Big Surf in Yakutat

Click Here for some amazing surf shots of a swell surfed by a few guys at the end of November in Yakutat, Alaska.

Baja 1000 2008

2008 Baja 1000 Trophy Truck Champions Roger Norman and Larry Roseler of Norman Motorsports - Start to Finish from Norman Motorsports on Vimeo.

Jono and Stefan

Had a good premiere, good to see those zany guys again. They are off on their way further up the coast to continue premiering the movie, all the way up to Seattle. If you have a chance, check it out!

Ryder was excited and came with me but lost interest soon after his part came up and it was all of 5 seconds long!

Smoke filled sunset in Ventura.

Surfing 50 States Ventura Premiere

Tonight in Ventura at Winchester's, 8 pm, 632 E. Main St., admission is FREE!

Tea Fire

Haven't heard if everyone from the Santa Barbara chapter is ok or what the status of their homes is. Keep them in prayer, here is a pic from Summerland last night of the Tea Fire in Montecito that a guy posted on the surfermag forums.
Update on Jalama camp trip, had an open meeting in the campground on Saturday night where Bailey, youth pastor in training from Santa Barbara Calvary Chapel gave a message. Good stuff!

Jalama Weekend

The weekend started out a little different than I had envisioned. I, along with some others was to go up early to reserve spots as this camp books solid virtually every weekend. The family all got sick and I was the last to get it so I drove up Friday afternoon with a sore throat coming on, feeling worse all the time. But it had to be done and although it would have been fun with the whole family, it was not meant to be.

The view coming into the camp is spectacular, it is an awesome thing to be living in the city for three months and suddenly to be surrounded by nature again, rejuvenating, refreshing and awe inspiring.
The main group came in late, around 7 or 7:30. It was funny because you constantly hear how teenagers are lazy and unmotivated or can't be expected to get up early because they are growing and need their sleep.

Well I can tell you that this group of teenage guys were all in bed before 9:30 and waxing their boards at 4 am in the morning to walk to a reef to surf. Out of all the Christian high school trips that happen across the US, we have to be in the 99.9th percentile for that happening! Makes them a dream to chaperone though.
Sunrise surf check at Jalama, you can see a reef in the distance and a van checking it out.
The younger guys like Austin and Pat were especially funny, everything was the "best ever!" Which we were amazed at until we realized that that's not hard when you've only lived ten or twelve years! =) Pat especially had a story for everything, it got to the point we would throw out random topics like grasshopper and have him tell stories, really funny!
Here's Patrick I believe, cutting back.Austin, friendly and about to be dumped by the wave.Matt, duckdiving a wave sideways.A set approaching.

Pat and Austin, the coldest they had ever been "in their whole lives."
Breakfast doesn't last long with hordes of hungry surfers around!
Jalama campground from the bluff above it, truly a beautiful spot and a place I want to go back to! I had to leave late Saturday morning because of getting sicker and my wife at home alone with a house full of sick kids. But I look forward to hearing how the rest of the weekend went. We had the CS tent up by that morning and were looking forward to doing some outreach with all the surfers that were there.

I'll leave you with the wave sequence of the day that I shot that morning.
Setting it up...
Tucking in...
Starting to throw...
Good times...
Spoke too soon!
Still a lot of fun, hope to see some of you on one of our CS Santa Barbara camping trips sometime or at a bible study, check out www.christiansurfers.com for more info!

Surfing 50 States Premiere!

Two years ago, soon after we had moved to Yakutat, Alaska we met two wild and crazy Christian guys that decided to make a surf movie about surfing all 50 states. Met with incredulity and befuddlement, they nonetheless persevered and here we are with the US premiere of their film. I look forward to seeing it, apparently we have a part in it! Come out and support the guys and check out the You Tube video of their premiere in Oz.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Wwifd9tlQas
Check out their website at www.surfing50states.com

A Wave

Calm before the storm

I love it here in California before the storm comes. It starts to feel humid and the air turns completely still as if in hushed anticipation. The waves are usually building but really fun because of the lack of wind.
Ryder and I went down to the beach for a little while late afternoon for his PE., to run around on the beach and climb on the rocks. Some junior high kids ran down and went for a surf, completely stoked, the little barrels were just the right size for them!

Then straight home, into their costumes and off to church for Halloween! Poor Quinn just about had heatstroke, this is the first Halloween in a while where it was warm instead of freezing cold! Above 70 degrees last night when we went out.

Ryder's first surf

Ryder went out for the first time and rode a wave by himself at New Jetty in Ventura Harbor. He was very excited and proceeded to ride many more. It even counted for his homeschool as P.E. Faith cried when I got home because I hadn't taken her. Developing...



And a pic from a contest this last weekend where CS South Bay showed up and I was able to slip out before Quinn's birthday party to shoot some pics and hang out with them. Here is the happy little guy with his "Wubby"

CS Santa Barbara/Newport Beach Campout

Nov. 7th through 9th CS Santa Barbara in conjunction with CS Newport Beach will be heading to Jalama Beach for a campout. Everyone is welcome, invite your friends, RSVP with Matt Coleman, chapter director for Santa Barbara at mateocoleman@gmail.com. Here is the flyer for the event.






