I’ve been having a lot of trouble with my back and decided to pull back from swimming for a while to give it a chance to rest and repair. I hardly swam during most of September besides doing the La Jolla Rough Water and the Naples Island Swim. I’m still not really feeling better but I couldn’t sit still any longer so I made a much overdue return to the ocean tonight. It was foggy and miserable looking outside and there’s been a string of shark sightings recently (one was real good, a shark actually eating a seal in Cayucos!) so it was only me and Niel that were keen on getting in the water. Ryan dropped in just to hang out and chat but split before the goggles came out.

Since the fog was thick and seemed to be drifting in towards shore we decided to stick with a buoy line swim. As we walked down to the water’s edge, which was waaaay out with a really low tide, we spotted two guys fishing from the beach against the pier. Sort of a dick move to fish in the swimming touristy part of the beach if you ask me, but I guess they figured no one would actually get in. Niel and I decided to get in on the other side of the pier to avoid their lines. The actual getting in process was not fun. The water temp wasn’t that bad, but with zero sunshine it felt pretty cold. I took my time and walked out pretty far. The tide was so low you would walk to within about 10m or less of the buoy line. Eventually Niel took off and after another minute of avoiding it I finally tossed myself in. I felt way better in the water then just half in… probably should have tossed myself sooner!

We stopped for a second at the first buoy, made sure everyone was doing good and then swam out to the creek buoy. The swells weren’t breaking at the buoy line but we got a lot of motion out of them. I was definitely feeling my time out of the water but I was hanging with Niel so I must not have lost too much during my break.

At the last buoy we turned around to swim back towards the pier. The initial plan was to swim under and regroup there before we did the other half of the buoy line. There was someone that looked like they might be fishing on the right side of it so we aimed left and more toward shore. Before we got to the pier we both stopped and decided against swimming under it since the swell was rocking pretty hard right there and no one wanted to meet a pier piling the hard way. We opted instead to swim around the pier. We figured that’d be fine with the fog because we’d be able to see it all the way around even if we lost sight of the beach.

The swim out was tougher than anticipated. There was a lot of push back towards shore and some texture to it. I think it may have been the tide started to come back in from an extreme low. Niel swam on the inside of me and I arced a little further out in case anyone was fishing off the side of the pier. We didn’t hit any fisherman until we got to the tip of the pier though. A lady up there fishing was totally amused by us being out there and wanted to take pictures and video of us out there. She was especially shocked I was out there wetsuitless, little did she know the water was actually warm for around here. Niel measured 61, although there were definitely much colder patches out and about as we swam down the pier.

Assuming that the beach fishermen were still at it near the base of the pier we decided to aim for the first buoy on the point side of the pier and then swim back to the beach. Sighting on that was pretty hard with the fog. We stopped part way there to take goggles off and squint into the mist to try and find it. I spotted it and locked on. Niel lost it for a bit and wandered back towards the pier but corrected when he spotted me way off on his right side. We took a second at the buoy to regroup and then swam the short distance to the sand. There were some decent waves crashing but they were awkwardly paced. I tried to catch one in but it raced right past me.

Tomorrow I should be back to the pool for the first time in a while, and hopefully back on pattern in general for my usual workout schedule. I don’t have anything big planned for me personally until like December/January, but I do have a couple more Catalina Swims to crew for that I need to be in some kind of shape for!

Pismo on Tuesday night, I went just to soak and cool off from a really hot day

Although things have been quiet around here on the blog I’ve been making good use of my back injury induced swimming downtime by prepping for my pro bearding debut! For those of you unaware, bearding is an internationally competitive sport… it’s pretty serious business! It even has its own reality show on IFC right now (Whisker Wars).

I decided to test the mettle of my adventure beard at the Arroyo Grande Harvest Festival’s Wiskerino Contest, the most prestigious of its kind here on the central coast. It’s also the only one on the central coast, but we’ll ignore that part for right now :) I found out about the contest at Klondike Pizza down in the Village (our old timey downtown area). I was walking out and noticed a poster with a mustache on it. I stopped dead in my tracks… I was so in!

I spent Saturday morning preparing for beard battle and was excited to go compete. I had brushed out the beard into a flying V formation, so basically you were getting two beards for the price of one. To round it out I tossed on some ladies sunglasses, a mustachioed t-shirt from my buddy Too Much Metal Fred’s website, a sport coat, and some demure leopard spotted furry shoes. This is as fancily dressed as I ever get :)

Around 1pm I went down to the Village in search of the Rotary Bandstand with my whiskerina and lovely assistant Jamie in tow. We cruised the festival in search of where we were supposed to check in and had no luck. We could find the bandstand but not anywhere to say “yes, hi, my beard is fantastic give me prizes.” Ultimately we just posted up on the side of the stage watching the ongoing performances and waiting to see what would happen from there. A fellow bearder spotted me and came over to inquire as to whether I was there for the same reason. We hung out and chatted for a while until the lady from the Hair Saloon and Spa that was running the contest came and found us. We were both fair sized gentlemen with substantial beards so she was pretty confident that we were who she was in search of. She let us know that the dance group on stage right now was running late and we’d be up there as soon as it was over.

