surfing – Active Naturists

recap of some naked surf fun and watching sea life at Black’s Beach

13 December 2014 by αNaturist, posted in active naturists

I’ve already written up about Black’s Beach twice – in general, and on our first nude surfing experience there specifically – but as I’m finishing the latest Californian series of blogposts, I can’t help adding some new footage from surfing there again, as well as photos of marine life.

Well, I guess I have to promise to post another video in the future when I improve both my surfing skills and using GoPro camera. It was my very first attempt to shoot a video with GoPro on a surfboard, so I’m pretty confident the next one will be better. In any case, it was still a lot of fun to play with the waves naked. And it was very liberating too, especially after that pretty long (especially when you carry a surfboard) hike down the dirt trail from the parking lot to the beach.

I was very happy to find quite a few other naked surfers (including one woman) on those days. And a couple of days ago, as I was preparing my footage for this post, I got across this recent video of a guy surfing naked at Black’s Beach.

Who knows, maybe some time soon those nude surfing contests will be back at Black’s Beach?!

naturist 0002 Blacks Beach, California, USA

Black’s Beach would be also perfect for a barefoot (or should I say bare all around?) running race, with its perfect flat wet sand (not necessarily submerged in water, as on the photo above, but running in water could be a sport of its own).

sand 0002 Blacks Beach, California, USA

Speaking of sand at Black’s Beach, it fascinated me quite a lot how those sand grains of different colors formed various patterns

sand 0000 Blacks Beach, California, USA

depending on the waves and tides.

sand 0001 Blacks Beach, California, USA

These patterns change from place to place as you walk along the beach,

sand 0003 Blacks Beach, California, USA

and throughout the day too.

sand 0004 Blacks Beach, California, USA

The symmetry of this pattern is amazing

sand 0005 Blacks Beach, California, USA

but inexplicable to me due to lack of enough knowledge in physics and geology 😎

Even more exciting view followed from the ocean, however!

dolphins 0000 Blacks Beach, California, USA

Well, it could also be a worrisome sight, if I thought those might be sharks… But dolphins are a lot commoner in these water, and the fountain from the blowhole revealed their identity with certainty.

dolphins 0002 Blacks Beach, California, USA

I’ve never seen wild dolphins in the ocean so close!

dolphins 0001 Blacks Beach, California, USA

(I have to specify “in the ocean”, because I did swim with wild river dolphins in the Amazon, and canoed next to sea dolphins in the mangroves in Florida.)

dolphins 0003 Blacks Beach, California, USA

Another time, dolphins appeared at sunset.

dolphins 0004 Blacks Beach, California, USA

They were even more active, probably feasting on a shoal of fish,

dolphins 0006 Blacks Beach, California, USA

and I hoped to get a picture of a dolphin jumping above the setting sun 😀 Was that too much to ask? Well, I got pretty close to it!

dolphins 0005 Blacks Beach, California, USA

As a bonus afterwards, a seal came by as well, but it was getting too dark to take a decent picture of it.

seal 0000 Blacks Beach, California, USA

Once again, Black’s Beach proved to be an amazing site for beach activities and marine life observation. I can’t wait to go back!

naked surfing at Black’s Beach

13 October 2013 by αNaturist, posted in active naturists

naturist surfers 0009 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

Neither our trip, nor our summer were endless, unfortunately, but what a splendid end we had! (If you haven’t guessed, I’m referring to the surfer movie classics, ‘the Endless Summer.’) So, after biking and hiking through Big Sur, we took the Pacific Surfliner train to San Diego in search of our perfect wave. Our Cali experience wouldn’t have been complete without surfing, and of course, we didn’t want to spoil our naked adventures by having to wear a wetsuit. Luckily, I knew from my previous visit to San Diego that Black’s Beach offered warm water and pretty good waves for surfing. I also read about Naked Surfing Event held at Black’s Beach in 2010, and I contacted ‘Things to Do Nude’ team who organized it. One of them, Dan, got back to me and sounded happy to offer a couple of surfing lessons to fellow naturist enthusiasts. He arranged surfboards for all three of us, and there we were, walking with them down the steep trail to the beach.

surfers 0000 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

That alone was a good warm up exercise, and after we waxed the surfboards and stretched a bit we were ready to go in water.

naturist surfers 0003 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

After chilly waters of northern and central California, this felt really warm; the day was calm and with good waves for the beginner level surfing.

naturist surfers 0004 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

One of my favorite things about surfing is that it teaches you to feel the ocean, to feel which wave is worth a wait and which is good to take.

naturist surfers 0000 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

It was mostly white water surfing for me,

naturist surfers 0007 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

but it was still a lot of fun!

