Wet and Wild with Rockin’ Fig

Rick Fignetti

Winter’s definitely here. The air and water temperatures have dropped

a lot in the last couple of weeks.

With the last few storms going by it was cold enough in the mountains

to pick up a few inches of snow. I know a lot of you surfers make the

crossover to snowboarding in the winter time. So here’s a little update.

All of the local resorts have opened up: Bear Mountain, Snow Summit in

Big Bear, Snow Valley and Mountain High over in Wrightwood have base

depths of snow anywhere in the range of one to three and a half feet.

They’ve been blowing the artificial stuff too, and opening more terrain

daily.

Snowboard parks have been the rage with jumps and rails to go big on,

the half pipes too, or just freestyle cruising.

Speaking of cold, I was down at the National Scholastic Surfing

Assn.’s fourth stop at Oceanside’s South Jetty last weekend. One of the

judges, Mike “Morganator” Morgan, was getting a reading down there on the

thermometer at 37 degrees, with some freezin’ offshore winds, burr, wind

chill facter toboot, to start it off.

It did warm up later and got nice with a small, west swell at two- to

three-plus feet through the morning, with hazy sunny skies. Here’s a few

results from it.

Newport Beach’s Andrew Doheny finished up third in menehune’s, surfing

a division up -- he’s really only a mini grom. In boy’s, Seal Beach’s

Chris Waring finished up fourth. He’s made tons of finals this season and

is up there in the standings.Junior’s saw some big ripping going down

with somegreat lip bashes, and Huntington Beach’s Brett Simpson came up

on top with the win, riding a board with a wild airspray on it, were

talkin’ cosmo. In men’s, Surf City’s Dan Finnel placed sixth. In

master’s, Bill Johnson, who shapes world champ C.J. Hobgood’s boards, won

it.

Seal Beach’s Chas Wickwire and Chad Wells were thirdand sixth

respectively, and Newport’s Darren “Brillo”Brillhart finished fourth.

That brings us up on senior’s, dominated by South Bay shredder Scott

Daley, the former Bud Surf Tour standout back in the day. Wickwire picked

up a second, making him a double finalist.

In super senior’s, U.S. champ and former Surf City resident Steve

Weaver had the moves to ice it. Figster third and Pat Schlick fourth to

round it out.

And in bodyboarding, local Johnny Savoli came in third.

Next up, next year, that’s not to far away, is Huntington Beach for

the fifth stop and double-rated points on the south side of the

Huntington Beach Pier on Jan. 12 and 13.

Expect our local surfers to go big time, home turf.

Hope you all have your Christmas shopping done, top of the list, a

trip to Indo, warm water sounds good, Hawaii I hear has been uncrowded

this year too, but is still going off. Maybe a new surfboard, I’ll bust

that out Christmas Day in some offshore screemin’ barrels on Northside

hopefully.

Could use a new full suit cause that water’s been chilly, super

stretch and blind stitching, meaning no leaks. Or a new board bag -- the

old one’s tattered and the zipper’s blown out.

Smaller items but still valuable, possibly a tail pad or booties, so

there won’t be any slippage.

Have a Merry Christmas you all. Fig over and out.

* RICK FIGNETTI is a six-time West Coast champion, has announced the

U.S. Open of Surfing the last eight years and has been the KROQ-FM

(106.7) surfologist for the last 15 years where he’s done morning surf

reports. He owns a surf shop on Main Street. You can reach him at (714)

536-1058.