There's a generally mediocre beach break just north of Huntington Beach in Southern California.

The sandbars aren't as good, and it's usually only about half the north of Huntington Beach in Southern California.

The sandbars aren't as good and it's usually only about half the size of Huntington,

but when there's a massive swell and Huntington is too big, Bolsa Chica becomes a viable

option, much more manageable and can actually get pretty good.

I was about 21 years old and I had bought an old beat-up shortboard at a

garage sale for 25 bucks. It was shaped by Bill Stewart in San Clemente, a 5-8 pointy nose thruster

with glassons, of course, super thick, flat deck, boxy rails. I think it had the year 1986

written on the bottom. This was a decade before I

ever got a custom-made surfboard. It was December 2002, and I paddled out with my buddy Grant during a

winter swell that transformed this portion of Bolsa Chica into a groomed head-high sandbottom right-hand point. I caught a shoulder-high wave,

and I really found my groove, not ripping, but just banking through turns, keeping pace with the

wave, and then encouraged by the confidence of the ride, I put it all into one final carve. I kicked

out, and there was an older local paddling out and he complimented my wave.

I just responded with an embarrassed, you know, thank you. And he said, that's the way that board

was designed to be ridden. My buddy Grant paddled over after the interaction and he alerted me.

Do you know who that guy is? That's that surfboard shaper Roger Hines. It would be 15 years until I actually knowingly saw Roger again, and it was in this capacity as somebody now working in surf media and interviewing surfboard shapers.

I told Roger that story about our first meeting, and surprisingly he remembered that exact wave, the interaction, and then he

reiterated. That was a cool board. It was short, yellowed, and thick, but I specifically remember

you writing it like guys did back in the 80s. Since then, Roger has shaped more boards for me than

anyone else on the planet, a number of shortboard high-performance quads.

Actually, an 80s, a flat deck style shortboard as well, now that I'm thinking about it, kind of similar

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