As the dancers took their bows she hustled up on stage and started to call us all up there. All told there were 8 or 9 of us up there representing various categories from full beard stubble, various goatees, and adventure beards. Typically a contest like this would be broken and judged in different divisions but since there were only so many of us they went with an overall vote by applause sort of thing… the pressure was building… would I crack or emerge victorious? Only time would tell…

She worked her way from one end of the stage to the other having us introduce ourselves and where we were from. As an Arroyo Grande resident and AG High grad I was hoping to work the home field advantage. When she got to me I got a fair amount of applause and flashed my mustache t-shirt to amplify the effects of my actual facial hair… I think this maneuver helped put me over the top. I was feeling good about my prospects but a little concerned about the guy with the same beard as his shi-tzu. We made one more round through the guys gathering applause and somehow I was the clear winner! Holy crap! I never win anything… I guess I might as well win a small town overall beard championship… this is going on my resume and business cards: Rob Dumouchel – Beard Champion :{D>

So what kind of riches does a pro bearder walk away with from such a prestigious competition? Free pizza my friends, free pizza. Also the ability to tell friends and family members who doubted the greatness of my beard that they don’t know what they’re talking about, I’m a damn champion. I feel vindicated in my facial hair pursuits.

I’ve since become a member of Beard Team USA and am waiting for the sponsorship deals to start rolling in. Now all that is left to do is keep growing and prepare for next year’s beard battle in the Rotary Bandstand! I’ve got about 5-6 inches of beard this year and I’m hoping to crack 8 by next fall :)

I’ve been in the water a lot recently but not for swimming. This major south swell thing has had my rapt attention. It doesn’t happen a lot that the central coast gets so much action out of one of these so you gotta take advantage of it while you can! I’ve been bouncing around between Pismo, Shell Beach and Avila. On Thursday I made a quick trip to Avila with Dani, the bigger waves that day were substantially overhead! I was fully barreled which is pretty amazing for there! Granted it was short lived and I was gobbled up and flipped over moments later, but still, way fun! Friday I got the oceanic beating of a life time in Pismo. I’ve never had to fight so hard to get out past the breakers in my life. I had some epic wipeouts as well, I thought I was going to lose some teeth on one of them :o Saturday I went exploring a new to me beach in Shell Beach, and then joined Dani in Avila afterwards for more boogieing and some bodysurfing. Anyways I’m having tons of fun and taking pictures when I can… here’s the last few days in photo form…

Guys lining up off the Pismo Pier

This kid decided to skip paddling out and just backflip off the pier instead

pretty big for being all the way at the tip of the pier!

even the birds were spectating

full wetsuit AND a hood? c’mon buddy :p

little crowded

boogie board air guitar in full effect

Dani after Thursday night’s outing

Avila Beach, looking towards the Poly Pier

Zebra duct tape courtesy my friend Lynn K. :)

Spectating up in Shell Beach

View down by the beach

wipeout in action!

great ride up front, Avila and Port San Luis in the distance

it looks so easy when done correctly

fog burned off after a while

Avila was the place to be today!

Dani cooling off in the ocean

going to play… waves were smaller than Thursday but still big for here

whoosh!

post boogie excursion

sunglass reflection self portrait :)

you sure buddy?

little more…

oh noes waves! or… sometimes things look more dramatic than they are when cropped correctly :)

Everyone with an interest in the ocean has been all excited this week about a huge south swell that’s been making it’s way over to California from the other side of the world. Well it’s starting to hit the coast and it’s only supposed to get bigger as the week goes on. I got to Avila and was quick to hop out of the truck to see what we were working with. It looked a little disappointing with good but not that big of waves rolling though… and then, BOOOOOM! A big one built up and crashed down, excellent.

I watched the water with Niel for a bit and then Bobby showed up, Ryan was around as well. We pondered a route and decided to keep it on the left side of the pier since there was a large and very active bait ball working on the other side. We walked down to the water and the surf was going off in a way I haven’t seen since the weeks after the tsunami earlier this year. I got about ankle deep and decided to go grab my board and fins instead and skip the swim. With as much as I surf Avila when it’s teeny tiny how could I pass up what looked to be waist to head high surf?

I grabbed my gear and ran back down to the water’s edge. I got there between sets and sneaked out relatively easily and started to wait for the next set to roll in. I was sharing the water with 2 guys on boogie boards who were mainly messing around and riding the white water, and one bodysurfer. It took a bit for the big stuff to come booming through again, but when it did… weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Avila has a really heavy and nicely formed wave, but it’s almost always a closeout so you get short fast rides and then… tumble. Not ideal, but it doesn’t suck either :)

I tried to keep an eye on my buddies swimming, and was a little shocked to see that about the same time they hit the end of the pier a whole bunch of birds came swirling over the top of them… oh shit! They still stuck to the plan and swam out towards the point, but getting caught up in birds like that would have been enough for me to want to bail. I guess it’s good thing I passed on the swim today!

I kept surfing and when the guys swam back in they stopped to talk to me a bit. I offered up a bonus board and fins I had in my truck but we had no takers. I think they had as much oceanic excitement as they needed for the day.

After they went in I caught a really big wave and got a fun, fast ride out of it. I hurried back out to try and get one more out of that set and had a wave that was going to crash right on top of me. I duck dived like I usually would and when that wave came down it flushed the fins right off my feet! That was a first! I caught the next wave I could to get closer to shore and looked for my duckfeet. Good news it that they float, bad news is they hover right below the surface and this was murky water. After 3 or 4 minutes I saw the heel strap of one pop up briefly. I slogged over there and after the next wave came through I found and caught it. The other fin was nearby and I grabbed that bad boy as well. Phew!

I waded back out and once I was past the breakers I put my fins back on and caught a few more waves before calling it a day. I walked back up the beach and chatted with Niel for a bit and then grabbed my fancy camera out of the truck and messed around with that for a while before going home. I’ve excavated a decent, but older camera from my office and have been experimenting a bit. It’s not waterproof, but it is a step up from just taking pics with my iPhone :)