Tag: santa cruz

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Santa Cruz Saturday

2013-PP-03-09a

Surf: 8.9 ft at 10.0 s from the NW at 311° High Tide

Jon was in town from Colorado and, with a limited surf window, we headed down to Santa Cruz to make the best of a high tide, smaller wave session.

While the tide made everything pretty soft, there was next to now crowd for the first hour or so. I got plenty of fun long waves on the hull. I didn’t really get it up to full hull action, but I did get a few really nice bottom and top turns out of it. 😀 yeeeeee.

Super nice weather.

Totally beat. Naptime:

2013-PP-03-09b

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Low Tide

2013-CAP-02-20

Surf: 12.8 ft at 11.4 s from the NW at 307° Low Tide

After this mornings freezing cold, hard work, face fears-a-thon, mid morning was a fun, waist high longboard session in the warm sun.

Darren and I grabbed lunch and watched a few little longboard lines roll in.

By this time Pleasure Point was looking blown out and crowded, but this little spot was just fine. A little slow, but fine.

Got in plenty of nose riding practice (or face planting practice, whichever is more accurate), some party waves, and sunburn.

Nice afternoon.

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High Tide

2013-PP-02-20a

Surf: 13.1 ft at 11.4 s from NW at 306° High tide.

I’ve been working hard over the last few months to overcome all the fear I was left with after last year’s bigger days. I took the breath holding class, I’ve been working on getting my confidence back little by little.

Today was a big leap. It was pretty solid out at Pleasure Point. Probably 6-8 feet, occasionally a little bigger. The tide was high so the waves were a bit gentler, but the cold cold air still packed quite a bite. There was ice and frost everywhere as we suited up.

I’d been reading Jaimal Yogis’ “The Fear Project” over the past few weeks. For me the biggest takeaways were: prepare and slow down.

Prepare for facing the thing you’re afraid of. If it’s an extreme sport: train, plan routes, study the break, work out, take a breath holding class, learn from others who have faced this before.

Slow down. One thing I’d really noticed in dealing with my fear was I kept putting myself in worse positions by either scrambling to get out of the way of a wave (using up all my energy) or being indecisive and choosing though inaction.

For me, taking this on involved a few steps:

  1. Admitting I was scared. Denying I was scared meant paddling out, right to the peak, and just getting clobbered again and again. Tenacity and stubbornness were getting me more of the same clobberings rather than teaching me how to deal with the situation. Admitting I was scared and using my fear to be smarter about my choices proved to be much more valuable.
  2. Preparing for uncomfortable situations by taking Hanli Prinsloo’s class, working out, and practicing on smaller waves helped me learn a lot about what I am capable of. I now know on a good breath I’ve got about two minutes where everything will be just fine, much longer if I can stand the discomfort and the underwater somersaults. Sure I haven’t timed a real breath hold in surf conditions, but it’s a good reminder that hey: I’ve got air.
  3. Slowing down when I see a wave coming and my heart sinks. I’ve tried to be more aware so I see the wave coming from farther off, decide if I can make it out and over easily or if paddling further out will just put me in the impact zone where sitting still would leave me dealing with the wash rather than the lip. If it looks like the latter, I slow down, try to stay calm, get a good breath and take the hit as calmly as I can. Being calm in the water, so far, has lead to less violent tumbling underwater. I’ve also had better luck keeping the board safely with me by being calm. The larger boards especially seem to get torn out of my hands when I’m holding them too tightly.
  4. Being kind to myself when I make a mistake. This one’s been pretty hard. When I first encountered this problem, I didn’t want to back down. I held myself up to this imaginary standard and felt being scared was a sign of weakness. It was a sign of weakness. It was a sign I was making some bad decisions in the water and I needed to spend more time thinking things through. But not all weakness is failure and not all failures are permanent. Going easy on myself has lead to much more improvement than forcing myself to do everything the hard way so as not to feel weak.

I realized through this process that I’d always sort of felt that other people weren’t scared. Jaimal’s book was a reminder that fear is pretty universal, some people simply practice facing it more effectively.

The results of all this?

Well, I got a bunch of overhead, fun waves today. I didn’t get clobbered. I didn’t spend the whole morning running away. There was even some spray thrown off a top turn or two.

