Author: Tracey

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Dawn Patrol in Bolinas

Surf: 2-4ft, fairly clean. A little bit inconsistent.
Gear: 9ft Stewart

My friend Chris is working on a project up in Marin and with my new flexible work schedule, picking up a dawn patrol was high on the list of great ideas. As it was also the two year mark of me learning to surf, I figured I’d give the early session a go. We met up at 6am, drove over the mountains, then surfed 7ish to 9.

The sun cut through the fog right as we got to the beach. The morning was just beautiful. Waves were small rolling mellow ones and the crowd was friendly. Folks were hooting and hollering, cheering on other surfers when they got a good ride.

I really got to work my new 9ft. I could take off in a steeper spot and got the hang of shuffling it around more fluidly. Man, I got some great long rides in. This board is good staying just in the pocket and picking up speed when needed. The board offers a lot of room to chase on the right wave.

Heading back was the hardest part. I could have stayed out all day if I didn’t have an 11am meeting. Heading up the 1 we met a parade of classic cars coming the other direction. Must have been over two dozen beautiful roadsters cruising the coast, living the dream.

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Board Repair and Testing

SURF: 2-3ft, little bit of jumble but fun, peeling, and beautiful sunshine.
Gear: 9’0 Stewart Hydro Hull

My 9’4 has been in and out of the repairshop lately. Poor board has been getting dinged at crowded breaks and, since it’s practically a new board, I have it repaired professionally.

With the week or so turnaround time this leaves me high and dry if the swell is too small for my other boards. After seeing the forecasts for small clean swell, I hit craigslist looking for a backup board. Wouldn’t you know, there’s another board similar to mine for sale. I checked out for a long lunch, looked to board over and bought it.

I was looking for an 8’6, but I couldn’t really pass this one up. Sure the finbox had been ripped out and repaired, sure it had a lot of not so nicely repaired dings, but it was in decent shape and cheap. Cheap enough that I can learn to do repairs on it. Cheap enough that I can lend it to friends when I take them out surfing.

I spent saturday sanding down all the lumpy repairs and blobby resin. I touched up the fin box repairs and waxed it up.

Sunday I got it in the water. At 2 7/8th thick it’s a half inch thinner and about a half inch narrower than my 9’4. The tail is pulled in and very narrow. It’s lighter and feels like there’s not as much concave to the bottom. All of which leads to a slightly different ride. It turns fast and seems to be able to get into the wave at a slightly steeper point. I need to test it out more to really see how it’s different.

I managed to get two really great waves out of it. Both nice long rights. I could chase sections pretty well, but didn’t get any of the clean stable shuffling my 9’4 is so good at. Aaron and I stayed out for about 4 hours. He got one awesome long left and a few good rights.

The weather was so amazing people were hanging out all over the place, even the parking lot. A few kids were sitting around with a pickup overflowing with boards and a lazy boy. I’m sure somewhere just out of sight of passing officers was an ice cold bucket of beer.

California is whatever you make of it.

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Storming in Santa Cruz

Checked 38th Ave

Blown out, cold, choppy and unsurfable.

The Hook was breaking, but still windy as all heck.

After cruising around a while, we decided on Cowells. It was looking small, inconsistent, sheltered from the wind a little. Nothing inspiring but we thought hey, at least it’s small and mellow right?

Surf: 1-6ft, inconsistent, stomping, mellow, choppy, clean….basically schizophrenic surf.

Looking from the cliff it seemed small, barely breaking. In the time it took us to change and paddle out, conditions had shifted to skattered waist high peaks with shoulder + sets. It was confusing, difficult to read, cold and grouchy. Shoulders would jack up, then die, then reform in seconds making most of the wave catching guesswork and luck.

It was like Cowells took a vacation and Linda Mar stood in for it, but was angry about having to do so.

Aaron and I both managed to work some good rides out of it. It was split between clean faces and meandering rights, unsure if the wave wanted you to ride it or not.

Just after low tide, it started to become more organized, Waist to shoulder high peeling waves. Around 4 it started to look like a hung over version of usual Cowells, but by then we were exhausted and ready for some post surf Bear Claws. yum.

