Well, maybe the only thing lamer is jumping all over a guy who in an earlier post actually agreed with your point of view, as I did in the post above.
some of us weren't lucky enough to be born in a beach town. i started surfing as soon as i turned 17, got a license, and had a way to get myself to the water. i live 25 minutes away, and its not practical for me to spend an hour and the included gas money every day checking waves. the eyeball reports were the most straightforward and accurate component of all the forecasting tools i use(live cams, this site, ndbc.noaa.gov, weather sites) and i would love to see them continued on this site or elsewhere. just my 2 cents.
bags of jay...I started doing reports many years ago because, at the time, I was checking the surf every morning anyway, and thought why not share that information. I only reported from where I surfed, so I wasn't blowing up anybody's spot by my own. I was teaching (and still work) in an alternative high school for at-risk kids, and felt surfing can be a powerful, positive influence on a lot of kids who might otherwise be doing something... not so positive. Aside from that, I've always felt that the "locals only" attitude, and all the other baggage that comes with that, is a very elitist mentality, and I'm no more "deserving" than anybody else just because I live three blocks from a surf spot. Others feel differently... a LOT of others. Who's right and who's wrong? I don't know... depends on who you're talking to. But we're only on this Earth a short time, and I'd like to spend it doing something positive. So if somewhere somebody gets in the water and gets a few waves, and I helped... that's a good thing for both of us.
