Month: October 2014

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Sunny morning

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Surf: 6.6 ft at 12.9 s from the WNW at 285°

So lovely to wake up in Santa Cruz and walk down to the water. My wetsuit was freezing cold and pretty wet from last night’s surf, but warmed up quick on the walk down.

Waves were much smaller today, with a few good sized ones here and there. The sun was out and, for the most part, people were super friendly and having a great time. I shared a wave with an older guy I see out there often. After he called me into the wave, I looked back to make sure there was enough room for both of us and saw he was crouched down inside the most pint-sized of barrels. Yeah! 😀 What a fun wave to share.

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A key

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Surf: 9.8 ft at 14.8 s from the WNW at 294°. Incoming tide.

After a very busy and very stressful run at work, I snuck off to an airbnb in Santa Cruz for a much needed getaway. In a rare stroke of luck, some sizable swell came in as well. My host happened to have a key to Privates and let me borrow it for the evening surf session. That is a lovely staircase and park.

The waves were pretty perfect for surfing that break, too. The waves had just started to glass off and the rides were really long and smooth. I’d gotten out a bit late and it got dark far too soon. I couldn’t resist watching the sunset over the water. My last wave was in almost complete darkness, which was fun and fast (I could see the even darker patches of kelp streaming along below.) I did have a bit of a moment when I realized I hadn’t been keeping track of where I was in relation to the stairs and now the tide was too high to walk along the beach till I found them. Thankfully it didn’t take too long to work it out. I kept looking for a shadow with a hard edge, anything different from the rough cliffs and trees.

Wrapped up with a nice dinner and a show. Perfect getaway!

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Terrible at Teaching

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Surf: 4.9 ft at 14.8 s from the WSW at 258°. Incoming tide.

While I’m always supportive of anyone trying to learn to surf, I’m not the best surf teacher. My advice ranges from “paddle! keep paddling!” to “you ok? want to rest?” and not terribly much in between.

I took a few friends up to Bo. They’d both had lessons before and we’re interested in trying someplace with gentler waves. While happy not to be bashed by wave after wave, they weren’t super thrilled with the current into the lagoon. Now, this current has been a problem in past lessons, but never THIS much of a problem. There’s hardly any sand left on the lagoon side so the current was really whipping. One friend made it to shore relatively quickly but the other wasn’t making as much progress. In between yelling “paddle! keep paddling! paddle and then you can rest!” I also swam out to help get her back in.

After leaving them on the beach to test a slightly different spot (where I got a really fun wave on the rental cheese puff soft top) I decided maybe the patch would be better.

One friend was beat from the walk and the fight, but my other friend was able to get out and get some waves. With the exception of the shore break, things were pretty gentle. I’m not as comfortable swimming on this side, so I used the other board and yelled “paddle! more paddling!” behind her.

Next time I need a slightly better plan. Maybe we’ll go down to Cowells.

Post surf we went on a bit of a north bay adventure. Lunch at Lagunitas brewing and then a quick stop in the countryside. All around nice day.

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Foggy Beach Day

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Surf: 3.9 ft at 16.0 s from the S at 186°

It’s boiling hot in the city, so naturally it’s completely fogged over at the beach. I like the fog, but from the looks of the crowd down there, everyone was hoping for a sunny beach day.

I bodysurfed for a little while before eventually grabbing my board. I did get a couple long, fun waves that made it worth the traffic. Lots of swinging the board around to sneak just a little bit more out of every wave. Had a few right into the sand.

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Split peak morning

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Surf: 3.6 ft at 19.0 s from the SW at 299°

Yeeehooo, that was a fun little morning. Yeah, waves were a little lumpy with the backwash, but still plenty fun. Chris and I paddled out and immediately split a peak. Yay for shared waves. Sadly did not get a ton of stepping in, but did get in some zipping and swooshing. Plenty of folks in the water were getting fun waves. This is definitely the kind of morning I’ve been missing.

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Bodysurf party wave

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Surf: 5.3 ft at 10.0 s from the NW at 307°

Ahh colorful fall mornings and closeouts. Warm winds were blowing which I think was the only thing holding up these waves. Could still sneak in a little bit of a ride. I went for some smaller ones to work on wedging my rail into the face and working out a step. It was fun, but eventually me neck started hurting again so I swapped out my board for fins.

Since I’m trying to be ginger when it comes to my upper body, I had to pull out of a few whompers just before they whomped. These steep waves held up by the wind were otherwise perfect for bodysurfing. I even managed to get a party wave with J-bird. I hadn’t thought about what it was going to be like sharing a wave with someone on a board and, well, it’s kinda scary! I pulled out and let her rock the rest of the wave solo. Hoping to get her into a pair of fins so we can bodysurf party-wave sometime soon. 🙂