I’m sure I’ll have plenty of heart-in-my-stomach moments and plenty of really unpleasant beatdowns, but here’s to learning to facing it a little more effectively.

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Sunset – 2012

2012-PP-12-31

Surf: 5.9 ft at 17.4 s from WNW at 290°

Last minute SC new years eve camping trip in the van! 😀

Surf was okay. Crowded, but I got a few fun long ones. It was hard work.

Afterwards, a little hot tub time, some Japanese food for dinner, then smores. Slept in the camper van.
Super chill NYE.

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What it’s made for

Surf: Started out Chest high and slow, became slightly overhead.5.9 ft at 12.5 s from W at 270°. Outgoing tide.

I had a little bit of free time today and I’ve been itching to try out my Vaquero on a nice point break.

The cam’s looked okay. Fairly manageable, a little slow, but I wasn’t exactly racing down. Hell, Beamer and I stopped for lunch on the way.

Getting down there, it looked fun enough, but still slow and on the smaller side. I was relieved. I still have a pit in my stomach from last years Pleasure Point beatings. Even after paddling out and into some reasonable sized waves, I was still a little nervous.

I got a slow wave off the bat, missed a few for a while, then went inside to pick up some little steeper ones. Looking back, the size had really come up. Suddenly things were head high+, clean, and beautiful. The sun was out, people were smiling.

I paddled around till my back muscles were burning. When I got tired, I headed to 38th and cruised along on some chest high waves a while. I was getting a little bit of a look from some longboarders eyeing my little Vaq skeptically, but I got into to plenty of waves and swished and zipped around.

Met back up with Beamer for a hot tub soak and a couple of slices of pizza. Pretty good day.

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Summer South

Surf: 5ft @ 17s from SW 177° Very low tide. Light winds.

When it’s good in Santa Cruz, it’s really good. It’s also really crowded. I brought a longboard figuring I’d be picking off the mushier scraps for off peak that no one wanted. I certainly did plenty of that, but wow, the sets were SO long that I was able to grab my own set wave or two. Woooo.

I got three lovely shoulder high to head high waves, all to myself. Nice long rides with some swooping loggy turns. It’s been so long since I took my trifin log out that my first few turns were a little weird. Oh yeah, fins, gotta use the fins. Can’t just hang out up on the nose.

My third lovely wave, I decided to try for a little head dip on the last section. I got a bit of a splash, then went to straighten out as the wave closed out. I fell, no big deal, business as usual, then I saw a bright flash of yellow and realized my board wasn’t safely by my side and was instead bouncing up at my face. Thunk. The board hit my wrist, my wrist hit my head, and all of us went under into the kelpy shallow soup. Thankfully I was fine, just a little embarrassed and plenty sore. I paddled in and cut the session short in favor of some icepack+face time.

Still pretty stoked, all things considered.

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Back in Santa Cruz


Photo by Chris

Surf: 7.5 ft at 16 sec 290° WNW. Chest-Head High+

I was a little skittish after the run of big days I’d had in SC all spring. Every time a set would line up and I’d see the black wave faces start to build, I ran for it. I guess one too many crushing hold downs will do that. Eventually, after some teasing, I pulled myself together and got a few. I got a handful of nice long swoopy waves before even getting my hair wet. Wheeee.

Chris got a whole 3 seconds of footage from behind me on a wave. 😀 It kinda looks like I can surf.

Saw Chris take the drop of all drops. I didn’t think he was gonna make it, I really hoped he was gonna make it, and then he made it. Woooohooo. I heard a few shortboarders in the lineup say “whoa” quietly as he went by. It was a very steep drop for a 10+ft log.

Wrapped up the morning with some fun little knee-waist high waves over at 38th. I tried to get some shots of Chris, but pushed all the wrong buttons. Almost had a dry hair session.

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Raining on the Eastside

Surf: 4-7ft. 10ft @ 16s WNW, 308°

Woo! Another solid day in Santa Cruz.

The waves were swinging wide of the point with a little bit of warble, but still managed to hold up all the way from the point to 38th. I got one ride so long with so many swoops and cutbacks that my legs were burning by the time I kicked out. Woohoo!

Chris got a beautiful big wave at the point too. I saw a big arc of spray coming off one of his turns and heard the lineup hooting for him the whole way.

