How many baths could I get from a rainstorm?

From the USGS Water Science School:

Let’s say your house sits on a one-half acre lot. And let’s say you get a storm that drops 1 inch of rain. You’ve just received 13,577 gallons of water on your yard. A big bath holds about 40 gallons of water, so if you could save that inch of water you could take a daily bath for 339 days!


A great reason to get a rain barrel and collect all that water. Place it underneath your gutters and you’ll have an endless supply of water for your garden. Be a water warrior!


Continue reading How many baths could I get from a rainstorm?

Music Video: Days by The Drums (at the Handplane Hoedown)

On Saturday, May 5th, 2012, a gathering of fine individuals came together to play in the sun and shorebreak. A plethora of handplanes littered the beach and everyone was smiling and having fun. The video is a short view into what went down and some of the reasons why bodysurfing is so stoke heavy.

Why are lifelong surfers trading in their boards for swim fins?

Why are all these lifelong surfers trading in their boards for swim fins? Board builder and alternative surf craft artisan Jon Wegener had this to say:

“As surfing becomes more complicated, futuristic and radical, there’s a backlash of people who just want to go and have fun. You want to find something simple, and it’s just easy to go and have fun with a handplane. We don’t have Pipeline and waves like that. We have mediocre beachbreaks, and this stuff is really fun in waves like that. You don’t need a lot … you get your best tube view on a head high wave when you’re bodysurfing, so it gives you some exhilaration in our waves.”

Ed Lewis of Enjoy Handplanes added, “We all grew up going to the beach, jumping in the water and playing around. For me, getting back into bodysurfing brings me back to being a kid, and you just kind of need that.”

keep reading – Shawn Parkin’s full article on


Handplanes - used for bodysurfing - made by a growing number of companies


// Photo by Shawn Parkin