Picked up a surf buddy on Saturday and jammed to Santa Cruz. After checking a couple of east side spots, I was getting the feeling I will get skunked. Imagine that, woke up early in the morning, hi-tailed it to SC only to drive home empty handed! NOOOOOOOO...must surf! Before driving to check other spots, I made a quick detour to Fiberglass Hawaii and picked up a 7'6" US Blank polyester blank. I'm determined to shape a board in the near future!
Anyways, we ran across town and decided to surf a popular spot on the West Side. I've never surfed there before, and never thought I would paddle out there. But for the past 6 months, I've been keeping tabs on it and was curious to paddle out there. We suit up and paddled out to a crowd of about 6. The main peak was seeing way more action and was way bigger. I'll save that trip for another time.
I made a dry hair paddle out and just sat watched the crowd. I paid attention to where the peaks were, where people were going for waves, and how the crowd played with each other. For the first hour or so, my buddy was getting some primo rides and milked it all the way through two peaks. I still was just sitting there, not seeing any action. It wasn't till a bigger clean up set came through that my hair got wet.
I did the peak to peak patrol but still couldn't find any waves to get into. I finally caught a break when a smaller waist high wave came through. I paddled into it, but it sectioned out on me and I didn't get a long ride. Oh well, I thought. At least I got my first wave.
A little while later, the crowd started to thicken. I thought I wouldn't get any waves, but everyone was pretty mellow and was hooting everyone else into waves. It was stoked to see everyone play nice. One of the guys out; I assume that surfs there a lot, gave me a support call and told me to grab a wave. I turned and paddled, got in and milked it for a little bit. I don't think I cut back enough to stay with it. Either way, it was a fun ride.
A while later, when I was looking for my last wave, a set swung wide right to were I was sitting. I looked and nobody was in position to take it. I spun and stroked a few times, got to my feet and turned. I started to cruise down the line a little bit, and cut back. I almost fell off, but managed to keep my balance and cranked another turn to come back up to the top. At this point, if I fell off, I would have been happy. Instead, I trimmed along for a little bit longer, dropped off the top and cranked another turned. I was thinking to myself, this was the longest ride I've had in a while. A few more up and down the line and I pulled out!
Man, that was a rush. I had the biggest grin on my face as I paddled to avoid the incoming waves. Wow, was all I could say. That wave made my day. In fact, it made up for the entire week of no surf. I decided to end on a high note, and climbed back up the stairs. It was the biggest sense of accomplishment to actually surf there, made the wave of the day, and come up so stoked!
