Meh Sunday

Surf: 3.6 ft at 8.3 s from the NW at 314° High incoming tide. Strong W winds.

This surf session had a few strikes against it from the get go. It was a weekend and it was windy. I’d hunkered down to do chores around the house and other less than exciting things when Blam suggested surfing. He was only back in town a few days, so I gave it a go.

The surf was waist to shoulder high with a mutant-esque bucking crumbling shape that was less than inspiring. I managed to squeeze two pretty fun, good-sized waves out of those lemons so I went home happy enough. Always good when your “wave in” takes you all the way to the beach.

Client Surf

Surf: 4.9 feet @ 10 seconds. NW (326°) Light winds. Low tide.

Decent little morning. With the low and still falling tide, I didn’t have a lot of hope for good waves. We were joined by a coworker on a project I’ve been working on, so we opted to just paddle out rather than drag him around all morning hunting for something slightly better.

My first wave right off the bat was super fun. I got a clean peeling right that held up all the way. I got some swooshing turns, a little cutback like thing, fun fun. About halfway through my ride I heard THWACK. Looked around, didn’t see anything. I wrapped up my wave and looked around some more. Chris was standing in waist deep water holding a leash with no board. Leash string broke and the THWACK I heard was his log hopping its way into shore. After some minor repairs, all good to go.

A gal in the lineup commented that I had a nice popup and that I made it look so effortless. Aww. Stoked to hear that. I have a hard time with compliments surfing. For the longest time I thought people were saying “good wave!” because I was kooking so hard out there they wanted to offer encouragement. Either way, it’s always nice to hear some good comments from friendly folks. 🙂

The rest of the session was all over the place. As Chris said, it was quite the sampling of Linda Mar: clean peeling waves, whomping closeouts, sun, fog, sometimes crowded, sometimes not, sometimes current, sometimes not… The rest of my waves were drop and wash but still fun enough.

Small Waves

Surf: 4.9 feet at 10 seconds from WNW (299°) No wind. Low tide.

Probably not the best day to take my 7’0, but fun enough. I knew it was going to be on the smaller side of things, but I need a little more water time on my little board. There was a possible option to swap with Andrew to try out one of his hulls, but the waves didn’t cooperate. It’s for the best, I was kooking out a little. I stepped off the back of my board twice. Ieee. Still managed a few fun waist high peeling waves. Small is just fine so long as it’s clean.

Major shift change as I was leaving. Seemed like everyone was itching to get out. The tide and the lineup filled up fast.

4th of July

Surf: Crowded. Waist-Chest with a few Shoulder high was in the mix. Offshore S winds. 7.6 ft at 10.0 s from 316° NW

Weekend crowds make me anxious but it’s nothing compared to holiday crowds. Yikes. So many people I wanted to surf with had told me they were going out so I figured as long as I got there early enough to get a parking spot, it’d be worth getting wet.

It was pretty fun. I love watching friends get great rides. It was still pretty crowded. The rest of the beach was hucking some hefty sets so many folks were crowded where I was. The wind was keeping things fairly open on our side too, which was lovely.

I haven’t taken the 7′ out since Mexico. I knew a log would be better for the spot I was surfing, and better for me in the crowds, but I’m pretty determined to keep at this shorter board gig. It turned out to be just fine. I got a few fun waves picking up scraps on the inside. Managed a cutback, a few duckdives, and a handful of other fairly competent seeming things.

Surfed about 4 hours, hit a little back deck cookout at J-Bird and Jacob’s, then back to the city for fireworks. I think this is the only year I’ve successfully watched the SF fireworks. No impenetrable fog, no looking sideways out half a window, no driving from a highway, just fireworks from a friendly rooftop.

Happy 4th, everyone!

July

Surf: 6.9 ft at 9.1 s from 311° NW.

Shifty, sloppy, and waist highish. I took out my 9’0 since my arms were toast from wakeboarding. I got a handful of waves, but man…my arms were burning. Little bit of sunshine and some friendly folks. Not bad.

Sup?

Surf: Junky waist-chest high.

I saw one of the funniest wave-steals by a SUP in the very brief history of me surfing.

The guy went out of his way to row right infront of Chris as he was paddling into the wave. Not like “oh he’s further inside and thinking about it if Chris doesn’t get it”, like the guy frantically rowed over and went for the wave about a foot infront of Chris’s board. There was some emergency breaking happening on Chris’s part to avoid him. Everyone around said “what the heck was that?!” and laughed. All except for the SUP who triumphantly surfed away, clutching his mushy chest high wave proudly. Such precious waves out there today! Can’t let even a single closeout slip by!

Meanwhile, other SUP-goers caught waves peacefully, evidently unaware of how epic each wave truly was.

Muddy Water

Surf: Thigh high.

Much better than I thought the low tide would be. It was small, with looooooong lulls, but with winds were southerly and the waves were are clean. I was happy to have plenty of foam to cruise the soft thigh-waist high waves. The water was a rather funky brown. Fun enough for me, the whales took a pass and headed south.

Ladies Surf + Jacob

Photo by Cynthia

Surf: 4.3 ft at 10.0 s NW

I rarely surf weekends. I’m pretty lucky to have the luxury of surfing before work during the week so weekends tend to be for chores and time with land based friends. Every once in a while I’ll brave the crowds to surf with folks I don’t get to see on the weekday mornings.

Met up with a whole bunch of folks for one of those days.

I took out my 7’4 for some more practice. The waves were pretty small and I’d expected to struggle. I actually wound up getting a few which was very exciting.

Always nice to surf with friendly folks on nice sunny days. 🙂

S’ok.


Photo by Chris

Surf: Waist High. Closed out. Inconsistent.

Looked like Chris got some fair- waves out of the lully low-tide closeout mix, but I was not as lucky having evidentially signed up for the poor+ package. The one nice long, lovely shaped waist+ high last wave I got all the way into the beach made up for all the waiting and the kicking out of closeouts prior. Could have used a few more like that and a hot chocolate.

Big ole dead elephant seal on the beach. Yikes. Thing was so big I thought it was a log.