The Patagonia Wetsuits, Again thread just won’t die. It seems every few weeks someone finds the thread through a search or a link or written on a surfshop bathroom wall and stops by to leave a comment. 10 comments isn’t many, but add the fact that “patagonia wetsuit” is the fourth most searched term on 70 this month, and the Patagonia Wetsuits, Again thread is in the top 15 of all entry pages (out of about 500 or so) this month alone and you start to see what a hot topic these suits are.

It’s fantastic to see so many people with a passion for this particular type of wetsuit. Of course, no one’s complaining about he site traffic – it’s great to know that people are talking about it and recommending it avidly to their friends. And they’ll tell two friends, and they’ll tell two friends – you know how it goes, whether it’s a thread about Patagonia wetsuits or the games at http://www.partycasino.com/. If something’s popular on the web, especially in a forum, it tends to stay that way for a while.

The latest comment on the thread is from Julie who’s man seems to have developed an allergy to neoprene. While this might result in more waves for Julie, it must suck for him. She wrote to ask if anyone knows if Patagonia’s rubber might help her share some waves with her beau without him turning into an inflamed strawberry of itch.

If anyone has any experience with allergies and wetsuits drop by the thread and leave Julie a comment.

Some of you may have noticed a banner on the blog in the last few weeks touting prints by 70′s favorite photographer Maggie Marsek. Unfortunately, I’m a bit too busy at the moment to get the 70 store up and running. I’m hoping I’ll get the time to straighten out the paper work in early 07. In the meantime, anyone still wanting to purchase prints, can email Maggie through her site.

If you think 70′s Surf Search is pretty sweet and you use Google as your home page, then 70 has a widget for you! The Surf Search Google widget looks like this:

And allows you to search “Quad” and without getting any results for four wheelers, which however, can be pretty sweet.

Add Surf Search to your google home page now…

Try a search for ‘fins’ in any search engine. Not exactly what you need right? I’m sure the Fin’s restuarant in Byron Bay serves a great tuna steak, but it probably won’t fit in the boxes on your quad fish. “Surfboard Fins” returns better results, but mostly pushes the sites who are better at Search Engine Optimization at you. With that, I’d like to present:

With some help from Google, I’ve compiled a search engine that searches only hand picked waveriding sites. A search in Surf Search for ‘Fins’ returns manufacturers sites, quality shops where you can buy fins, the movie FINS, and lots of other surf related resources, including the erBB profile for some guy named TRI FINS ARE DANGEROUS.

Give it a go!

If you really dig Surf Search, you can help it grow by submitting surf sites and linking to it with these nifty badges.

70 just logged the first Ocean Illness Report by a user I don’t personally know. When I recieved notification of the report awaiting moderation and saw the illness listed as Typhoid Fever, I stopped reading and almost denied it on the spot. Typhoid isn’t listed as an illness caused by polluted water in any of the research I’ve done. I did a quick google search, which seemed to suggest it is only contracted through food and drink. Again, I almost denied the report as I am very concerned about the possible reporting of illnesses not related to polluted ocean water. Then, on this page of Cornell University’s site I found this sentence:

Typhoid fever is spread by consuming food or beverages that have been handled by a person who is shedding S. Typhi, or if sewage contaminated with S. Typhi bacteria gets into water used for drinking or washing food.

How much sea water do you swallow in a given session?

I went back to the illness report and read a little further. In the field labled, “Did anyone else get sick at this spot?”, was the answer:

“To my knowledge all of the gringo surfers that live in Sayulita and surf Sayulita on a regular basis, have had Typhoid Fever or currently have some kind of Typhoid count.”

Scary.

The onshore winds and complete lack of swell has been good for development, if not surfing. I launched 70percent.org today to a small group of alpha users. I’ll be working with them to iron out the user interface and bugs as well as incorporating their feedback into the app.

On advice from Shaun Rust, I’ve ramped up the adition of Illness Logging to be included in the initial alpha release. It’s the reason 70 was started in the first place, so it really didn’t make sense to leave it out untill later. The current plan is to break it out into the main site and not to require registration to post to it. I’ve got alot of work to do to it before this happens though, as it could be a spam/localism nightmare.

I hope to be in an invitation based beta release in two weeks so email me at 70 at 70percent.org if you want to help out.

UPDATE: 70 is now logging illnesses users think they may have contracted from the ocean… woot!