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Got it!

Surf: 1-3ft and inconsistent. Warm water, warm sun.
Gear: My usual Stewart and a 6’3 twin-keel retro fish.

Work was slow and the sun was out so I headed up to Bolinas to meet a few friends. It was small! Teeny tiny little waves rolling in, but man was that sun wonderful.

I caught lots of mellow rides on my longboard, knee paddled around. We all got ride after ride, me on the stewart and Tom and Bonnie on their fish. After a while Tom and I switched boards. There’s a good 3ft difference between our boards, plus his fish is about a third as thick so we joked how I prob wouldn’t even be able to sit on the little thing. I kept trying to line up with the snarling tiger face on the front. Rar! Rar, I sunk the nose. Rar too far back and stalled.

But I did sit on it, and I paddled on it, and I caught a wave, and I stood up!
It was a squirrelly ride, I was all over the place, but I was up! First shortboard ride standing.

I’m pretty proud.

On the drive back through Mt Tam I crossed paths with this coyote, out enjoying the sun a little too.

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38th Ave Longboards

SURF: 2-4 ft, knee to chest high. Clean, light/moderate west crosswind. Sunny, warm, nice peeling waves. Light crowd. Otters.

Gear: 9’4 Stewart

A good day in Santa Cruz feels like a vacation. Warm, blue water, sunshine, point/reef breaking waves groomed by the kelp forest.

Most surf spots near the city are beach breaks or rocky point breaks that reward takers with rocks. Lots of rocks. At our breaks (beach breaks),the wave breaks as it meets the shore. The prime takeoff spot to catch a waves shifts and changes with the sand on the bottom. It’s a workout to find a spot to sit and the waves are typically shorter. There are gems, but it takes patience. Reef and point breaks (like most of Santa Cruz) have fixed bottoms and the wave becomes more predictable, often with a nice clean shape and a long ride.

38th was long ride after long ride. The conditions were lovely. Mellow medium/small sized waves would roll through and give you a long, smooth ride with a few kelpy speedbumps.

That much time on the face of the wave gives you time to think and make choices. You have the opportunity to learn to be a better surfer. Being able to look down the line of a wave and read it is a big step for me. Linda Mar waves tend to be less predictable. A close out is a closeout and your ride is done. I drop in and go.

On this wave I was able to see the wave start to close out, get around that section and back into position. It was a great feeling to outrun the whitewater, have time to do cutbacks, top turns, bottom turns, and hold one wave all the way to the beach.

My friends Aaron and Pierce joined Luke and I on the trip. It was awesome to see them get nice long rides and come out of it stoked. A few waves in and they were starting to get wired to the spot. Few more trips down to SC and they’ll be nose riding with the locals. Luke was getting ride after ride.

And on the topic of locals, sea otters were everywhere. Eating, surfing, napping in the kelp. Adorable. I also poked a sea anemone and watched hermit crabs in the tide pools. Great day.


Sea otter photograph by mikebaird:

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Springtime sun!

SURF: 3-4 ft + waist to shoulder high occ. 5 ft. This morning’s dawn patrol: Clean, glassy lines with workable inside sections. Offshore wind with sets running shoulder-head high.

After yesterday’s jumbled surf and worn out arms trying to catch it, I decided to take a few more laps at Linda Mar. Soft waves on a high tide means a hard paddle to get into a waves that’s lacking the oomf to turn into a good ride.

I only had a little time before I needed to head to Berkeley for lunch so I picked off a few nice waves, socialized in the lineup, soaked up some sun and packed it in. Not the best waves, but a nice morning.

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Jumbled, rocky morning

SURF: Waist to Shoulder high. VERY Disorganized. Choppy, sloppy, and an all around mess.

Gear: 10’6.

Having finally recovered from the weekend and convinced by my friend’s stoke from the day before, I hit Linda Mar for a morning session. The clean organized waves he’d caught the day before were messy, nearly uncatchable and wildly unpredictable.

