Laguna Beach cleans up poo

Laguna beach is recovering today from a raw sewage leak that closed down a number of surf and skimming spots in Laguna Beach on Thursday and Friday, including Thalia Street and Brooks Street (right).

At about 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, a clamp for an air release valve on the sewer main failed, resulting in 6,500 gallons of sewage spilling into the ocean at Agate Street.

The sewage spill was contained at about 5:40 p.m. on Thursday, but 10,000 additional gallons of poop flowed into storm drains leading to the ocean when a pump backed up.

Here's the City of Laguna Beach press release.

STD (Stoke Transmission Device) spreads across country

A customer of Austin Surfboards in Virginia beach broke his leg, but he still wanted to be part of the stoke of surfing. So he asked shaper Austin Saunders if he would design a board for him to send around the country for surfers to ride and then pass along--a "Stoke Transmission Device (STD)."

Austin thought it was a great idea and agreed to split the cost.

The idea was adapted from the movie Singlefin: Yellow, in which six superstar surfers were chosen to receive a yellow singlefin board.

In contrast, the purpose of the Stoke Transmission Device is described this way on the STD blog:

This story is similar to Single Fin Yellow, except this board will be shared among ordinary, everyday surfers at ordinary, everyday surf breaks. This is the story of that board, the Stoke Transmission Device.

The hope is that the board--and the stoke--will makes it all around the country as Austin Surfboards is also sending along a sharpie so those who ride it can sign the board bag.

A journal will also be inside the bag in the hope that people will take the time to log in an entry about their time spent with the Stoke Transmission Device. Austin will also be posting photos, videos, and other items to the blog, as well.

For those who are lucky enough to get the board passed to them, here are the rules.

Surfboard anti-theft chip has many hidden benefits

To combat surfboard theft, Peter Lascelles, owner of Beachbeat Surfboards in Cornwall, began adding the Surfboard Tracker device to his boards just over a year ago.

Since then, other labels, including Local Motion and Viking have begun adding the chips to their boards, and the tracker was a hot topic at the last meeting of the 400-member Shapers Society of Brazil.

Additional benefits for the retailer include brand authentication and inventory control.

Also, board retailers can also use data in the chips to reach their customers with tailored marketing information, rather than flood them with useless junk mail.

Because data about the board is contained on the tracker, the benefits to the board owner are astounding, as Global Surf News explains:

When a surfer registers his or her board he receives a personal message from the shaper giving the precise size and dimensions and everything else there is to know. This information can be transferred to other shapers to produce boards under license and keep tabs on what has been produced, fantastic for managing licensed shapers.

Shapers using SBT can reproduce surfboards just by advising the shaper of the SBT implant number and picking up the information from the system, great for travelling surfers who use the system to advise shapers what boards requires in advance of a competition or surf trip.

All this adds less than one percent to the total price of the board.

Here is a recent BBC News report about the system.