Spank My Wookie

I ended up in S.C. yesterday. After driving down the coast and checking most of the spots; the elements were against us. 10+ feet of NW swell, high tide of 6 feet and some strong north winds blowing. Most spots were really junky and downright scary. I hooked up with a surf buddy of mine and decided to check some of the S.C. spots. Some of the spots were out of position for the swell to wrap into, and others were kinda going off. We settled on a spot that was about head+. I was a bit hesitant to paddle out, but just decided to say fuck it; days of getting pounded in Costa Rica had to have meant something.

I surfed my log, but wish I had a shorter board. Now, I didn't say I didn't have fun. I had some of the best waves ever. There was a mixture of mushy waves that didn't really break, and then there were head+ sets that was pretty powerful. I got a bunch of waves, and a lot of them were fairly long rides. I made some up and downs on the waves, and rode in the curl most of the time. There were waves where I crouched down and waited for the lip to barrel. It didn't really do it, but seeing the entire wave face bigger than myself was way cool! I haven't been that stoked in a long time. Next time I head there, I'll bring my shorter boards and see what kind of fun I can have.

Posted by Baldwin at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This will be year three of my surfing journey. What have I done so far? I can consistently get up on a board. I concentrate more on the ride than the pop-up. I've surfed a bunch of spots; some in So-Cal, some more secretive spots in Nor-Cal, some goofy rides in Hawaii, and got some really warm water surf in Phuket Thailand and a true surf trip to Costa Rica.

I've figured out my feel good board is my longboard. I'm pretty proficient riding it now. I don't pearl it that much, and I can recover from pearling, as well as pull out before I fall into a closeout pit. I got my first custom board. It's a 6'9" 4 fin, and I also have a 7'6" Egg. Both are really fun, but I need a lot more practice on the fish. I don't get out with it consistenly enough.

I can duck dive, well, with the amount of volume on my shorter boards, it's still pretty hard. My logging skills are a bit better now. I am a few steps closer to the nose. If I only had a wave like Malibu or San Onofre to surf on. Oh well, when summer comes, its time to surf a little bit more leashless.

I've been out on some scarier surf this year. 6+ sneaker sets have slammed and tossed me around quite a bit. I'm more comfortable in head + surf. I'm starting to look at getting shacked in some of the more hollower waves around.

So what's in store this year? I guess the only way is up. I'm going to try to work on surfing different waves and also some of the bigger stuff. Maybe I'll paddle out at Ocean Beach a bit more on the smaller days during the summer. It's still scary stuff. Maybe I'll try a true short board this year. Also, maybe a surf trip to Baja?!

Posted by Baldwin at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)