THE RICO REPORT

THIS IS LINCOLN BEACH... where we live. I guess you can call it a private beach due to the access limited to beach front homeowners who have a 30 to 50 ft stairway to the shoreline and the RV Park where we work.

For Monday late afetrnoon: 4 to 6ft. water temps:51 degrees side/offshore winds

@ 5 mph. It was 37 this Tuesday morning with highs in the mid 60's warming to the mid 70's Thursday.

Down the path to our beach.




When you paddle out in front of our park it's always solo....so far anyway.

SEASONS, DOGS AND A JET SKI

Springtime East Coast
Springtime West Coast


One is self employed, the other works for the government.

SNUG AS A BUG IN A RUG.


Practice runs.

YESTERDAY'S 1ST GO ROUND

Conditions turned to this by the time I was ready to be slung into a fat one. There is alot to learn prior to launching into a swell. Rescue, board and body pick up, and especially hand signals. It's you and your partners only line of communication. We had to call it a day yesterday after only 2 runs. We were 1000 yards off shore in swells as thick as our motorhome is long. The reef was just starting to have enough top to bottom to it to ride.
My tow partner, Dan, coming thru the shore pound to pick me up. Click on this once to enlarge. twice to see Dan's smiling face.Alot happened yesterday morning in a short period of time. Contitions went from perfect to 12 knots onshore in 30 min. more pics after this mornings session


10ft sandbar in the PM
solid 10ft. sandbar 8am
Morning started out with perfect conditions. The reef was barely breaking at 12 plus and the tide was just starting to go out. Each set looked more ridable than the last.

Inside sandbar was 8 to 10 and top to bottom. The shore pound was nuts at 8 ft.

OREGON'S WAIKIKI

Solo for my baptism into Oregon springtime waves. Found this bay actually named "OREGON'S WAIKIKI". Gin clear water, long paddle out, deserted for the 1st 30 minutes I was in the water. Only shoulder high, point break and.. for around here... what they call gentle. My board was ripped out of my hands on several occasions paddling through white water so the term "gentle" is relative. I have several surf pics Patty took that won't download (probably due to being on wifi as opposed to my verizon braodband) but she did get me sitting out there in this long shot. Wave quality reminded me of home on a good day when all the element's are aligned.
If your looking for a wetsuit for cold water then Patagonia's hooded R3 with R4 booties and gloves is the way you want to go. Never felt a drop of water. I purposely duck dived, rolled over and finally just dove off the board trying to find the entry point where water should seep in. NADA...not a trickle. My head got a little too warm.

After I was out I kept telling Patty my hands were too hot out there. She thought I meant "warm" until I took off my gloves and held her hand. She couldn't believe they were actually hot with the water temps in the upper 40's to 51 degrees.
End of a good day!

THIS PLACE IS GREEN

Made our 1st run to TRADER JOE'S. It's over an hours drive thru several mountain passes with valley's and meadows in between. Roads are great with 55 mph speed limits and ManOman is it green. This is one of the low lying meadows after coming out of the mountains.


TRADER JOE'S !
View from where the beach ends and the trail back to our camp site begins.


Mountain woman preparing elk steak after nailing it with a cross bow. OR....is that the Salmon she chipped her nail polish on while grabbing it out the the frozen food section of TRADER JOE'S!

Spanish Head, Linclon City. Afternoon 8/10 ft. onshore mush.

FIRST LOOK/NEW SURROUNDINGS

Surfed this spot 6 years ago with Marko Diaz. Perfect break to ease into the northwest Pacific.

More beach Trails than highways!


Restaurant, hotel or RV park...you can judge a public place by it's restrooms. Our new home has luxury bathhouse, bathroom and laundry facilities. This place is the best RV park around....anywhere!

Our 1st look at our new beachfront.
Looking South from the park
There are hundreds of these signs in Oregon.
We are real excited to be here. It's the best RV park we've been in. Patty comin up the beach trail.

Father and daughter
Beautiful and nasty looking. I was running Rico on the beach telling myself a camera would only interrupt the clarity of the spectacular feats of nature I was witnessing. After about 30 min. into it I realized that NOT TAKING photos would be regrettable what with the clouds opening up in a circle around a setting sun, transparent back lite emerald green 8 footers. Yeah well..I missed it by the time I returned after cleaning Rico up etc etc.

3rd Leg HUMBOLT TO OREGON BOARDER

Someday I'll travel the route we just did from Santa Cruz to the Oregon boarder photographing old signs. We passed a dozen classics dating from the early 1930's, 40's and 50's. If I had pulled off the road and dug around a little I'm sure there are dozens more.

A meal for a bobcat. We had breakfast in the giant redwood forests of Humbolt County and let Nugget get a breath of fresh air knowing some critter 4 times her size was probably eyeing her as breakfast treat.
Room with a view. Looking out our bedroom window in Crescent City 15 miles from the California Oregon boarder. When we left our house the 1st time we took the Tempurpedic bed with us. Getting back into it is a delight. There is no better bed.
That's our rigg on the right with the 2 bicycles.

Leggett, CA

From Patty (Spike is banned from blogging for a while)

BANNED?...I think not. from roberto spike

We're in a great little campsite in Liggett - northern Cal. Among the redwoods.

We've been driving for 3-5 hrs per day - me in the truck and Spike in the RV communicating via 2-way radios. This has been my view for the last few days:

Can you see our bikes on the back? And those are grapevines on both sides.

We are so thankful to have this opportunity. This area is gorgeous. On to Crescent City and maybe the Oregon border by tomorrow.