If not for my new rule, I might have skipped surfing after work today, and then I would have missed out. But I've decided that once I've planned to surf, I'm going to surf. No excuses. Kind of like the sword Tyrfing that has to draw blood every time it's unsheathed, my board has to get wet every time it leaves the house. Even if the conditions/crowd aren't ideal, I always learn something, which makes it worthwhile. And after all, to paraphrase Mark Twain, you always regret more the things you didn't do than the things you did.There I was sitting in my cubicle this afternoon, checking the cams and current weather, and it was looking like it might be too small in Santa Cruz and too windy everywhere else.
But no excuses, right? So I went anyway. And it wasn't too small or too windy at Indicators, it was just right. Yay for the new rule!I made a dry-hair paddle out to the lineup, which was lightly populated at first. There were some long lulls, but enough waves to go around, although the long/funboarders were getting a better chance at them than me on my shortboard. On the first wave I caught, I popped up and did a sharp left turn into a faceplant - arrgh! I was determined not to do that again. On the second wave, I started to turn left - no! no! no! - corrected to the right, too sharply, and fell backward.
Damn! Then I remembered the advice to stay low. Thanks a lot, slow brain! But this is good practice, getting the hang of the shortboard's quick responsiveness, which means I need to dial up my responsiveness 'cause I'm not riding a big blue Cadillac anymore, I'm on a little red MINI.Sadly then a small pack of guy-friends on longboards paddled out and took over the peak for themselves. They weren't sharing, and the lulls were getting longer, so I headed in. It was a fun sesh and a beautiful late afternoon at the beach, and now I'm thinking maybe Daylight Savings isn't so bad after all...
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