Surfing and Rain

My boxes of green pins are staring at me asking why they are still claustrophobically cooped up in their box. They seriously want to replace those gloating red pins and say, "Booyah beotch I went there". I sadly look at them and in inanimate item language I telepathically tell them ‘because it is raining’. 

Rain is great for surfing in some ways, especially heavy storms because it flushes tons of soil and sand into lineups sculpting some of the best sandbar and bottom-contour conditions.  San Diego needs it because the huge waves we got in early January really messed up the bottoms and the waves have been pretty poor.  

The only problem with rain for surfers is the storm water pollution. When rain falls onto an urban landscape it flows through the streets and drainage systems and is flushed into the sea untreated. The very same principle that allows rainwater to carry sand and soil into the lineup also allows for storm drainage systems to carry the discarded detritus and wayward pollutants of mankind. This untreated rainwater, pollutants and all, is known to experts as urban storm water, and as you can imagine, it’s disgusting.

Allowing the untreated urban run-off into the ocean is like letting your neighbor hose down his driveway, wash the bathroom floor, spray out the bottom of his garbage pails and then dump the dirty water into your pool.

I could risk it, I could paddle out and pretend that my fellow mankind hasn’t broken any environmental laws and washed the oil off their driveway or all the dog pee from downtown isn’t being crashed all over my face each time I turtle under a break.  I don’t like being sick so I guess my green pins will have to wait for another day.