05 September 2010

Solitary Shortboard Practice (HMB Jetty)

"Cool fins" -Dogwalking Dude
This morning I planned to repeat yesterday's surf quest, with last resort Linda Mar as the possible end of the journey. Forsaking the Sunday New York Times, I got an early start to beat the wind and the traffic.

Overnight the windswell had come up considerably. At my first stop, Kelly Ave, the waves were head-high and sectiony. A couple of spongers were making them but I didn't see the lone surfer get any. There was already a little onshore breeze and the paddle out looked challenging. At any rate, I wanted to practice shortboarding in waves that wouldn't kill me, and figured the Jetty would have a little something.

Although it wasn't flat like yesterday, the waves were maybe waist high and lackluster. Still, it was pretty clean and I thought I could make a go of it on Rocky. Better yet, there was no one else there. Paddling out, I suffered through the initial shock of cold water on my bare hands; I'm really starting to prefer going gloveless and we'll see how long I can keep it up. While I'm sure I saw some workable shoulders from the beach, I'll be damned if I could find any in the water. The waves mostly closed out but I caught a bunch and managed a handful of short rides. I still need to work on my foot placement when I pop up as I'm landing too far back most of the time and stalling the board.

On the way home I stopped to check Dunes, thinking it might offer intermediate waves, smaller than Kelly but punchier than the Jetty. By then the onshores had kicked up a notch, justifying my choice. It's just slim pickings out there today, surfwise. I'm glad to have gotten some!

Surfline: NW windswell is our main source of waves today, mixing with a touch of old S/SSE (160-180) energy. Waist-head high surf is fairly common, while top spots go slightly bigger on occasion. Shape stays mixed-up/crumbly with some light onshore texture @ the open areas. Look for the building tide to swamp things out mid-morning. Buoy 46012: (Wave) SWELL: 8.2 ft at 10.0 s NW / WIND WAVE: 7.2 ft at 7.1 s NW / WVHT: 10.8 ft / APD: 7.0 s / MWD: 314°; (Met) WSPD: 17 kts / GST: 21 kts / WDIR: 320.0° / ATMP: 55.0° F / WTMP: 55.6° F.

1 comment: