Month: November 2014

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Before the Winter Storm

2014-BO-11-28

Surf: 6.9 ft at 14.8 s from the WNW at 290°. Incoming.

Day three of “whatever, shoulders, I’m gonna paddle”

Feeling more sore today. Opted for one side of the beach, hoping for a shorter paddle, but the slosh and the crowd was too much. Managed to get my leash wrapped around my hand trying to keep the board close after a closeout in the crowd. Oww. Upside was it worked, downside is I’ll have an awesomely black middle finger for a week. Rawr.

The other side was much more my speed and paddling to there from the first side didn’t put me any more into the red. Waves were lumpy but every now and then one really lined up. After a few of those, my shoulders were worn out. Got some lunch in Stinson and headed back over the mountains to a beautiful show of clouds over the ocean.

Oh! And a guy in the lot recognized Chris’s Stan Fujii. It used to be his. Pretty neat to find a used board’s former owner. 🙂

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Thanksgiving Closeouts

2014-LM-11-27a

2014-LM-11-27b

Surf: 2.6 ft at 12.1 s from the W at 277°

Paddled back out for some pre-feast exercise. Still closed out, but with a wave or two in the mix. The good news is yesterday’s paddle out didn’t make my neck any worse, sadly it still hurts. Aches and pains aside, the sun was beautiful, the water wasn’t super cold, and I watched Chris get a great long wave, dodging all the sections, traffic, and weird warbles. Good pre-stuffing stuff.

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Closeouts

2014-LM-11-26a

2014-LM-11-26b

Surf: 5.3 ft at 12.9 s from the WNW at 285°. Low and incoming.

I had a bit of a setback in physical therapy progress over the weekend. Saturday I spent about 45 minutes or so drawing, went about my day, went to sleep at a normal time and, when I woke up Sunday, I couldn’t sit up to get out of bed. Arg. It’s frustrating. I was making good progress, but now I feel like I’m back near the starting line. Driving to PT on Tuesday, I passed a couple cars loaded up with boards and thought, well, I guess this is just going to hurt, wether I baby it or not.

Of course, when I was thinking “Screw it, I’ll just paddle out” I was still hoping the waves would be gentle and not teeth rattling closeouts, but ahh well. The little waves stayed open and were actually a little fun, but everything else was a rough ride straight down. I saw someone buckle their soft top! Yeesh.

But hey, sun was out, got wet, and got a donut.

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Too high tide

2014-LM-11-09

Surf: 5.3 ft at 10.0 s from the W at 280°. High tide.

After the weeks’s success on a shorter board, I was both excited to get back out, but also hoping to take it a little easy. My shoulders were a bit sore and I didn’t want to push them too far. Sadly the surf did not cooperate. The tide was very high and the shorebreak was a sloshing mess. About halfway out I was feeling that sharp pain in my neck again so I turned around and bellied in.

It was disappointing, sure, but I did get some swim time in.

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More hull

2014-LM-11-07

Surf: 4.6 ft at 10.8 s from the W at 273°

Experiment, part 2. After surfing my face off yesterday, I decided to push my luck and try the hull again. The waves were a little messier and much more grey, but the first wave I got was worth paddling out for. Wow was that a good one. Good size, the hull did all it’s hull magic and rubber-banded it’s way through turn after turn. I even nailed a kickout, whee.

Fun morning. I was a bit sore after, that might have been a little too much hull-time, but hopefully it’s a sign of improvement. I really want to get back out and get surfing again!

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Hull experiment

2014-LM-11-06

Surf: 3.9 ft at 13.8 s from the WNW at 283°

My physical therapy has been going pretty well. I decided to run a little experiment and see if I could take out one of my shorter boards without totally throwing my neck out. Past attempts at anything shorter than 9′ had me laid up in bed after so, in addition to the likelyhood that I wouldn’t catch any waves, this was a risky proposition.

Thankfully they waves were very forgiving. Hardly a duck dive needed. 🙂

And surprisingly enough, I got waves! It was like I hadn’t even put that board down. The tide was in just the right swing that there were plenty of fun fun rights. It was a little sketchy on the inside, but lots of fun swooshing turns before hitting that point. I eventually got back into the hang of kicking out on my little board (I kept stepping off.)

Nice morning!