Narrabeen (Sydney), 5 November 2008

Manly (Sydney), 3 November 2008

Capitola, 26 October 2008

I've been feeling stoke-depleted of late, that is, I needed a high-wave count session, and I needed it bad. So I loaded up the big blue longboard and headed to my favorite longboard break in my favorite local beach town. An overhead NW swell meant some fun waist to chest high waves for Capitola. I found a spot on the inside, first at the main break and then farther east where the entangling speed-bump kelp wasn't so thick. After some initial re-adjustment to being on a pearl-prone Cadillac instead of driving a responsive Mini, I got in more rides than I could count, including a couple nice longs rights and a short but sweet left. It would have been a perfect afternoon, but I'll skip discussing the consequences of taking store-brand generic Dramamine which apparently lacks the active ingredients of the real thing.

As stoke-restorations go, it was just what the doctor ordered. I think I could be a pretty good longboarder in short order if I stuck with it, and I'd surely be getting a lot more vertical time. But that's not what I want. Despite the greater challenges and frustrations, I want to get good at shortboarding. I want to carve the face of the wave, do cutbacks, get shacked. I want speed, I want to rip. And someday I'll get there.

Next sesh: Australia!!!

Surfergrrrl endorses Obama for President! Now he'll win for sure.

Happy Halloween!

Linda Mar, 22 October 2008

At first I thought I'd be reporting "same shit, different day." But then I found a sweet spot in the lineup, well inside the longboarders at the south end. I caught my first wave in what at least feels like weeks - YES!!! - but in my excitement forgot what to do next, or rather what not to do, and locked my knees straight to make a snap right turn into a back-flop. Bad knees, bad, bad knees! I caught three more chances to redeem myself, but all quickly ended in falls, including one stinging belly-flop. In my defense, the waves did all close out on my heels, and the fish is squirrelly to control in the turbulence. Maybe I should try adding in the center fin? Still, since I surf only once or twice a week, and often in less than favorable conditions, it seems I'm frequently having to re-learn parts of surfing, not progressing but just treading water to stay in place. I hope Oz serves me up some nice waves on vacation so I can bump up my skills a bit.

This may have been the last summery day of surfing for this year. Unusually, the winds stayed down for an evening sesh, and I watched the sun set behind Pedro Point, staying out until it was almost too dark to see the shore. Linda Mar is about the only place I feel comfortable lingering until dinner time for the man in the gray suit, since I do have shark camo on my board and, even at dark, he still has a big selection of black neoprene-clad morsels to choose from. Though I must confess to a split-second of fear when a seal popped his head up 15 feet from me in the gloom.

Sydney's Newest Loan Shark

Lurking outside a bank in Darling Harbor

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...

~~~

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."