Tag: gear

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Tides and Practicing My Turns

After surfing, with watch

Conditions: 3-4 ft. + – waist to shoulder high and poor+ conditions.
Gear: 8 ft Sunset Soft top, 9’4″ Sunset soft top from NorCal Surf Shop
and Freestyle Tide 3.0 watch. I now know what time it is AND what the tide is doing. Awesome.

I got off to a wobbly start on a board that was too short for me. After trading it in I caught a lot more waves, got in a few nice clean pop ups, plus a few really messy pop ups.

The best part of the day for me was completing my first bottom turn!
It’s supposed to look something like this www.surfline.com/video/video_player/video_player.cfm

What I did was zip down the wave face, dip the righthand rail in the water, and slingshot back up the wave going WAAAAAHHOOOOOOO before falling off. You’re supposed to use the momentum to turn back down and continue along the wave. I was so stoked to just turn that I didn’t even think about following through. It was awesome, I can’t wait to try it again.

Injury report: Somehow on one wave I managed to go flying in the air and to board flipped over on it’s deck. I came crashing down, my knee landing on the center fin, skidding into another forward fin. My hip and elbow hit the bottom of the board. I’m gonna have some wicked bruises when everything stops being swollen. Plus side is everything moves around just fine and doesn’t hurt unless I poke it.

In gear news, the new watch was a success.  The buttons are easy to press with cold wet hands and it says put pretty well. I’m trying to figure out a good way to fit it on my wrist above my wetsuit without bumping around when I paddle. All and all, it’s great. I can now see what time it is and what the surf is doing. 🙂

Why is the tide important to surfing? Depending on the beach, some beaches have the best waves at high tide, some at low, and some in the middle.  It also effects where the waves break at some beaches and what kind of wave you’ll have. For someone like me who’s just learning to surf a wave that’s spilling, rather than breaking will be an easy wave to ride for a long time. For someone who’s really got things down, a plunging wave is best. For more information, check out this great write up from Surfline.

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New Wetsuit!

New Wetsuit

Conditions: 4-7ft waves breaking really hard with harsh winds. Strong current from the south.
Gear: New Xcel Superlite 3.4mm Fullsuit and Soft Top rental board from NorCal Surf Shop

Yay! I bought a wetsuit! After weeks renting I’m finally ready to take the plunge and buy my own suit. 🙂
I love this suit, it’s comfortable, it’s warm, and best of all, it’s not pink.

That’s right, pink. I’d been hunting for suits online and found wetsuit after wetsuit that had pink arms or pink detailing. Sure, I’m a girl but do I have to be paddling out in pink neoprene? I thought the bright blue was pretty awesomely me. NorCal stands by Xcel gear and the guy there spent a decent amount of time going over styles with me.

As far as surfing goes, ouch, rough day. The waves were pretty large with few lulls and a lot of texture from the wind. My board was actually humming as I paddled across the water. I got tossed around, drug up the beach by the current and took some hard falls. I was determined to get at least one wave in with my new suit but being stubborn is probably not the best idea when it comes to conditions beyond your skill set. I had fun, but it was some hard hard work. I don’t think I got up once.

Injury report: I started to pearl on a wave and jumped off early. I assumed my board would go straight back but instead it followed me. The board hit the water, I hit the board, the wave hit both of us and I wound up taking a rail to the ribs. Oww. It bruised up a day or two later, but was fine in no time.