March 2013 – Learning to Surf

March 29, 2013April 13, 2013

Back in the Water

Surf: 4.6 ft at 12.9 s from the NW at 322Â°. Low tide.

Wow. It’s been a couple rough weeks being injured and unable to surf. And also really walk around. Ow.

Went back and forth as to if I should take it easy my first day back and log it, or go all out and take the fish out. Around midnight I decided FISH! I waxed it. I went to put the fins on…and the fin set I had wasn’t quite right. Oops. It was a front right fin, two back fins, and one center fin? It probably would have surfed kinda okay, but I was worried I wouldn’t be able to take em back used…or something. It was 1am, whatever.

So I took my longboard out. Waves were kinda crummy, but catchable. I got some fast fast rides before everything closed out. Just happy to be back in the water.

Crazy out of shape, but hopefully I’ll be back into the swing of things in no time.

March 27, 2013April 13, 2013

Glassed and ready for pickup!

YAAAAY My board is ready YAAAAY.

YAAAAAY.

I’ve spent the last few weeks e-stalking my board through the process (and trying not to bug James with OMG ISIT DONE YET!!!)

Here’s a little of the process with photos from Sunset Shaper’s instagram feed.

Step 1- Give your block of foam over to your glasser. Watch foam get put in a pile, loaded in a truck, and moved to the glassing shop.

Step 2- When the glasser posts a workshop picture, assume every board that’s even remotely the color you asked for is yours. Freak out when you see even a hint of it in the background.

Step 3- Shamelessly talk about step 2 on twitter as a passive aggressive hint that you’d really like to see photos. Freak out when you get one. OMG OMG OMG OMG.

Step 4- Wait for glasser to post finished pics. Adjust expectations along with instagram filters. Freak out that it’s done and not be able to sleep wanting to go pick it up.

Step 5- Go get it!!! But maybe make sure they don’t close early that day cause you’ll show up to a locked door after racing across town after work and completely freak out (in the bad way, not the good way you’ve been freaking out all along.) Thankfully someone’s waiting for you to pick it up so it all works out. YAY.

Step 6- Take several thousand pictures and post them to the internet. Eventually stop before you drive everyone crazy, but have fun. (This step is optional and is based on how much freaking out you’ve done. OMG YAY)

Step 7- Surf! 😀

Thanks everyone at Sunset Shapers. This has been an absolutely blast.

If anyone is looking to learn more about shaping, or just wants a new board and can’t make up their mind, I highly recommended their shaping class. You get a sweet new board and you’ll have a lot of fun making it.

March 11, 2013March 11, 2013

Fog

Surf: 8.2 ft at 13.8 s from the NW at 314Â° Low Tide

Super super foggy morning.

Walked the dogs in the dark and headed to the beach at sunup. Man, loading a car is way easier with a garage.

Didn’t get much in the way of waves. I’m still struggling with that closeout-block. I’ve tried paddling longer. I’ve tried kicking. I’ve tried sitting further inside. The one thing I haven’t tried is falling on my face. I kinda thing if I set out to fall on my face, I might just _not_ fall on my face.

That’s some kooky zen for you right there.

One wave in. One long trafficky drive back.

March 9, 2013March 10, 2013

Santa Cruz Saturday

Surf: 8.9 ft at 10.0 s from the NW at 311Â° High Tide

Jon was in town from Colorado and, with a limited surf window, we headed down to Santa Cruz to make the best of a high tide, smaller wave session.

While the tide made everything pretty soft, there was next to now crowd for the first hour or so. I got plenty of fun long waves on the hull. I didn’t really get it up to full hull action, but I did get a few really nice bottom and top turns out of it. 😀 yeeeeee.

Super nice weather.

Totally beat. Naptime:

March 1, 2013March 10, 2013

Better than Expected

Surf: 5.9 ft at 13.8 s from the NW at 308Â°

With the winds all over the place lately, I don’t really know what to expect anymore.

I’d expected pretty terrible conditions, but today was actually kinda fun. I got a few waves on the hull (which is so hard to duck dive after ducking the fish the last few times out) and plenty of sunshine.