naturist surfers 0006 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

Despite Tam grew up in Australia and Niko had lived in California and Sydney for a few years, I was the only one with surfing experience. However, as Dan promised, Niko managed to ride the wave on the first day.

naturist surfers 0001 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

During the low tide, he was more interested in something else though… as water retreated, it left a some kelp on otherwise perfectly flat sand surface.

naturist 0000 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

Niko got a taste of playing with kelp in the beginning of our trip at Año Nuevo beach, so now he knew what to do and seemed like a pro kelp-poi boy 🙂

naturist poi boi 0000 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

On our last day at Black’s Beach, we had the perfect sunset.

sunset 0001 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

It inspired us to take a picture in the aforementioned ‘Endless Summer’ movie poster style,

naturist surfers 0008 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

as well as other photographs.

naturist 0002 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

Jumping over the sun is a beach photo classics, and we had the perfect moment for that.

naturist 0003 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

Jumping out of water above the sun? Even better!

naturist 0004 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

Our efforts weren’t left unnoticed, and a passer-by offered to take a photo of all of us, united, X-shaped against the beautiful sunset background, and it turned out great! Then we found out that creative gentleman worked as an improvisation coach. Obviously, he must be good at it!

naturist 0000 Blacks Beach, San Diego, CA, USA

That was about it… it was sad that our adventure was coming to an end, but we were all inspired to do something of this kind again!

Here is a special bonus treat from our trip, a time-lapse video with our beach fun memories.

Zipolite beach

26 April 201325 February 2017 by αNaturist, posted in active naturists

español

The beach of Zipolite on the Pacific coast of Mexico was probably the first naturist place in Mexico that I heard of. It is a beautiful long sandy beach,

naturist 0000 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

but what makes it special is its hippie history.

naturist 0001 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

Hippie culture has been diminishing since 1960-’70s and now it’s being more and more commercialised,

naturist 0002 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

but there is still a very laid-back liberating atmosphere. Freedom of being naked is definitely a big part of it. This place is perfect for soaking in the sun’s energy during day and adoring its colourful spectacle as evening approaches.

naturist 0003 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

A peculiar addition to Zipolite’s landscape, is a natural arch at the north-western side of the beach.

naturist 0006 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

Zipolite is known for its strong currents and crazy waves, and nothing illustrates it better than massive amounts of water pouring through that arch with immense power and noise!

naturist 0007 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

The legend goes that Zipolite means ‘beach of the dead’ in an ancient language, but I read that it is probably not the case. There is definitely something to it, as its waters look quite turbulent indeed. Pelicans don’t seem to mind it and come in flocks to catch fish.

pelicans 0008 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

There are many fishermen too, but I found it more fascinating to see how pelicans dove with full speed.

naturist 0005 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico naturist 0009 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

There were a lot of birds, actually… including chicken! They were not wild, of course, but they were roaming free in the greens.

chicken 0004 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

I stayed at a small guest house of Posada Lua, and a fisherman family next to us held those chickens just like that, free out there.

chicken 0010 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

The concept of a ‘happy chicken’ is definitely becoming more and more popular with advent of eco-conscious and ethical farming in the West, but could there be a happier chicken than this one?

chicken 0012 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

Zipolite itself is not suitable for snorkelling, but there are organised small boat tours that promise you whales, dolphins, sea turtles… On my tour, we didn’t see any of those, but we did get to coral reefs. Again, I decided to give it a try and ask our tour guides and the company whether they didn’t mind me skinny-dipping. The guides were fine, but there was a tricky part with other tourists. It was a group of deaf guys. I tried to explain them but was not sure they got it until I took off my shorts. Regardless, a couple of them showed thumbs up 😉

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Back on the beach, I played volleyball a couple of times, but although it is a quintessential naturist sport and there was a decent amount of naked sunbathers, nobody played volleyball naked

volleyball 0016 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

There was one more thing that I was desperate to do at the Zipolite beach – surfing – and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to do this one naked! As I was still inexperienced in surfing, I asked local surfer teachers – Aguila and Cali – to assist me.

naturist surfer 0013 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

They were very helpful, so ask for them if you’re around and need some guiding, but there is one thing you need to take into account: people of Zipolite do not wear wristwatches… and they don’t like carrying mobile phones either. Renting a board from them, might be a better idea than setting exact times for classes…

naturist surfer 0014 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

Unfortunately, I took photos of me surfing only on the last day…

naturist surfer 0015 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

and it was the worst time for surfing out of 4 days that I stayed there

naturist surfer 0017 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

There were a lot of double waves breaking unexpectedly, and the currents were all messed up as it was between low and high tides, so I could hardly get on the board at all. I guess I’ll have to come back to take some better photos 😉

naturist surfer 0018 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

I was sad leaving that place, but on the way to the bus stop, while looking for dried grasshoppers, this shop put a smile on my face:

tienda naturista 0011 Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico

‘Tienda naturista’, ‘naturist shop’ was not what I thought it would be, but I liked the name nevertheless.

famous Black’s Beach!

