Month: March 2012

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S’ok.


Photo by Chris

Surf: Waist High. Closed out. Inconsistent.

Looked like Chris got some fair- waves out of the lully low-tide closeout mix, but I was not as lucky having evidentially signed up for the poor+ package. The one nice long, lovely shaped waist+ high last wave I got all the way into the beach made up for all the waiting and the kicking out of closeouts prior. Could have used a few more like that and a hot chocolate.

Big ole dead elephant seal on the beach. Yikes. Thing was so big I thought it was a log.

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Should been here yesterday…

Surf: Waist-Chest high. More closed out than yesterday.

It’s that old surfer idiom: Ya shoulda been here yesterday.

Folks were trying to keep from outright saying it, but in the lot and the lineup I heard plenty of: “Man, yesterday was great”s and “Wow, was I ever glad I paddled out yesterday”s

Today was much more closed out, but got a little better towards the end. The waves that didn’t close out were plenty fun, but things were so inconsistent the only way to know a wave was going to stay open was to go for it and see! I had a pretty great one what just didn’t work out. Took it, went for a bit of a high line, the thing dumped and I skipped down the face a while before going back up and over the falls. Wheeeeeee. At least I got a good laugh out of it.

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Clean! Fun!

Surf: Clean, Chest high, and fairly consistent. 4ft @ 11S WNW 290°

Wow, what a morning. 😀

Clean, beautiful waves and lots of laughing hooting folks. It’s pretty rare that we get days with well defined peaks and fun fun fun. I got a handful of waves that I’m plenty proud of. Got some shoulder high lefts where I swung a nice bottom turn right into the pocket and cut back when I needed to on the inside. Got a few compliments that added to the stokeyness. Very happy.

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Low tide faceplants

Surf: Waist high and closed out.

Forget washing machine, that was a freaking rock tumbler. Oooch owch eeech. Got a few fun ones, but even the nice open faced waves had a rough ending. I don’t suppose it helped that my neck was jacked up so it was harder to turn off the line before the wave closed out. I managed to faceplant one wave and land flat on my back for another. Ooooch. May hair was full of seaweed and sand by the end of the morning.

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Ocean Beach with Wes

Surf: Knee-Shoulder high. Somewhat clean. 3 ft @ 12.9 sec – NW 323°

I’ll admit, Ocean Beach makes me nervous. I pick days on the smaller side and I’m typically out with a buddy or two. As a longboarder there’s that moment where I’m sprinting for my life to get outside knowing I can’t duck the wave that’s coming. I’m worried about breaking a board. I’m worried about blowing a wave and making a fool of myself. I still remember my terribly kooky first time out at Sloat where I had no business paddling out and, after much floundering, washed back up on shore.

All that said, I don’t want tell someone that they shouldn’t try paddling out (assuming it’s not genuinely dangerous conditions) so when my brother said he’d like to join me at Ocean Beach, I agreed. I worried quite a bit, not that he’d get hurt or he’d break a board, but that he wouldn’t have fun. Chris teased me for reminding Wes he could stay in the whitewater if he wanted, or that he didn’t have to go in if he didn’t want to. And in the end, I was being a little silly. Wes paddled out to his own level of comfort and got lots of whitewater rides to the beach. Everything worked out just fine. Sometimes you can’t help but be a big sister, even when you don’t really have to.

I paddled farther out on my 9’4. I don’t take that board out at Ocean Beach as much since it’s sooo thick and the 9′ has a narrow tail for steeper drops. I got a few really fun waves. It was crowded. It’s funny, I hardly ever notice a big difference switching between my tri-fin 9 and my single fin 9’4, but on two of my waves I had probably the widest bottom turn that could still make the wave. Man, I was leaning so far in, my face was nearly in the wave. Ha!

Afterwards we loaded up on Devil’s Teeth cookies and brownies to take into the office. Mmmmmmm.

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Clean practice day


Photo by Jacob

Surf: Waist high and clean with some Chest high sets. 5ft @ 11s WNW – 301°

The wind has been howling for days so I didn’t expect much from this little morning. Reports suggested surf on the larger size of average, maybe with favorable winds, maybe not. Rolling over the hill I spotted some rather small, but very clean surf instead.

With the longboard I know I can catch waves in even the smallest of small peelers. With the 7’4 beside me in the passenger seat I was thankful to be still super stoked from Sunday and mentally gearing up for a paddlefest.

I managed to sneak four lovely waves in. Sure, lots of paddling to get them, but not bad! I practiced duck diving a bit and enjoyed the sun.

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Sunday

Surf: Started out 3′ @ 9sNW, cranked up to 4′ @ 17sNNW. Clean, long rides. Went from Waist High to Shoulder/Head High.

Lovely sunday.

Paddled out with Josh and Brein in the early morning for some fun, small, clean waves. As the morning went on, the waves got a little beefier and the rides a little longer. I got some great lefts. There were a few I manage to work some tighter turns into. I got in some great practice listening to the wave and making adjustments with some slow, but slightly better cutbacks. My last wave I might have been able to try and tuck into, the lip was curling right over my head. Still a great wave tho, got me all the way in, stoked as punch.

Lots of fun watching everyone tear it up out there. Some folks were getting beautiful waves.

Sunny, dolphins hanging out. Very nice.

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Raining on the Eastside

Surf: 4-7ft. 10ft @ 16s WNW, 308°

Woo! Another solid day in Santa Cruz.

The waves were swinging wide of the point with a little bit of warble, but still managed to hold up all the way from the point to 38th. I got one ride so long with so many swoops and cutbacks that my legs were burning by the time I kicked out. Woohoo!

Chris got a beautiful big wave at the point too. I saw a big arc of spray coming off one of his turns and heard the lineup hooting for him the whole way.

After a few waves, some waiting in the rain, and one good ragdoll wave by me, we decided to work the smaller inside waves at 38th. I wanted to work on some noseriding moves. Close, but needs more work.

I’ve also been thinking about my cutbacks and how I need to work on staying in the pocket a little better. I’m certainly better about seeing where I am in relation to the curl and trying to correct, but in these larger waves I’m not really committing to a cutback. It’s more of a bottom turn-stall to get back in position. I’m worried the wave is just going to fold over on me so I’m out-running it half the time. The other half I’m very slowly trying to cut back to get back in position.

Only solution: more practice.