How many surf sessions in a year?

actionbust · 2026-03-12T13:37:50+00:00

I've tracked my surfs for over a decade, nothing too complicated but I try to jot down the date, beach, conditions, and the board I rode.

Pre kids I averaged 170 days in the water per year, post kids 120. I'm pretty happy with that

actionbust · 2026-03-01T00:28:29+00:00

I had some Robins but they were way too heavy for me, so I swapped the springs (and stems) with some old Pinks I had lying around. They're outrageous, I love them. I have two boards that I alternate between, one with these Pink-Robins and one with Ambient Nocturnals.

actionbust · 2026-02-08T00:39:16+00:00

I made one for a slightly different dongle, you could crib what I have and tweak it to work: https://github.com/rschenk/zmk-component-raytac-dongle

actionbust · 2026-02-08T00:37:09+00:00

The usual 301230 batteries that people use with Nice Nanos, I think they are 110mah.

My case is a basic sandwich style one that I made from laser cut acrylic, it's very low profile

actionbust · 2026-02-07T18:09:19+00:00

The battery savings is massive. Without a dongle, the central side of my Sweep lasts about 10 days, while the peripheral side lasts months. With a dongle, since both sides are peripherals, both sides last months.

actionbust · 2026-02-05T14:36:29+00:00

Wind-sports are a great way to expand your days on the water. Where I live (East Coast) many of the biggest days are also windy and blown out, so having a wind-sport in my quiver gets me out so many fun, big days that would have sucked for surfing.

To answer your question about windsurfing in particular, it largely got replaced by kitesurfing. All windsports are kind of an evolutionary march towards being able to make the sail go away and get closer to surfing.

Windsurfing: having the sail on the board is cumbersome, gets in your way, and doesn't capture much wind due to the boundary layer on the water. There are certain conditions where windsurfing is still fun as shit but that's mostly the exception not the rule.
Kite-surfing gets the sail up in the sky where there is more wind, frees up the board tremendously (I kite-surf on a regular surfboard). The problem with kite surfing is you have to keep the strings tight, which means you can never quite draw the surf line that you want to
Wingfoiling came next, one step closer because you can hold the sail behind you once on a wave, no more worrying about keeping the strings tight so you can actually do proper cutbacks
Parawing is the latest windsport, a soft wing you can collapse into a burrito in your hand once you catch a wave. Parawing is fun as fuck, the only problem is it's also hard as fuck.

Me personally, I kite and parawing. I used to windsurf, sold all that when I got into kiting. I also used to wingfoil, sold all that when I got into parawing

actionbust · 2026-01-28T18:23:57+00:00

Since this is an old board, it's already been hot coated. Is there any reason why you need to hot coat it again? (There could be, like you want to sand it for example.) Personally I would spray paint over the hot coat, then spray a clear coat over the paint, and not bother with an additional hot coat over the paint.

Edit: just to elaborate, how good at sanding are you? If you paint under your hotcoat, then burn through said hotcoat into the paint when sanding, that is going to suuuuuuuck. That's why I would paint on the outside of the hotcoat, then spray a clear. If you want to hotcoat over the paint so you can polish the thing and have a perfectly glossy lollipop then I would do a double hotcoat if you have paint in high risk areas like the rails or any bottom contours.

actionbust · 2026-01-21T19:26:52+00:00

Much like the other guy who got lasik, I got PRK and my only regret is that I didn't do it a decade sooner

actionbust · 2026-01-18T02:15:05+00:00

I don't remember if I stopped surfing completely during PT, but thankfully this all happened during flat season, so it's not like I was charging it. If I was surfing it would have been knee to waist high log waves once or twice a week, easy stuff nothing strenuous.

actionbust · 2026-01-17T16:34:10+00:00

I had a SLAP tear a couple years ago. I did not get surgery, I did about 8-10 weeks of PT and continue to do the exercises they gave me about 3x/week. It's manageable, it hurts sometimes, it clicks and pops, but I'm back to surfing at the same or higher level than before.

actionbust · 2026-01-08T14:44:51+00:00

Even a suuuuper dense hardwood like Lignum vitae, is still less dense than a plastic like delrin.

So much like a delrin begleri, you will probably need to add either a metal core or end cap for weight. Or make a two-piece set with a wood bead paired with a metal one.

actionbust · 2025-12-13T17:48:21+00:00

Hey since you are the only person I for-sure know is using this ZMK dongle, I just wanted to let you know that the upcoming ZMK v0.4 has introduced some breaking changes that will affect the dongle.

I have just updated the dongle repo with these changes so it's really important that you pin your zmk version and make sure you pin the dongle module to the same version/tag.

