Hello everyone. This will be the first of my adventure postings. As a former mountaineering instructor, I have spent a fair amount of days in “tent city”. In this submission I would like to tell you about beach camping on the west coast. To most of you out there, skimming is an “off-season” sport with winter being the time to put away the skim or travel south.  A select few of us have been making the effort to skim the winter months, which usually offers the better wave conditions. So get your gear, gas up the truck and head out!

Rory Miller showing that life under a solid tarp is a good life indeed. He got this fire going in under ten minutes. You just need to carefully choose a log off the beach that is:  light, clear, and cedar. Even in pissing rain you can split  open a cedar log with your axe and find dry wood inside, there are few other types of wood that burn as well on a West Coast beach. Once your cedar firing is going, Go find some chunks of tree bark. You will most likely find Fur chunks on our local beaches. Like briskets these will create a perfect cooking fire.

Scooter looking for his next toy. The amount of plastic on this beach was horrifying. Every-time we throw it in the land fill it will end up in our oceans.  Plastic breaks down to small particles which unfortunately look like food to some fish. I won’t get too off topic here but there will for-sure be another submission on this one. Let’s be stewards of every beach we visit! Back to the trash in a more positive light. We were able to scrounge enough rope to make a crab trap which Monique paddled out on her longboard to drop. For bait we used a rotting salmon we found at one corner of the beach. We also used a big bleach bottle as our buoy, the whole set up was claimed by that nights storm, but hey, at least we tried..Well the two most memorable things about Grant Bay for me were the Natural beauty aside from the trash! And of course exploring a never before skim spot and being part of the first crew to put it on the radar.

Rory was able to Rock a heater top only. We had a tarp built as a dugout sauna with a fire going at it just about all week. When you got cold you could be warm again in no time!

With a little planning and some know how, you can enjoy skim trips in the worst of conditions. Below is a helpful list of items you will need for your ”stay warm, stay happy” system:

1. an axe & hand file.

2.  a sharp & strong knife.

3. large tarp with 50′ of 5mm cord. With a large tarp you can put your tent under one side, and have your kitchen on the other. Some argue that your kitchen should be away from you tent. I say, if your clean and you use a food hang (or in this case bury) you will be fine. In forested areas however; this is a different story.

4. rubber boots or waders. I use waders, they always come in handy when bush whacking for new spots.

5. a 40l dry bag and another 30′ of cord This will act as a food hang along the tree-line at a site of your choosing. Or you can bury the bag in the sand. Just remember to mark the location!

6. a shovel

7. deck of cards and a bottle of hardbar. You’ll need something to keep spirits high during the rough times.

8. another tarp for a wetsuit drying room or steam room. If you use the Todd Munroe method and dig a 3′ hole in the sand and put your tarp above that you’ll have a spacious teepee like structure. You can use a long center pole or multiple poles that meet in the center to form a roof structure.

9. bear spray. You WILL confront wildlife at some point so better to be prepared.

10. a foam “but-pad”. I just put one in my pants and everywhere I sit is warm and dry.

11. first aid kit and cel phone

12. If your rich or sponsored you would probably bring two wetsuits to alternate through, of course the old warm water down the front can always activate a cold suit. remember if your warm and hydrated before you suit up you’ll be warmer in your sesh.

Well that’s just a few of the items on my gear list. With a little planning and a good stock of necessary’s like food and water. You can wait out any weather for the right conditions to go shred! Thanks for reading. Be sure to stay tuned for my next submission, “Cougar Attack”.

Scott “scoco” Copeland