After a few waves, some waiting in the rain, and one good ragdoll wave by me, we decided to work the smaller inside waves at 38th. I wanted to work on some noseriding moves. Close, but needs more work.

I’ve also been thinking about my cutbacks and how I need to work on staying in the pocket a little better. I’m certainly better about seeing where I am in relation to the curl and trying to correct, but in these larger waves I’m not really committing to a cutback. It’s more of a bottom turn-stall to get back in position. I’m worried the wave is just going to fold over on me so I’m out-running it half the time. The other half I’m very slowly trying to cut back to get back in position.

Only solution: more practice.

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Eastside Tour

Surf: 5-8ft with 10ft standouts. 10ft @15s WNW 300° Little warbly and slowing with the incoming tide.

Wow.

I keep saying that, but wow. Not as clean as it has been, but solid on size.

I got probably one of the biggest waves of my life today (I keep saying that too.) I have no idea how large these waves have been during our recent SC sessions (8ft? 9ft?) but they’ve been large and beautiful to ride.

This wave I did everything right. I had a huge bottom turn to a tight top turn. I cut back exactly when I needed to, and I held on every last bit of the wave. I stalled, I snuck around sections, I blew through whitewater, and kept up on the racy inside sections. I kicked out after a nice long swooping ride with dry hair and a HUGE smile. 😀

Of course, not everything can be easy. I also got trounced. I had two savage beatdowns that actually scared me pretty good. I did everything wrong. I was too far inside and took wall after wall of whitewater. I panicked a little on the long hold downs. The second set I was thrashed by, I scrambled to the surface when my lungs were burning and foolishly sucked in a breath that was half foam, half air. I paddled like mad to get out of the way of the rest of the set before coughing up sea sludge. Uff.

After that stomping, we headed from the point down to the hook and snuck in a few more. On the way I got one wave with a big fun drop. Once there, I got a fun zippy one through sharks, kicked out, then realized I was caught in the current. Oh man. Ohhh man. I was exhausted from all the waves at the point, so getting out of this eddy and back to shore was hard. I made it in by digging my heels in and pushing my way against the current the last few feet. OOOOffff.

I did a little bit of sketching during my afternoon meeting to keep awake. Fun day, hard day.

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Big Eastside Waves

Surf: 4-8ft+ Fairly clean. A few lulls but solid 5+ waves sets. Big big. 14ft @ 15s, WNW 283

Wow.

Those were by far the biggest, longest waves I’ve ever caught. I’m floored.

Every wave was big, fast, and racing from Jack’s house to the Hook. Holy cow. So many swooping turns, steep drops, and cutbacks. Lots of waves and LOTS of paddling. Each return trip was nearly a half mile. Chris would catch a wave then be gone for ages while he paddled back.

These waves were big. Usually mellow 38th was seeing 5-8ft waves. Most certainly the largest I’ve ever ridden. I couldn’t even see Chris for most of his waves. There was a good amount of power out there two. A few waves I got the tumble around, but my last wave was something else.

I got a big one, hoping to take it all the way in to the stairs. As I’m zipping down the line, I see it start to fold. I tried to get around it and got NAILED. Ouch.

The first washing machine tumble was expected. I mean, that wave clobbered me pretty good. The second wave on the head, I kinda figured that would happen. The THIRD wave, however, was freaking HUGE.

I swam and I swam as far down as I could go, but the thing still tossed me good. It seemed like I was down there for ages. My ears were burning and I was quickly running out of breath. I opened my eyes but all I saw was green, no white foamy bits. I either got caught back in the froth or got hit by a fourth wave, I’m not sure. More tumbling and flailing, still hadn’t made it to the surface.

Finally I made it up, just in time so see a fifth(?) wave. It wasn’t very big, but at that point all I could was get a good breath before diving again.

Once I was up, I foolishly(?) bolted for the outside to catch my breath. I realized the wash and current had put me right at the peak of the Hook.

After a breather, I tried for a small wave hoping to ride it in and back to land. Nope. Blew the wave, got nailed by the next, and flailed my way into shore trying to ride the whitewater.

I think that’s the longest continuous beatdown I’ve experienced. I was draining water out of my sinuses the whole rest of the day. My board’s dinged with some kelp wedged under the glass.

All and all, it was a pretty fun day. I wound up exhausted, but very stoked with a good story for my ding repair guy.