Month: July 2012

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Short Period

Surf: 5.3 ft at 7.1 s from the NW at 318° Light winds. Low incoming tide.

While slightly cleaner than a few other spots we checked, this particular breaking wave was still offering up plenty of short period shiftiness. It seems like lately it’s all been short period shiftiness. 12s would seem pretty nice right about now. The churning inside felt like winter, the disorganized outside was summer for sure.

With the low tide and the nearly overlapping waves, it was a bit more work than our usual haunts. All and all worth it to snag a few chest and occasional shoulder high waves with a surfable bit of shoulder. I’ve spent so much time on my little boards in little waves that I’d forgotten how much lean I needed to make a solid bottom turn on my 9’4 in slightly bigger surf. I got some pretty fun ones, but those were some wide wide drops! Ha!

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Meh Sunday

Surf: 3.6 ft at 8.3 s from the NW at 314° High incoming tide. Strong W winds.

This surf session had a few strikes against it from the get go. It was a weekend and it was windy. I’d hunkered down to do chores around the house and other less than exciting things when Blam suggested surfing. He was only back in town a few days, so I gave it a go.

The surf was waist to shoulder high with a mutant-esque bucking crumbling shape that was less than inspiring. I managed to squeeze two pretty fun, good-sized waves out of those lemons so I went home happy enough. Always good when your “wave in” takes you all the way to the beach.

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Longboarding Montara

Surf: 3.6 ft at 12.9 s from the SSW at 196° No wind. Outgoing high tide.

With a high tide and almost no swell in the water, I brought low expectations and a big ole board. Driving down the coast, almost everything was flat. Flat flat flat. Flat and crowded. Flat. Kinda breaking. Flat. Windy and barely breaking. We went back to Kinda breaking.

Sure it was thigh, maybe waist high, but it actually wasn’t bad. I got a few really fun ones off the bat that held up. Then I started kooking things up, terribly. I blew a few waves, got a few closeouts. I gotta remember to give my big boards some water time so I don’t forget how to surf them! Finally got a redeeming wave all the way into shore. Little bit of sun rounded the morning out to be kinda decent. 🙂

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Client Surf

Surf: 4.9 feet @ 10 seconds. NW (326°) Light winds. Low tide.

Decent little morning. With the low and still falling tide, I didn’t have a lot of hope for good waves. We were joined by a coworker on a project I’ve been working on, so we opted to just paddle out rather than drag him around all morning hunting for something slightly better.

My first wave right off the bat was super fun. I got a clean peeling right that held up all the way. I got some swooshing turns, a little cutback like thing, fun fun. About halfway through my ride I heard THWACK. Looked around, didn’t see anything. I wrapped up my wave and looked around some more. Chris was standing in waist deep water holding a leash with no board. Leash string broke and the THWACK I heard was his log hopping its way into shore. After some minor repairs, all good to go.

A gal in the lineup commented that I had a nice popup and that I made it look so effortless. Aww. Stoked to hear that. I have a hard time with compliments surfing. For the longest time I thought people were saying “good wave!” because I was kooking so hard out there they wanted to offer encouragement. Either way, it’s always nice to hear some good comments from friendly folks. 🙂

The rest of the session was all over the place. As Chris said, it was quite the sampling of Linda Mar: clean peeling waves, whomping closeouts, sun, fog, sometimes crowded, sometimes not, sometimes current, sometimes not… The rest of my waves were drop and wash but still fun enough.

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Montara

Surf: 5.6 feet at 12.1 seconds from the S (176°) Light south winds. Low tide.

Wheeeeeeeeee. Fun stuff. Not as smooth as some of the other, smaller breaking waves we checked, but plenty fun with a little pep. Lovely peeling Waist-Chest high waves and just enough space between sets not to get pounded.

Beamer and his intern joined us. Beamer was in a shortie (brr) and tearing up the rights on a leashless fish. I watched him make a daring bodysurf down a wave to snag his board after a wipeout. When I went to duckdive, he had it, when I came up it was sproinging away flying fish style. Doh. Fish just love to jump.

Had a peak all to our lonesome for a little while, too. Grey, almost glassy at times, and plenty of waves.

