Month: July 2013

Surf: 4.6 ft at 8.3 s from the NW at 315°

Finally, something with some size on it. Of course, that means bigger closeouts, but yay! something to try the fish out on. I got a few late drops, a few fast waves, a few good sloshes around with blown takeoffs and botched duck dives, but there’s sunshine and waves. Not bad.

Saw Brien get a great duck dive in. From where I was sitting it looked like he was about to get crushed, but he came out okay. Always nice to see friend get not-clobbered.

Surf: 3.3 ft at 7.7 s from the WNW at 287°. Low Tide. West winds.

The swell has come up from yesterday’s shin scrapers, but things are a little jumbled. More wind, too.

Got a few waves that worked. I got one just right to get in some turns and a weak attempt at a cutback. Most of the other rides were cruisers all the way in to the shore. I’ll take it.

Got a real nice belly ride in at the end too. Hooo.

Surf: 2.6 ft at 14.8 s from the S at 187°. Low tide. Calm winds.

Small waves out there today, breaking in equally shallow water. My first wave out, I had a few fun little turns before falling and landing on my back in a few inches of water. Ouch.

It was steep enough to make it plenty fun, but still hilariously small. There was a guy out on a soft top fish that looked like the prefect board for today. He got some nice ones right in the pocket.

Water’s super clear. Got to watch all the Dungeness crabs scurry away while I zipped around above them.

Fun enough!

Surf: 5.3 ft at 9.1 s from the NW at 321°. Incoming tide. No wind.

While typically crowded for a warm and sunny holiday, the surf today was surprisingly fun. Nice long faces. Some good size. Warm water warm air warm sun warm sand.

I took out my 7′ quad worrying the crowd might somehow ding my precious orange baby. The extra little bit of length and foam came in handy when trying to out-paddle the weekend warriors, but was a wee bit tricky duck diving the HH+ sets that rolled through from time to time. One particularly amazing botched dive involved the board twisting then swinging around in a perfect arc to hit me in the back of the head. Mid-length’s lack of weight for punching through a wave, and their overly beefiness for diving is probably my main complaint with these boards.

Really my only complaint, as that was pretty dang fun.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about quad set up vs single fin lately (especially as this board can handle both.) At this length I’m not really feeling the fins like I do on my 6’4. The board is still really fun, I got some big swooping turns in. I got around some sections. It all around surfed.

Saw a few of the usual morning crew out there killing it.

Afterwards, Mike said “Looks like you’re getting pretty good on these mid-lengths!” Aww, yay! 😀
Super stoked to me getting somewhere, especially after months of being frustrated.

After afterwards, caught the illegal fireworks show in the mission from safely up on Potrero Hill. Pew pew.

Happy 4th!

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.