He managed to snag a few decent looking rides, a leash snap, and a long swim in to shore. I got one clean face for a few seconds and another that I swamped a rail on.

The leash snap got me thinking about protocol in a leash breaking situation. I did a quick check in with Chris who signaled he was okay, then scrambled over an incoming set. I felt like I should paddle in and stay with him till he made it to shore, but the waves suddenly picked up and I was doing my best to stay out of trouble. After some time underwater rolling about, I managed to spot him again, happily reunited with his board.

Had he not been confident he’d been able to swim in, I suppose we could have ridden out the set holding on to the monster 10’6 I was on just outside the impact zone. If I’d been closer to the beach than him, I wouldn’t have hesitated to chase down his board and hope both boards and myself would make it through the big set of waves. Thankfully another surfer on the inside was able to snag the board, get out of the way of incoming waves and hold on till Chris was able to get it from him. Whew.

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Self Imposed Skunking

SURF: 3-5ft, inconsistent, steeper than yesterday, much more closed out.
Gear: 7’4 and 8’3 Petty

With the size and steepness building for Sunday, I decided to go back to the 7’4. I paddled around, I didn’t catch anything. I saw a large crab floating around. I didn’t catch anything.

I switched to the 8’3 and caught one wave. I bailed on it early. I was high up on the wave taking a line and as I turned to drop down the face an align more in the pocket, I realized I was only in about a foot of water (not counting the 4ft wave I was on top of). The waves were closing out an a wrong move would cause me to pretty unpleasantly and forcefully hug the beach face first. I bailed. I bailed and tried to land flat. I figured a blown wave was better than nosing the board into shallow water.

At least the paddle practice was good.

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Mellow longboard day with a 10’6

SURF: 2-4ft, very mellow, very clean. Long period small south-southwest swell.
Gear: 10’6

A perfect longboard day spent on a shortboard is just cruel. A day like today is when longboards can really shine. They can catch even the smallest waves and float down the line like it’s nothing.

With the Stewart still off being repaired I was prepared to suffer in the 7’4. Thankfully Chris was up for a good longboard Saturday and lent me his 10’6. It’s a huge singlefin board that turns surprisingly well and had just the right amount of float to pick of anything coming by. It was great.

I love sitting in the lineup, spotting a hint of a wave no one else would give a second thought to, charging for it and getting a beautiful little line out of a wave that was barely even there. 😀

My friend Aaron (who has the most amazingly patched up Michel Junod longboard) came out with us after 3 months on land with a skiing injury. He got a few nice ones.

Chris and Luke both picked off their fair share and beautiful ones on both their longboards and the Alia. Great sunny day for everybody.

Taking the 10’6 home was a bit of a feat. 3 flights of winding stairs with that baby was hard work. At least I have 12ft ceilings. 😀

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Sunny Morning for the 7’4

SURF: Waist to Shoulder high waves. Fairly clean, but a little swamped with the tide. 5.5ft @ 9s from NW at 306°

Gear: 7’4.

With the Stewart in the shop being patched up, the 7’4 was a good choice for a little paddle practice. The waves cooperated enough that I could paddle out without too much trouble, but still get into position on a steeper wave to really try the board out.

I caught two waves.

I faceplanted them both.

It’s all practice. I practiced being in the right spot to catch a wave, I practiced paddling, I practiced safely tumbling around in the wash after pearling a board.

I’ve been practicing a lot of things lately.

I’ve been under the weather a bit. My thyroid has been out of whack. It’s a reoccurring problem, this time cause when my doctor was unable to give me a new prescription before my old one ran out. It pretty much makes me tired beyond tired. No amount of sleep can make me feel better and since I know sleeping in will do me no good, I get up early and surf instead. I ache, my muscles are tired and I can barely keep up, but I keep going. I keep practicing.

The more engaged I can keep my mind and body, through surfing, skiing, biking, skateboarding, anything, the easier a time I think I will have hanging in there till my system recovers. I take on the challenging surf days, THEN sleep in, exhausted for good reason and resting deservedly. Like in surfing, I’m learning to practice balance.