I love these kinds of mornings.

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Small Waves

Surf: 4.9 feet at 10 seconds from WNW (299°) No wind. Low tide.

Probably not the best day to take my 7’0, but fun enough. I knew it was going to be on the smaller side of things, but I need a little more water time on my little board. There was a possible option to swap with Andrew to try out one of his hulls, but the waves didn’t cooperate. It’s for the best, I was kooking out a little. I stepped off the back of my board twice. Ieee. Still managed a few fun waist high peeling waves. Small is just fine so long as it’s clean.

Major shift change as I was leaving. Seemed like everyone was itching to get out. The tide and the lineup filled up fast.

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Summer South

Surf: 5ft @ 17s from SW 177° Very low tide. Light winds.

When it’s good in Santa Cruz, it’s really good. It’s also really crowded. I brought a longboard figuring I’d be picking off the mushier scraps for off peak that no one wanted. I certainly did plenty of that, but wow, the sets were SO long that I was able to grab my own set wave or two. Woooo.

I got three lovely shoulder high to head high waves, all to myself. Nice long rides with some swooping loggy turns. It’s been so long since I took my trifin log out that my first few turns were a little weird. Oh yeah, fins, gotta use the fins. Can’t just hang out up on the nose.

My third lovely wave, I decided to try for a little head dip on the last section. I got a bit of a splash, then went to straighten out as the wave closed out. I fell, no big deal, business as usual, then I saw a bright flash of yellow and realized my board wasn’t safely by my side and was instead bouncing up at my face. Thunk. The board hit my wrist, my wrist hit my head, and all of us went under into the kelpy shallow soup. Thankfully I was fine, just a little embarrassed and plenty sore. I paddled in and cut the session short in favor of some icepack+face time.

Still pretty stoked, all things considered.

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4th of July

Surf: Crowded. Waist-Chest with a few Shoulder high was in the mix. Offshore S winds. 7.6 ft at 10.0 s from 316° NW

Weekend crowds make me anxious but it’s nothing compared to holiday crowds. Yikes. So many people I wanted to surf with had told me they were going out so I figured as long as I got there early enough to get a parking spot, it’d be worth getting wet.

It was pretty fun. I love watching friends get great rides. It was still pretty crowded. The rest of the beach was hucking some hefty sets so many folks were crowded where I was. The wind was keeping things fairly open on our side too, which was lovely.

I haven’t taken the 7′ out since Mexico. I knew a log would be better for the spot I was surfing, and better for me in the crowds, but I’m pretty determined to keep at this shorter board gig. It turned out to be just fine. I got a few fun waves picking up scraps on the inside. Managed a cutback, a few duckdives, and a handful of other fairly competent seeming things.

Surfed about 4 hours, hit a little back deck cookout at J-Bird and Jacob’s, then back to the city for fireworks. I think this is the only year I’ve successfully watched the SF fireworks. No impenetrable fog, no looking sideways out half a window, no driving from a highway, just fireworks from a friendly rooftop.

Happy 4th, everyone!

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July

Surf: 6.9 ft at 9.1 s from 311° NW.

Shifty, sloppy, and waist highish. I took out my 9’0 since my arms were toast from wakeboarding. I got a handful of waves, but man…my arms were burning. Little bit of sunshine and some friendly folks. Not bad.

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Wakeboarding!


Photo by Bon

Surf: Wake!!!

Ahh Shasta! Warm, saltless water, mud, and wakeboarding.

We camped on an island out in the lake. Just us and some really hungry deer. The first night I scared a deer out of our food box multiple times. It wasn’t the slightest bit scared of me and my RAAAAARRRRing and stomping.

Weather was beautiful. We even had a light thunderstorm Saturday night. It was so nice to fall asleep in my tent to thunder and light right.

I also got in two days of wakeboarding. I haven’t wakeboarded since 2010 so my expectations were pretty low. I managed to get up pretty easy and hang on tight. By the second day I managed to swish down the face of the wake. I haven’t quite figured out this whole crossing the wake thing just yet. Once it gets bumpy I tend to lose it. I made it over once, so there’s a start.

Pretty minimal on the faceplant side of things too. 😀
Yeah, progress!