Surf: 1.3 ft at 16.7 s from the SW at 219°.
Yay! We’re here!
After a long, round-about path from Ventura to San Onofre, we finally made it. Big thanks to our camp mates from Sunset Shapers, who got in last night and already had camp set up. We hit the water first thing for a lovely sunset session. The waves are small to medium, but so far pretty clean and fun!
Surf: 6.9 ft at 8.3 s from the WNW at 292°
What a day! I had a rehab workout in the morning, hiked 6 miles, then jumped in the ocean to cool off. The surf was pretty lousy, but not totally unrideable. It’s been a couple months since my last sunset surf. It was nice to get a few evening waves, even if they were lumpy and bumpy.
Happy and exhausted.
Surf: 2.3 ft at 12.9 s from the W at 262°. Onshore.
As the year comes to an end, folks start talking about their year: surf stats, highlights, etc. It got me thinking a little bit about this past year. Uff. It was a tough one surfwise for sure. This nagging injury is now a year old and, while I have a much better range of motion, it still hurts every day.
I did a quick scan of how often I’ve surfed this year. I normally average 150-175 surf sessions, this year barely hit the upper 80’s.
It’s been hard being out of the water, being so far off from my usual morning routines, and I miss saying hi to folks, being at the beach, all the things that come along with surfing. It’s also been hard trying to find a balance. Maybe if I hadn’t been so insistent on still surfing when I first got hurt, I might not still be hurt now. But on the other hand, not being physically active also has it’s drawbacks. It’s frustrating to “take it easy” only to have nothing change. I think a few of these aches and pains are from not being mobile. I feel both lazy for not going, and guilty for going.
After wrapping work early, I thought I’d sneak out for a few more waves. The forecast looked small enough not to set off too much neck pain and man, it’s awesome to watch the sun set on NYE from the water.
The wind had sadly switched to onshore and the little waves were a lumpy mess, but ahh well, I’ve surfed worse. It was silly, sloppy wave fun and wow, so clear! What a sunset.
Happy New Year!
Surf: 9.8 ft at 14.8 s from the WNW at 294°. Incoming tide.
After a very busy and very stressful run at work, I snuck off to an airbnb in Santa Cruz for a much needed getaway. In a rare stroke of luck, some sizable swell came in as well. My host happened to have a key to Privates and let me borrow it for the evening surf session. That is a lovely staircase and park.
The waves were pretty perfect for surfing that break, too. The waves had just started to glass off and the rides were really long and smooth. I’d gotten out a bit late and it got dark far too soon. I couldn’t resist watching the sunset over the water. My last wave was in almost complete darkness, which was fun and fast (I could see the even darker patches of kelp streaming along below.) I did have a bit of a moment when I realized I hadn’t been keeping track of where I was in relation to the stairs and now the tide was too high to walk along the beach till I found them. Thankfully it didn’t take too long to work it out. I kept looking for a shadow with a hard edge, anything different from the rough cliffs and trees.
Wrapped up with a nice dinner and a show. Perfect getaway!
Surf: 2.3 ft at 10.0 s from the WNW at 290°. Windy.
Brief LZ surf team outing in total slop waves was actually pretty fun. Nice sunset, nice views of the headlands, a little bit of bodysurfing, and silly sloppy waves.
Surf: 3.3 ft at 14.8 s from the WNW at 291°
It’s my birthday 😀 Yeeww
With a tent filled with snacks on the beach, I spent hours and hours surfing, bodysurfing, snacking, and pushing Meghan into waves. It was sunny, water was warm, surf was decent enough. So much fun. Meghan got three pretty good waves! She was starting to get on the face (with a little push from Chris in the right direction.)
I got some great bodysurf rides. Probably one of the best I’ve gotten without a hand plane. Most of the board rides and bodysurf rides were almost right into the sand. Pretty punchy for little waves!
Following day (after much sleeping in) I did some kayaking on San Pablo reservoir. So swimming here (aww) but so pretty! And perfect weather. Just enough breeze to keep cool. Plenty of sun. Super nice day. Had a picnic on a rock!
Lovely lovely weekend. Birthday stoked!
Surf: 2.6 ft at 7.1 s from the NW at 311°
Yup, windy and terrible as forecasted but not totally awful. I’m dogsitting and snagged DSaka’s wavestorm for kicks. It was actually pretty fun, even with the sloppy messy waves. Weeeheeehooo. Also very nice to walk down to the beach, surf, walk back, and hot in the shower easy peasy.
Surf: 2.3 ft at 16.7 s from the SSW at 206°
Camp may being emptying out, but the surf is still up from this morning. We tried the next trail up (I was beat from all the scrambling on the regular trail.) It was fun. Everything was a little gloomy and sort of reminded me of Montara (biggerish waves and an almost empty lineup.) A few sets has be feeling not so comfortable, but for the most part, I was getting stuff and making something out of the closeouts.
They were setting up for some sort of firefighter’s surf competition in the morning. Seems like the waves should still be good for it.
Got back up near sunset and cook up dinner in the dark. Our van has been so cozy and wonderful, I’ll be sad to have to give it back!
Surf: 1.6 ft at 11.1 s from the SW at 233°
Wooohoooohooo. Took the fish out at Diamond Head for an evening session. It was a little harder to navigate the crowd on a smaller board, but man, I got some fun ones. I got one long right where I felt like I did all the right things. Cutback, speed around a section, turn turn turn. 😀 Finally!
Unfortunately I got a little greedy on my last wave in. I was cruising down the line when uh oh, ROCK! I tried to go high around it, but I heard a THUNK as I passed over. Thankfully the board was fine, but the fin popped off. Whoops.
Still, fun last session. I’ll miss you, Hawaii!
Surf: 1.6 ft at 11.1 s from the SSE at 164°
Hawaii!!! 😀
YAY for Hawaii!
Flew into Oahu, picked up some very fun looking Takayamas from Surf Garage (In the pink), picked up Esther from the airport, and paddled out as soon as possible at Waikiki.
Sure, it’s small, but man. Warm water! Beautiful sunset! Nice little wave faces that were so much fun on those logs. I took out my Seea Jacket and Shorts for the first time. They are totally comfortable, but man, they were toasty. Sure this was a sunset surf, but the 2m neoprene was likely overkill. I’ll do a full review on the set soon. Short of it: I love em.
Hit up hot pot after. Stoked stoked stoke.
