Month: November 2012

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Go

Surf: 4.6 ft at 10.0 s from W at 274° Shoulder to head high. Clean.

There’s a certain set of conditions I wait for. I look for a small forecast and light winds at Ocean Beach with things falling into place nice and early in the morning. Typically it’s just on the edge between sounding like it’s going to be terrible and sounding like it’s going to be awesome.

I’m not exactly confident on the shorter board. After yesterday’s disappointment, I was hoping for clean little cruising waves. In the dark I could hear it wasn’t little. As the sun started to rise, I could see that it wasn’t little. It was clean, but with some good size. I gulped and suited up.

Whenever I surf ocean beach, I’m anxious the night before, I’m anxious on the drive over, anxious suiting up, paddling out, waiting for waves. There’s a quote I heard recently “‘If you’re nervous, you’re afraid you’re going to fail. If you’re anxious, you can’t wait to get out there and succeed.’ -Robert Griffin III”

I think I’m somewhere in the middle.

Paddled out to find some really beautiful waves. So great to watch other folks zipping by on clean head high waves holding up. And that’s mostly what I did. Watch. Watch and chicken out.

Josh kept yelling GOOOOOOOO!!!! and I kept…not going. Or I’d paddle, feel like I was already too late and pull out when I should have gritted and put a little more paddle into it.

I still got a few and they were still really really fun, but I’m struggling. Thankfully the weather was amazing and the folks I was surfing with were stoked enough to keep me stoked. Gotta get back out there and gooooooooooo!!!!

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Disappointed


Photo by Darren.

Surf: Closed out. Largeish. 6.2 ft at 10.8 s from WNW at 283°. Lowish tide, incoming.

I’ve found good days at Santa Cruz are often followed by messy, terrible days at Linda Mar.

The whole beach was one whomping closeout. Chris broke his leash on the first wave. I was super uncomfortable paddling into anything and paddled out…where I continued to be uncomfortable paddling into anything.

Ugh. I managed to pick off two and back out of a dozen. Had to belly in after not getting anything for a while. I left the beach super bummed.

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What it’s made for

Surf: Started out Chest high and slow, became slightly overhead.5.9 ft at 12.5 s from W at 270°. Outgoing tide.

I had a little bit of free time today and I’ve been itching to try out my Vaquero on a nice point break.

The cam’s looked okay. Fairly manageable, a little slow, but I wasn’t exactly racing down. Hell, Beamer and I stopped for lunch on the way.

Getting down there, it looked fun enough, but still slow and on the smaller side. I was relieved. I still have a pit in my stomach from last years Pleasure Point beatings. Even after paddling out and into some reasonable sized waves, I was still a little nervous.

I got a slow wave off the bat, missed a few for a while, then went inside to pick up some little steeper ones. Looking back, the size had really come up. Suddenly things were head high+, clean, and beautiful. The sun was out, people were smiling.

I paddled around till my back muscles were burning. When I got tired, I headed to 38th and cruised along on some chest high waves a while. I was getting a little bit of a look from some longboarders eyeing my little Vaq skeptically, but I got into to plenty of waves and swished and zipped around.

Met back up with Beamer for a hot tub soak and a couple of slices of pizza. Pretty good day.