Montara, 18 October 2008

Narrative will have to wait. After I got wet, S and I drove to the City to meet up with a friend we haven't seen in a while. Soon after we said goodbye, S and I heading for a relaxing evening at home, and he and his family for the airport, our friend phoned to say that he'd mistaken their arrival time in Seattle for their departure time. Consequently they had seriously missed their flight, and he's showing up shortly to spend the night at our house his with his wife, mother, baby and toddler. So I'd best get on with the mad cleaning/child-proofing frenzy...

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Ah, back to normal. And also back to work. Where'd my weekend go? Now to the session report:

We got to the coast much later than I wanted, with conditions degraded by rising tide and wind. To avoid Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival traffic, S and I drove to Montara via Pacifica. The swell had dropped and there wasn't a lot happening at Linda Mar, but still the water was speckled with surfers like a heavy shaking of pepper just off the beach. The crowd was lower at Montara with only a dozen out at mid-beach, but it's never a good sign when a wet longboarder heading back to the parking lot describes it in a word as "mushy."

Getting in and out at Montara is always a bit tricky with the shorepound, which is why I only go there on smaller days. I picked a reasonable looking entry point and paddled out with a few ducks dives. Once a pair of waves came almost on top of each other, and I could see a larger wave just starting to close out right behind the one I was duck-diving - no fair, how do you get under two in one shot? - but I made it out, breathing hard. Unfortunately it was as described, with waves starting to form up and then rounding over into uncatchable mush. Rarely an outside wave - set would be a misnomer, they were coming as random singles - would break more suitably, but if you weren't in position, and I wasn't, too bad and get ready to duck-dive. And despite the partial sunshine it was cold, with chilly water soon numbing my toes and a cool breeze. The wind chop was bobbing me around like a rubber duck in a kid's bath, and I'd forgotten to take Dramamine until I got to the beach, so it was only partly working. Ah, well, try again another day. Though it's been too long, I need a good ride.

The shorepound also makes getting out a bit scary, and I didn't time it just right. But I treated a fisher on the shore to one of my famous 360-degree board roll tricks before setting feet in the sand and running like hell to get to the dry beach before the next closeout crashed down in the shallows. Back in the dirt parking lot, another surfer summed it up perfectly: "Still just good to get wet."