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Got to surf with a couple of buddies I've met along the way. Session was short, a few fun rides, but got to shoot the breeze with some people and the sun was shining. It wasn't that stellar of a session, but was pretty fun and a good way to end the week in surf.
Now, the winds and rain is up and I don't know when I can get the next session in. Arggghhh!!!
Only 5 guys out. Hard Off shores blowing, lumpy windswells...fight to stay in place, big closeouts coming through.
Got one wave, and that was about it.
I sucked.
Only three session to start this year off with. That's fine by me. As long as there is a way to get wet, I'm happy. I was so excited that the swells have come down to manageable size and that I can DP this whole week. I mad dashed to the beach admist the fog. Some of the reports were calling for NW winds up to 6knots. That will usually mess things up, plus there is an outgoing tide till 11am.
Crumbly, bumpy, junkie, unappetizing is all I can say. But, I have a little 5'10" quad fish I wanted to try out. Suit up, wax up, and paddle out to what I thought had to the most shoulder. There were shoulders alright, but I had to duck dive one after the other before getting out there.
And you know what? I can actually duck this little fish a lot better than the 6'9" I have. There is a lot of float to the board so paddling feels like the longer fish. Most of the morning, I was scrambling to avoid the wind swell junk. I had only two rides, none of which were to brag about. In fact, I fell on the first one trying to bottom turn. I guess I have to be lighter on my feet. Will make a note of it.
But man, I love the duck diving capabilities of this board so much more. I'm going to have to make myself one of these soon!
Afternoon dash out to the North Bay for some hopeful goodness at a popular spot
High tide washes away beach
nice and sunny
suit up and run down
sit and wait, decide where to go...out to the patch or just stay by the rivermouth
decisions, decisions, decisions
decide on rivermouth
wade past incoming white water bashing against the sea wall
paddle out in the rivermouth
some fun sets coming from the reforms
surf by myself. avoid the crowds
get some nice longboard waves
share some waves with other stoked people
outgoing tide starts ... fight to stay in places....
conditions deteriorate... paddle back in
mellow vibe changing and coast on back to civilization...
I've ignored this blog for the past half year, partly because I got bored of writing in it. Everything started to sound the same. Most of the postings ended up being one liners or YouTube links. Not anymore! I'm going to start rambling about surf again. I figure I should continue to write about this.
So to start off, my new years sessions took place on the 2nd. I booked it down to the beach hoping to catch one last day of surf before the storm rolls through. Checked out two spots before deciding on the good ol local home break, which I haven't surfed in a while. I was kind of disappointed when I got there because the entire beach was flat, and there were three guys out in the far north scratching for little bumps.
I took a long look from shore and saw that the tide was dropping and that there were some potential waves breaking, just not enough. But with the dropping tide, there has to be something to surf.
Quick change, and I mulled over which board to take. Since I haven't surfed the fish in a long time, I ended up taking that out. Walking up the beach, I saw that my only good option was the far north. Quick stroll out there and started paddling for the lineup. Even though I did surf two days before, my paddling muscles were not really up to the challenge of a long paddle out. I felt a little burn before reaching the lineup.
When I got out there, the waves were actually breaking bigger than how it looked from the beach. I positioned for the right peak as everyone else was taking off on the left. The right wasn't as long as the left, but I didn't have to paddle against other surfers for waves. It was a good trade off.
First wave I took off on caught me a little by surprise. It was bigger than I expected and I was a little off balance from not riding the fish for a while. I basically dropped in, cut left, turned right, waited for the reform and cranked another turn and pulled off. That wave has been my best wave in a long time. I looked back to the lineup and noticed I rode almost all the way to the beach. I let out a quick hoot and paddled back out.
A couple of sneaker sets rolled through and I got worked on the bigger one. But I did manage to duck dive the smaller sneaker wave. I did feel the wave energy break on top of me, but I made it out the back ok.
My second wave was like the first one, but this time, I looked up and save the wave curling a bit. Nothing special, but I realized the wave a bit overhead, which is something like a first for me. The fish seemed really fast and by the time I exited the wave, I was flying off instead of pulling off.
Back out for another which wasn't as good as the first two. I feel off as the wave started to reform. Paddled back to the beach and ended session one pretty stoked.