31 January 2010

Kelp-elicious (Capitola)

The tides were extreme today (Dogman explains why here), falling quickly from nearly a 7-foot high in the late morning to a negative 1-foot low at sunset. The swell on the San Mateo County coast was looking to big for me, so I made the trek to Santa Cruz for a low-tide session, this time to the Eastside, since I haven't been there in a while and was missing my favorite beach town. After so much stormy weather, it was nice to have to put on sunscreen and to spend a warm sunny afternoon on the water.
I started off messing around on inside reforms, generally going left since almost everyone else was going right, and got some fun rides. I was happy when I rode my board over the edge into a 3' drop, made the landing (yay!) and bottom-turned into a nice left.
After a while I wanted some clean greenwater and paddled to the the outside. I'd forgotten what a drag (literally) the kelp can be on low tide at Capitola, and coming up on the ultra-low made it even worse. I found a fairly clear spot where I could turn for a wave without my legs becoming ensnared, but the few waves I caught were marred by kelp speed bumps, so I made my way back to the funner ones on the inside where there was considerably less seaweed. I stayed out for two hours, until the time was up on my parking meter - really a little past, but luckily I drove away just as the parking patrol came by. Smiles all around!

Surfline: 1-2 ft, ankle to knee high occ. 3 ft. Some fun waves out there this afternoon from fading but solid West-WNW swell, most areas stay soft and swampy overall. Expect overhead sets at the decent locations with generally light wind and semi-clean conditions. Buoy 46012: 6.9 ft @ 11.1 sec.

5 comments:

  1. We hardly get seaweed that bad, sometimes inshore of the break but rarely. Nice and glassed off, you seem to get less wind than us. Oz is a damn windy place and difficult to land a session without it.

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  2. PS Just leave the legrope off and get better at hanging onto your board maybe. Conditions are so benign should be easy???

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  3. Lovely. I love your short films.

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  4. In your second video it looked like a few of them you should have gone on. I found my self cheering you on to the video like a doofus :) Glad you got a nice bunch of waves. I had a really nice session at the Jetty at sunset. Going for DP at JT at 7am if your interested.

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  5. Michelle, it's often very windy here too, although the varied coastline frequently provides some spot that's protected. It's far too crowded most everywhere, especially Santa Cruz, to surf safely without a leash.

    Thanks, Rebecca!

    I was thinking the same thing, Luke. I shot the 2nd vid during a breather near the end of my session, and quickly put the camera away to catch a good one in to the beach.

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