Early Friday at the Jetty

SURF: 3-4ft, mellow and fairly smooth.

Second attempt at dawn patrol before my new gig. I’d already lost time putting my roof rack before I even got around to picking up Mike. He was a pretty good sport with my relentless swearing and freaking out about needing to be at work by 9.

The delay gave us a nice sunrise over Devil’s Slide on the way to the Jetty. Sun was beautiful, air was relatively warm, and with only 2-3 people in the water we had the place to ourselves.

Paddling out I say Luke getting a nice ride. He picked off a few waves while we were out there. I got skunked. I dunno, too mushy or my energy is still low. My system’s been all screwy. Low vitamins, muscles burning out fast. My unemployed surfer bum diet certainly isn’t helping. With this new gig I should be able to make a big push towards balanced nutrition and actually eating for the intense physical workout surfing provides.

Wrapping up I realized I was exceptionally late for work. ARG. My contract is flexible, however that doesn’t stop me from being hard on myself. I wound up taking a cab to work muddy, salty, and frustrated. Grrr.

Hoping as the days get longer the work/life balance will get easier.

In the mean time, Luke took a pic from the Jetty as we were packing up.

Birthday Waves for Cynthia

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SURF: 3-5ft. Cleaner than yesterday. Good shoulder high waves for some folks, waist high closeouts for me.

Caught a mid-day session with Cynthia to celebrate her birthday. I caught one nice long mellow right and swamped a right I should have gotten. My neck is still really tight so I didn’t get in a smooth bottom turn like I’d hoped. Ahh well. It was a pleasure to paddle out on my longboard after the shortboard workout and very fun to see Cynthia get some great happy birthday rides. 😀

Happy Birthday Cynthia!

More shortboard Practice!

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SURF: 3-5ft waves. Little choppy.

Gear: 6’8 Rocket

Most of the waves today up and down the coast were too big for me to catch and decent rides on my longboard. I decided to hit HMB to practice on the short board in at the jetty. It’s more protected so the waves were smaller.

I spent about an hour doing laps. Paddle out, fail at duck diving, keep paddling, fail again, turn around, boogie board to shore, paddle back. I’m trying to 1) learn to properly duck dive and 2) get more comfortable with overall balance on a board nearly 3 whole feet shorter than mine.

I did much better keeping control over the board, I didn’t fall off at all. Paddling is still slow, but a little better. I got in one okay “duck dive”-like movement that probably doesn’t count, but I’ll take it as a small win anyway. 🙂

Half Moon Bay

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Surf: Waves were about 1-3ft, inconsistent, breaking pretty steeply, little wind so the conditions seemed pretty clean.

Finally got out to try a different break. Surfergrrrl took me out at Kelly Ave in Half Moon Bay. Everything that could go wrong getting out there did so I wound up a good 30-45 min late. When I got there Surfergrrrl had the beach all to herself with some pelicans and sea lions for company.

I’m definitely not completely over this cough and cold thing, I was huffing and puffing trying to catch anything. I pearled on most waves and a couple I just couldn’t paddle fast enough without wheezing. I did get one ride, so I’m happy. Nothing especially clean and pretty much straight in to shore, but after a week locked up in an office and another week laid up in bed I was super happy to be in the water!

Fun on Flat Days

But mostly Flat

It had been so warm in SF I decided to try and sneak in a surf day. It was pretty flat. A few surfers at the north end of the beach picked off waves every now and then, but things were inconsistent at best.

Instead I beach hopped down the coast, taking in the sun.

Three Dollars

Shorebreak slab