Surf: 4.6 ft at 8.3 s from the NW at 317°. Rising tide. No wind.
After yesterday’s early start, today was some lazy sluggishness. I checked the cams. Yawn. Not exciting, but whatever. Might as well take the fish out and get some paddle practice.
As with the last few sessions, it turned out to be really fun. It was clean, that’s nice to finally see, and it alternated from waist high waves to shoulder high sets. There’s some sneaky ground swell hiding out there and it is fun.
I got a few pretty decent rides on my fish. I got a couple were I was starting to feel mildly competent (still a kook, but a happier kook), including:
-cruising along in the post-closeout whitewater rather than losing steam and falling over
-doing some sort of speed pump like move to get around a section
The last move kinda felt like I was actually using my rail, bottom concave, and fins all correctly. I’d make a small bottom turn by pushing into the wave with my toes (inside rail,) start to climb, then when the pressure of the wave felt right, I’d release the toe weight and slide back into another mini bottom turn. I guess the idea is to climb and fall and climb and fall so you slowly increase momentum (it helps that the waves here tend to steepen up further along the line, too.)
It worked really well for getting around a long section, and worked to keep on cruising on a whitewater reform.
I’m totally digging figuring out all the little things behind this board. I’m also hoping it will teach me about my other boards as well. Switching back to the longboard yesterday started out a little wobbly (weight too far back), but it’s fun to see the similarities and differences play out, especially as I’m trying to learn to maintain my speed while further up the nose of my longboard.