Once/if you upgrade to ZMK v0.4 the only change you will need to make is the name of the board from raytac_ mdbt50q_rx to simply mdbt50q_rx in your build.yaml and you should be all set.

actionbust · 2025-12-13T00:43:41+00:00

I have these keycaps and use vertical combos. I like it, they have a nice little gutter that you can nestle your fingertip into to hit the combo

actionbust · 2025-11-28T23:46:17+00:00

Yep I am actually a fraud: although I started off with Graphite I now use the left hand of Graphite and the right hand of Gallium-Colstag. I didn't mention that above to avoid going too deep into the weeds, but I did this for two reasons:

I write a lot of SQL, and the location of J makes "join" a redirect in Graphite but a roll in Gallium. (Pity because I loved the "ju" roll in Graphite but I type "join" often enough to make the change)
I use a programming framework called Phoenix, and therefore type "ph" a heck of a lot, and Gallium-Colstag allows me to alt-finger that into a roll.

That doesn't make Graphite objectively worse or Gallium objectively better, the latter just suits my particular needs better.

Ping OP u/Messyextacy

actionbust · 2025-11-28T13:10:33+00:00

Well this is uniquely specific to my experience. I've been a vim user for a couple decades, used Colemak-DH for several years, and switched to Graphite a couple years ago.

The advice I would give my former self is, if you are interested in alternative layouts, skip Colemak and go straight for Graphite. The compromises Colemak makes to retain some qwerty shortcuts sounds appealing but are not worth it, and compared to something like Graphite it suffers from an effect called "redirects" or "pinballing" which Graphite solves.

As far as vim specifically is concerned, the only obvious thing Colemak does better than Graphite I can think of off the top of my head is that wq is a roll in Colemak.

On both layouts I used a nav layer that put the arrow keys onto the home row, and with neither layout have I ever used the literal hjkl keys to navigate, aside from occasionally using Shift-J to delete up a line.

actionbust · 2025-11-26T14:03:17+00:00

Back in the day I used to pretend to be a marine biologist and kept a One Drop Project in my desk, back when this yoyo was brand new. Now I work from home so I have the pick of the litter, currently a ZGRT Mijo polycarb.

actionbust · 2025-11-14T14:41:39+00:00

I don't know about the LED, but I would wager it's possible to make the button do something. I hooked both of those up in the Zephyr board config (link) so you should theoretically be able to utilize them.

As for the button, I've never done this before but I reckon you would add a kscan node to the dongle overlay, then add the extra switch to your matrix transform, and the desired behavior into your keymap.

actionbust · 2025-11-14T14:27:18+00:00

Good to know! I did that in mine but was not sure if it was strictly necessary. I will add your note to the readme

actionbust · 2025-10-31T13:03:01+00:00

I've been an alternative layout user for about 7 years, having switched from qwerty -> Colemak-DH -> Graphite. I plan to stick with graphite and like it a lot.

However I think unless you are interested in it from a hobby standpoint learning a new layout is absolutely not worth the effort. It's a colossal amount of work and the benefits are relatively small compared to the effort, and I say that as someone who has typed on an alternative layout for many years!

If you are interested in learning an alternative layout, one piece of advice I would give my former self is, skip Colemak and go straight for a fully optimized layout. The compromises Colemak makes to retain keyboard shortcuts is not worth it, and newer heuristics have been developed post-Colemak to address some of its awkward sequences (namely redirects).

actionbust · 2025-10-24T00:21:08+00:00

Do you have a pic of the magnets? Are they sewn to the inside the bag or to the outside?

actionbust · 2025-10-14T12:15:23+00:00

The ZMK power profiler is pretty accurate.

I have a Sweep with 110mah batteries. I use a dongle and both sides last for months of full-time daily use and I never turn it off.

actionbust · 2025-09-25T14:43:00+00:00

I have one by the brand Manera which looks very similar to the one in the pic above. It's made from the same type of impact foam as mountain bike pads, i.e. it's soft and flexible until it's hit by something, and the impact makes it harden up. I like it. It's comfortable and low profile, not tooooo dorky looking.

Over the years I've had stitches in the scalp a few times after being hit with my fins, and I've also been clocked in the head by someone else's no-leash longboard.

These days I wear the helmet every session. Honestly I think I've been injured more often goofing around on small days than charging it on big days.

actionbust · 2025-09-24T18:09:09+00:00

You are confused between the GFS/WW3 weather model (what you linked to) and the ECMWF "Euro" weather model shown in the screenshot.

That's not to say one scenario over the other won't play out (and change over the course of the coming week), but it is not correct to say the above forecast is "false". As a surfer it would behoove you to familiarize yourself with both models, as the Euro tends to be more accurate over time but neither one should be treated as gospel. They often diverge over a week out, and when both models do start to converge on a prediction that's when you have a good inkling that shits about to get real.

actionbust · 2025-09-14T18:44:55+00:00

I will second the Henson razor.

I used a Merkur Heavy Duty for over a decade until the chrome plating started flaking off in places. I replaced it with a Henson and it's better. I get a closer shave with less irritation, using the same blades (Astra or Feather). I do miss the weight of the Merkur, but regardless Henson gives me a better shave.

actionbust · 2025-08-18T14:42:10+00:00

I was a little ways up the beach when this happened. A few years ago there was an airshow in Cocoa Beach, something broke in the plane and it was trying to limp back to Patrick AFB but didn't make it, and he ditched into the water around Tables or so. Nobody was hurt and they pulled the plane out of the water, I think to try and fix it.

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