Surfing Product Reviews

We’ve been wearing the Rip Curl “Rincon” Oceansearch tide watch for nearly two years now and so far we give it a thumbs up.  The watch has become a valuable surf tool in regards to tides and time.  We’ve abused the heck out of the thing and done a poor job of rinsing it in fresh water as recommend and only two things have gone wrong: 1) one of the buttons started to stick and was fixed under warranty, 2) the black rip curl logo wore off.

Waterproofness:  We’ve surfed this in just about every session over the last 2 years, over 350 sessions and it was built tough for most of the time.  We’ve done some other watersports with it; kayaking, wave runners, snorkeling, etc also.  Eventually one of the buttons started to get crusted with salt from our lack of rinsing it and this became and issue.  Additionaly the watch started to fog up inside. Rip Curl recommend replacing the seals every two years and this was just short of two years.  See more under the Warranty section.

Tides:  It has something like 15-20  years of programmed data for 200 beaches. The data for Rincon is spot on with what you see at tidelines.com.  It comes pre-set with Rincon tides and is much better than the calendars that you have to add or subtract time to to adjust from LA tides.  It was the easiest to read tide watch in our research, with the time of the next tide, the height, and the direction it’s heading. Very easy.

Bummers

• Button Placement: The buttons on the right are swapped from how most watches are. This can be annoying as the stop/start button is in the upper right and the lap/reset button is in the lower right. This only annoying when you are doing the stopwatch or the countdown timer.
• Buttons Sticking:  If you aren’t good about rinsing the watch off with fresh water (and we never purposefully rinsed it), the buttons can stick from saltwater build up.  In the first 1.5 years this only happened a few times and could be fixed with a rinse.  However with only a few months left in our 2 year warranty one of the buttons was permanently stuck and we sent it in for warranty repair.

Warranty Repair: We held off on writing a review until we had it for a few years to see how it weathered some abuse. It did quite well considering the hostile ocean environment and the sheer amount of sessions it took. As written above it was sent back just short of two years to repair some sticky buttons and internal moisture from lack of rinsing.  We imagine this wouldn’t have happened if we had rinsed it after surfing or surfed a lot less over the last two years.  We’ve been hard on Rip Curl’s service department in previous reviews, but their watch department sent us a brand new watch in one week free of charge.  Hopefully we’ll take better care of it.  Rip Curl recommends sending it in every two years to get the seals replaced.

Summary: The Rip Curl Rincon Oceansearch gets the thumbs up. It has a few user interface quirks, but it is a stout oceangoing tide watch we thing deserves a purchase.

Where To Buy

• Your local surf shop (We bought ours at Surf Country for 150)
• Wetsand.com $175
• Google Shopping

Two years ago when the Surf Stronger DVD came out we gave it excellent reviews, and thought it was a great tool to have in every surfers arsenal.  Now Surf Stronger is back with Volume 2, this time focusing on Core Training which is critical in surfing.  This new version of the DVD features amazingly in shape pro surfer Serena Brooke as the star along with Scott Adams, a Certified Trainer as well as a surfer.  Part of this training video was filmed on location in Santa Barbara and Hawaii and the soundtrack features among other bands ALO, Culver City Dub Collective, and The Mother Hips.

DVD Features:

• Workout Tips
• Pre-Surf Warm Up Routine
• Main Core Workout
• Quick Core Workout

Whereas Surf Stronger 1 covers the whole body in relation to a surfing workout, Volume 2 focusing mostly on the core.  Surf Stronger starts out with “strong core muscles are the foundation for balance, stability, and powerful movement.”.  We found Surf Stronger Core Training to be a user friendly way to get in surf shape.  The DVD makes it easy to navigate between warm ups, the main workout, and the “Quick Core” workout.  With a flip of a button you can move from exercise to the next, and each section is well labeled.  The music can be pretty good at times, Scott does a nice job of keeping the narration moving, and Serena  does an excellent job of modeling the various workouts.  Surf Stronger draws on a multitude of disciplines of which some yoga-esque philosophy is prominent.  In our opinion this is an inexpensive way to learn the tools to get or stay in shape for surfing and we give it a Surfing Product Reviews “Thumbs Up.”

