny one-car garage and what is left of my wooden quiver is up in the rafters, waiting for their new home.

So between all that and multiple trips up and down California to visit the kids, it's been busy year.
And of course my wife is super busy with teaching, preparing a teaching syllabus for a new class and prepping for a teaching-consulting side gig.  But I'm not complaining.  Our kids are learning how to live on their own and I'm still able to surf 5+ times a week and I'm still in love with my wife after 22 years of marriage.  Life is good.

The fam, Malena, Stephanie and Andy in Tiburon.  Michele could not make this trip. 

Hawaii Trip

My wife surprised me with a trip to Oahu this January for a combo birthday gift.  This was my first trip back for 35 years!  She did an awesome planning job.  We stayed right on the beach on the North Shore at Three Table beach and listened to the pounding surf day and night.  We were a 5 minute walk to Waimea Bay where we walked and swam in the morning.  We snorkled at Shark's cove and Turtle bay and surfed Chuns and Haleiwa too, and spend a day with my cousins in Kalihi.  Here are a few pics.

 Steph at Kahuku Ranch on the windward side. 

 Me at my childhood house on Mokapu, near K-bay

 Big greens in Waimea Valley

 Super small surf at Haleiwa.  

 New friends Steve Andreas (from Carlsbad of all places) and legendary Buttons K. Even Steph looks stoked!  Steve and Buttons run a surf adventure business on the North Shore. 

 Me and cousin Donna

Waimea Valley