30 January 201112 October 2013 by αNaturist, posted in Uncategorized

In the mid-November, I was lucky to go with my new colleagues for the biggest conference in my field, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, and that time it was held in the sunny San Diego. Of course, it wouldn’t have been me, if I hadn’t planned to visit a nudist beach there, especially such a famous one as Black’s Beach. And I was double lucky that on the warmest day during my stay, when it was over 25ºC, the program seemed the least interesting so I skipped most of the day and headed to the beach (see the map for exact location).

As soon as I reached, it was pretty clear why this beach is so famous: it is, obviously, one of the biggest clothing-optional beaches and the view from the cliffs is stunning! It reminded me of the beaches of Meco in Portugal and Ga’ash in Israel.

I was surprised that on such an unusually warm day for November it was relatively empty, although it was Sunday, but I noticed some naked sunbathers immediately.

There are several trails leading down, and apparently I chose not the easiest one, but it was fun.

And I saw some lizards on the way down, apparently the enjoyed the sun too.

Soon I was walking on the soft beach sand, and look how the waves create a beautiful ornament of black and gold.

Then I saw that besides sunbathers there were surfers too!

But not naked

Well, the water wasn’t too warm… But actually, first time I heard of Black’s Beach was because of the Nude Surfing Event. (check this link for more info)

Here is a video of one of the surfers.

Now, I’ve found that they actually arrange naked surfing lessons from July till September! I want to do that!!!

… but coming back to my calm day at the Black’s Beach, I was looking for a nice spot to lie down. I stayed near bushes and soon found that I had some neighbors: a rabbit (could not manage to take a photo of it) and a California ground squirrel that was quite tame and obviously was attracted to my nuts. (I mean I had some almonds with me 🙂

But then I got to know a bit more communicative neighbor, local visitor Alex. We chatted for a while, and it was him who disillusioned me by saying that such a hot day was not common that time of the year even in Southern California… But I still thought to myself that I might have made a mistake not applying for job at Salk Institute which is located practically on top of Black’s Beach, hehe. The idea that one can walk to such a beautiful beach for a lunch break sounds tantalizing! I did go to a lake for lunch breaks in my first year in Berlin until our lab moved, but even then my work was not that close to a naturist retreat like here.

Later in the afternoon I went jogging all along the beach and this gave me the real impression of how huge the beach is! But, apparently not all beach is officially a clothing optional area. When I ran in the northern direction one elderly man waived to me and told that I was way beyond the nude-friendly area and might get fined! If I understood correctly, the clothing optional part ends to the north of these rocks. But there was no sign. In any case, I didn’t feel bad, as only 2 or 3 people saw me in that section of the beach and there were either coming from or heading to the clothing-optional part, so I doubt they would be shocked by seeing a naked jogger.

Other people that I met gave me much more pleasant news. I saw one guy practicing some capoeira moves, but unfortunately he had to leave soon. I still haven’t mentioned that I did swim there too. The water was a little chilly, but I could stand it for 20-30min, amongst few others. And then, the only neighbor of mine, who went for long swims too, was coming from the sea almost crying. Don’t worry, he wasn’t bitten by a shark, those were tears of happiness as he saw a school of dolphins right next to him! He said it was one the most beautiful moments in his life, and I was very disappointed at myself that I left the ocean just about 10min earlier… I have swum with dolphins once, but that was in murky waters of Rio Negro in the Amazon basin so I couldn’t really see them underwater…

And when I was going back at sunset I saw a group of people playing volleyball, in the buff of course. This beach certainly seems to be perfect for many kinds of naturist activities 🙂

Before I was going to wear my clothes, I saw a threatening warning ‘Unstable Cliffs. Stay Back’

And I did so and enjoy one of the most beautiful sunsets 😎

One of the next (colder) days, I went there again with my colleagues for a short hike in Torrey Pines Park. When we went down to the beach I took some more photos, like this one with giant algae brought by waves on the shore.

And these are sandpipers; the smaller ones always run somewhat clumsily trying to escape the waves, while the bigger one stay calm.

And once in a while there were flocks of (probably) pelicans…

So overall, Black’s Beach seems to be perfect for nature lovers and active beach-goers. I hope to go there again, perhaps for a class of naked surfing!