DailyStoke.com: Don’t you think this whole run-off, “don’t get in the water for 72 hours” thing is just an excuse for pussies not to paddle out in an actual swell? I mean storms = swell, right? All I hear when there are waves is a bunch of dudes on the cliff goin’ “Yeah man, looks killer, but I don’t want to get sick. You know…”
Socalsurf.com: Not at all…if anything I think that water quality issues are downplayed more than they are hyped up. It is crazy how many sewage and random chemical spills crop up throughout the year…and in general Southern California has some pretty damn strict regulations on pollution.
We have an insane amount of people living in the Southern California watershed, using a lot of sewage and drainage infrastructure that is basically 40-60 years old, and most of that is not set up to handle significant runoff…then drop several inches of rain on everything. Just plain nasty.
Personally I don’t think it is a cop-out to avoid the poo-water plagues…I have all of my shots (including the Hepatitis ones) and I still feel funky surfing too soon after a heavy rain. If you get sick easy…or just don’t want to pass on some sickness to your family…I think it is worth staying out of the water enough for the crap to settle down.
Adam Wright runs www.socalsurf.com and is a professional
meteorologist. He’s been a surf forecaster since 1999, and covers SoCal and Baja for Wavewatch.com as well as the weekly snow and surf outlooks for Fuel.tv. DailyStoke happens to think there is no better resource online to understanding waves, in plain English, than
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Coming from someone who’s had more sinus infections that he’d care to talk about, I generally am pretty careful about the 3 day rule. That being said, I have an easy tip from my nose and throat doctor to keep you healthy if you decide it’s worth the risk. All it takes is a gob of neosporin or other petroleum based topical antibiotic. Before and after surfing, smear it deep inside both nostrils, then suck it back inside your sinuses. The petroleum barrier combined with the germ killer should keep that funky seawater from festering inside your nasal cavity. Since I’ve been doing this religiously after a storm, I haven’t gotten one ocean induced sore throat or infection.
but the runoff is some funky stuff you dont want in ur system and you never where it came from
Awesome tip weekday warrior, its rare I will go out after a rain and its usually if I am completely wave starved or it looks perfect. There was a day last January that was like that…beautiful, head high to 1 foot overhead poo filled barrels…had to risk it, and it was worth it.
That realy sucks im so glad i live in austrlaia , i thuoght we where behind .15 years ago we had the same promblem in sydney until some guy died of an infection that got up into his brain.
all the local surfers and clubs got together and protested and never stoped until the government totaly revamped the whole system.
it helps if your local politicians enjoy surfing themselfs.
why dont you do something about it?
damm i cant evan spell the name of my own country.
im so ashamed.
I used to go out during storms cause I didn’t want to miss the waves. Then I got sick and my dr gave me a 40% chance of living (septic, MRSA, from surfing at a spot in LA). So much for that. My friend was hospitalized for 2.5 weeks after surfing close to a rain, another had surgery to remove a 5″ long bacterial infection cyst. I love to surf storms but its not worth it in socal.