The Ministry is Relationships weekend was great in Huntington Beach, about 30-40 leaders in CS West Coast showed up and all were excited about the tools given them to focus on personal relationships with other surfers and to share Christ with them. It was a good time to connect with the other leaders and put a face to everyone's name, definitely looking forward to having more events together like the Jalama camp coming up. Don't forget that if you missed this one you still have a chance with two more events being hosted in Jacksonville, FL and Ocean City, NJ. CLICK HERE for more info.

CSUS Rhode Island Staff Retreat

We recently returned from the first annual "with family" CSUS staff retreat held in Rhode Island. Uncle Vance made an appearance on his way up the East Coast and the kids were really excited to get to play with him. This is at a local beach on the day after we arrived, beautiful with typical New England scenery.





Patrick is a local surfer in town that came to Christ through the ministry of CS and one that has been discipled by the chapter directors, Chuck and Anna Barend. He is fearless in sharing his faith with his surfing friends and a really fun guy to be around. He may be out in California in February, hope we get to see him then, thanks for showing us around Patrick!




Here is another shot of the same beach from a higher vantage point. We didn't get many photos because Hurricane Kyle came through and it rained buckets all the other days we were there. However, there were a lot of waves so it was a great trade off!






Allison and Quinn having a great time! Allison normally takes the non-surfing pictures and after a trip we never have pictures of her so we tried to be intentional about taking pictures of her this time!







Here is a picture of a wave we surfed later once the swell filled in more, we nicknamed it "Typhoon Lagoon" because of the way it bounced off of the rock walls on either side. A lot of fun though, some barrels and a short paddle!







Here is a shot from the training sessions, we were privileged to have Thom and Nancy Cunningham, missionaries with New Tribes Mission, come and speak about the glory of God, unreached tribal groups and being a family in ministry. CLICK HERE to check out New Tribes and what they are doing to fulfill the Great Commission. They also knew my cousin, whom I have never met, John Cross, formerly with New Tribes, CLICK HERE to check out his website and ministry, Goodseed.


Back home in Ventura! This is taken from just east of the Ventura Harbor looking west towards Ventura. The chapter in Santa Barbara took a group of groms out to surf and I shot photos of them to do a slideshow with at the next chapter meeting this Thursday at 320 Santa Cruz Ln at 6:30 in Santa Barbara. Stop by if you are in the area!




This coming weekend we will be in Huntington Beach at the first of four CSUS training sessions around the country. The theme of the training is Ministry is Relationships and focuses on one on one ministry through friendship evangelism and discipleship. This continues the theme of the Panama Prep School with the Junior Leaders training. Keep our family in prayer as the kids and myself are all sick. For more info on the training CLICK HERE or to register for any of the sessions around the country CLICK HERE.

Trestles final

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHZZb07s4TI

Answers to Prayer

Dear Daniel, 
        I have been thinking about my reply to your news
about the safe arrival back home.  It came to me that if
you had had an uneventful journey, we would probably have
taken it for granted.  Instead, perhaps God was showing
that He had been very close to you all the time.  Look
what might have happened without His care!!   I think
it was His gentle
reminder.   
                                                            
Love,   
Joy Moore




After reading this I got into the Suburban today to tow
the trailer to the welding
shop to get the hitch rewelded.  One of the tires
had gone flat
since parking it in the driveway
so we changed that as well this morning.
I made a pass around the block to park it until my
appointment time.
When I got out,
the hitch had almost completely severed
from the tongue.  God
kept it together for 2200
miles from Alaska and driving the last
.7 of a mile it separated
and broke.  Do we serve
a great and loving God or what!  Praise Him
for His answers to
prayer and His never
ending love for us.

We made it!

No pictures, just a lot of miles by water and land. First, thanks for all your prayers, we had issues with the trailer the whole way, first by the jackstand breaking, hanging up on the ground (ferry ramp and every gas station to Vancouver) and almost severing the brake line which would have locked up the trailer brakes. Then, once we arrived today we looked at the tongue and the hitch that is welded on top of it had about 2/3 of the welds left, the other third was cracked off and still cracking. But everything held together and we thank God for it. Also, a special thanks to Uncle Tom, Uncle David, Rodger and Dad for helping with the maintenance along the way and to Forest Glade church, it was great to connect with you all! Whew, we're tired!

Big Smiles!

A picture is worth a thousand words, gotta love July in Yakutat, Alaska!

Waxing 101 with Dane

source: Dane Reynolds

Summer in Yakutat

Finally here! Here are a couple of shots from yesterday evening at the campsite.
Will try to post pics later, having technical difficulties!

Sam Part Deux

The second installment of Dane and his fishcuit Sam.
source: Dane Reynolds

Sam

Small wave fun with Dane Reynold's Fishcuit named Sam, Ventura, CA.

source: Dane Reynolds

International Surfing Day

Today is International Surfing Day and to celebrate we got together with a group of people from town and went out to Graveyards. The highlight was having the kids play in the beach "kiddie pool" with the surfboards. Sunny and warm for Alaska, it was a great day. When the weather is good like this everyone gets out. Now it is time to ready ourselves for the days getting shorter again. There are also three token pictures from the day before when the surf was really good and local pilot Les Hartley decided to drop by in his plane and check out the lineup.