Birthday Waves (HMB Jetty)

Sincere thanks to King Neptune for serving up some tasty waves at the Jetty on my birthday. (And thanks to Scott for baking me an exceptionally tasty chocolate cake.) Just when I thought I was going to take away nothing from the surf session but duck-diving practice, I rode a really nice right on my fish, followed soon by another that wasn't too shabby. Stoked!

 

That's Jeff Clark, Mavericks big wave pioneer, cleaning up on his SUP (near the end).

I have a rule that I never work on my birthday, so I took a vacation day, gathered a couple buddies with flexible schedules, and headed to the coast for a rare midday surf on a weekday. It was nice to be able to check the surf/wind forecast and tides and then pick, to the best of my ability, the most optimal time/place to surf, without having to bookend it around the corporate schedule. There were a dozen or so people out (perhaps the recession is to blame?), but it wasn't crowded. Surfline had under-reported the surf height, which was up to shoulder to head-high, and it was a bit more breezy than forecast, with a fair number of closeouts, but I ain't complaining. And now I'm dialed back into the fish, ready to strip off the wax and pack Nemo up for our trip to New Zealand and Australia.