- The Inertia
- The Inertia

Story by Alexander Haro at The Inertia.

In case you hadn't heard yet, Dane Reynolds is back in the blogging world. Chapter 11 TV is his newest platform, and for those who missed Dane's surfing, it's a breath of fresh air. It's been a few years now since Marine Layer left the public sphere, and his new site is an interesting one.

The video you see above, simply titled 003, is the third one he's released since Chapter 11 TV's doors opened. With each one, Dane writes a short story to accompany it - something personal; something that, in a roundabout way, explains why and how each short film was brought to life. It was filmed over three days last winter when a south swell moved the sand into just the place and the harbor was recently dredged - the "magic set of components," according to Dane.

His latest entry explains how the weird wedge featured in 003 came into existence. "In the industrial world, sand is an ‘aggregate,' a category that includes gravel and crushed stone," he wrote. "Natural aggregate is the world's second most exploited natural resource, after water.

It's the primary base material that concrete and asphalt are placed on during the building of roads, buildings, parking lots, runways, and many other structures. Windowpanes, wineglasses, and cell-phone screens are made from melted sand. It was also used to create the waves which we are exploiting in this video."

According to Dane, "This spot was an institution in the '80s with a tightly regulated lineup," and "guys like Davey Miller and Danny Hedges sat at the top of the hierarchy."

Then, in 1993, plans to build a groyne were introduced. Surfrider fought back, saying that it would trap the sand that swept into the harbor from the south and deplete Oxnard's beaches, but fighting Congress was an uphill battle that they eventually lost. Within two months, the new jetty poked into the harbor.

Dane Reynolds watches Round 2 of the 2015 Fiji Pro from the ferry. Dane at the 2015 Fiji Pro - WSL / Kirstin

Reynolds explained that Surfrider was right. "Eventually the beach filled up," he wrote, "which I can attest to. In the late '90s, me and my friends would paddle across the harbor when it was flat in our neighborhood hoping ‘New Jetty' would have a flicker of a south swell. It was a vacant shithole of a beach. Always dead animals. The sand almost extended beyond the ‘New Jetty.'"

Three decades later, the name "New Jetty" still stands. Dane hates the wave, but every now and then, things line up just right. "Once in a blue moon," he wrote, "the sand moves into the place where the swells that bend around the breakwall collide with a borderline backwash refraction off the south jetty and it shows a glimmer of its old self."

See more at Chapter11.tv

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