Where To Buy:

• Your Local Surf Shop
• SurfStronger.com ($29.95)
• Wetsand.com ($29.95)
• Google Search

All For a Few Perfect Waves by David Rensin

"The audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer Miki Dora"

We spent our late spring/early summer beach days reading this 475 page authorized biography of Miki Dora, and the book made a lasting impression. "All For a Few Perfect Waves" could interest not only surfers (with or without prior knowledge of Mike Dora), but also those looking for a story about a man of charm who lived his life to his will only. At times the book is full of off the wall capers that only could be pulled off by surfers in the 60’s. At times it is full of sad and pathetic accounts of Miki Dora swindleding those close to him.

For the most part Rensin lets those that knew Miki do the story telling. Over 50% of the book is the words straight up from interviews with family, friends, enemies, lovers, and observers of Miki’s life. Rensin lets those folks that knew Miki the most weave a great portrayal of the legend. From gritty personal details no one in their right mind would want written about them after their death, to heroic tales of a free spirit yet concentrated man on his own path.

The only problem we had with the book is Resin’s portrayal of surf industry giants like Quiksilver. We’re told Dora spent his entire life after the Golden Days at Malibu swearing off those that profited on surfing. Later in his life he did form a friendship with a Quiksilver executive, even receiving a stipend from the company. However we believe that the surf industry, and mostly Quiksilver in general, was given too trusting of a voice in this biography.

The book does leave a lasting impression, as we felt a loss when we came to the conclusion after Miki’s passing. You put the book down and reason with the fact there there will never be another Miki Dora, there will never be another Golden Days of surfing in California. Rensin paints such an accurate picture of the advanced psychology of Mike Dora, that we come away with an idea of how Miki would pass through our lives had we had the chance.  For us, were pretty sure we’d be enamored by his charisma and cat like grace, until we were swindled by him out of something, only to look back later on the experience and think, that was one amazing soul.

Website
Amazon ($17.13)

Below is an excerpt from the book provided by the publisher that sums up a classic Miki story:

PHIL GRACE:

I’d like to get him going to tell me stories. One day we did a trip in my old Oak Cadet panel van, which was quite slow, a diesel. It was Trudy and myself, and Miki in the back, in the fold out back-seat. We were plying him with a few beers. It was a two and a half hour drive on a slow road. One of the stories was fantastic. Half of it’s probably made up. It was concerning Charles Manson. He said that in Malibu, the Manson gang was hanging around and they were quite threatening. He wanted to get on the good side of the gang. He said, “I told them about this party that was happening next week in Beverly Hills. I got this guy and said, tell your leader, there’s a really big party, a lot of pickings for you: drugs, cash, women. Get your boys up there.” They went up there, stole cars, money, and drugs. Turns out it was one of the Beach Boys’ houses. Miki said he wanted to get back at the Beach Boys for, well … being the Beach Boys, and he also wanted to get in on the good side of the gang. The guy said to him, “Thanks for the tip, we’ll remember this.” And Miki said, “It’s just between us.” Wink wink, nudge nudge.

PETER DAY:

When Ovidio and I were doing our documentary, In Search of da Cat,” we were watching Dale Davies’ films as research and there’s a very strange outtake of Miki standing at the beach at Topanga Canyon with some Family- looking types. It looks a bit like Charlie Manson; a very odd-looking geezer. I used to kid Ovidio and say Miki knew Charlie. Ovidio was, “No way, man; there’s just no way he knew anyone in the family. They’re fucking miles apart.” I said, “No, stands to reason. Topanga Beach, Topanga Canyon. Up and down the road.”Eventually we were driving around with Miki in South Africa, and I said, “Did you know Charlie Manson?” I was trying to wind Ovidio up, who was in the back seat. Miki said, “Yeah, yeah. I knew Charlie.” It sounds improbable, but that’s the story he told us. Whether Miki was lying or not, winding up some impressionable filmmakers, I believe he did meet Charlie Manson. I believe all those people in that community knew each other.