Surf: Long lulls and closed out Knee-Shoulder high inconsistent waves. Not as junky as it’s been, but not clean. Froggies singing.
My 7’4 appeared in my quiver about a year or two after I’d started surfing. A friend had it in is garage and thought it might be a good board for me to learn to shortboard on. I took it out. I flailed and failed. I pearled every which way. It was a disaster. I laughed it off, put the board in a corner and forgot about it.
I’ll admit, I blamed the board. Oh it’s narrow, it’s too thick to duckdive, etc etc. I’d only been surfing two years at the time, and hardly regularly. I’d only had a few months on my 9’4. I decided to focus on longboarding to learn the basics rather than pushing myself to shortboard.
Fast forward two years and I’ve had a lot of practice on my longboard and a little bit on my 7’0 stub. I’d been shuffling this 7’4 around in the corner to get at my preferred boards. It was dusty. I decided to get it wet and see if I could do a little better than last time.
I’d expected to burn a day being tossed around. The paddle out was fine. I splashed around for a while. I had a little lumpy peak all to myself and I decided to paddle for a wave…and got it! Yesssss.
Paddling back out, I decided to give duckdiving a go. Sure enough, did that too! I started to realize this was a pretty fun board now that I had half a clue how to use it.
I got two waves. Neither of which were pretty. The longest wave I wobbled along the face like a newborn deer. Still, I’m a little closer to competence on this board.
I’m really stoked.