Silver and Gold (The Hook)

Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, and the other, gold. -Girl Scout song

A regular surf buddy enhances a session in many ways. I get to surf lonely spots, or bigger spots, where I wouldn't have the courage to paddle out alone. A buddy hoots you into waves, cheers your successes, commiserates your failures, and laughs at your wipeouts (but not in a mean way). It's nice to have someone to talk to during lulls. And to give you a wake up call for dawn patrol (although I'm always the caller and not the callee), or to coax you into a sunset session when you're feeling tired after work.

Today I got to surf with my best surf buddies, Dwayne and Luke. After I recovered (enough) from the back injury Linda Mar inflicted shortly after I moved to NorCal in 2006, I surfed with my co-worker Dwayne until he defected to SoCal a couple years ago. After a lonely solo period, I started surfing with Luke, my current buddy. In the last year or so I've collected a small surf posse, but no one else is as regular.

Dwayne with Magic

Dwayne was visiting NorCal this weekend and had time to meet up for a surf today in Santa Cruz. Luke joined us at the Hook, along with his friend Nikolara, who was surfing for only the third time. The waves were small, mostly waist- and occasionally chest-high, with the usual warm sunny weekend crowd scattered all over them. We found a spot east of the main peak that sometimes broke on its own, and got a bunch of fun little rides. I party-waved a couple with Dwayne, once in front and once behind, with him on my 8'3" Magic and me on my 7'0" Emm.

Afterward we collected our non-surfing significant others and sat in the sunshine for lunch at Paradise Beach Grille in Capitola. Good friends and good times!

Surfine: A fading mix of mainly short period NW windswell and some S groundswell set up waist-chest-shoulder high zone surf for best exposed breaks, while other areas were mainly under waist high. Buoy 46012: (Wave) SWELL: 8.9 ft at 9.1 s NW 48 / WIND WAVE: 6.6 ft at 6.2 s NW / WVHT: 10.8 ft / APD: 7.3 s / MWD: 312° (Met) WSPD: 17 kts / GST: 21 kts / WVHT: 10.8 ft / DPD: 9.0 s / WDIR: 320° / ATMP: 52.2° F / WTMP: 53.4° F. Tide: 1' rising to over 2'.