Surf: 2.3 ft at 13.3 s from WSW at 257°. Low tide.
Reports from Bolinas sounded flatter than flat. Andrew was still looking for a lesson (and looking to avoid Linda Mar) so we wound up at Ocean Beach.
I’m still pretty convinced the Beach is a terrible place to learn. With the low tide the inner bar was just dredging and the whitewater was super shallow. Not the best place to learn.
He caught white water for a while, I rode a few waves on the edge of a rip. Ehhhh. Not exactly a “surf” day.
Surf: 3.0 ft at 12.1 s from W at 277°. Incoming tide.
Decided to give a different stretch of the beach a shot this morning. Still coughing, I appreciated the smaller waves.
Spent the morning trying for steeper inside waves. It’s a good way to realize exactly how little rocker my hull has. Yeeeesh. Faceplant after faceplant. I’ll admit, it’s almost entirely that I don’t know how to surf this board in that kind of wave, but man, it still smarted a little.
Upside of the morning was watching Brien get a couple great waves and watching Beamer screaming down the face of some steep little inside waves.
While I know hulls aren’t exactly meant for Ocean Beach, it’s still been good getting it out there and paddling paddling paddling. I’ll need all that paddle for Pleasure Point this winter.
Eventually I’d love to get a board just for Ocean Beach, but I’m a ways off from that. I made the mistake of mentioning something to that effect on twitter and got quite a few opinions back. Yow. When I’m ready, I’ll either look for something generic off the rack (that I won’t cry if I snap in half) or I’ll drop by Sunset Shapers for a chat. For right now, I’m not going to think about new boards. Gotta learn things one board at a time. Slow and steady.
Bodysurf: Way way WAY overhead with a booking current.
Lots of pretty famous bodysurf folks were in town for the Save The Waves Film festival and the SF premiere of “Come Hell or High Water.” Some SF folks put together a bodysurfing competition to celebrate.
I have to say, it was pretty awesome to see folks like Mark Cunningham bodysurf in person. Looked like everyone was having a heck of a time. The park service had a few sad words about permits and plovers that will hopefully be kinks to work out next year. All around fun morning.
Check out the Surfermag article by local bodysurfer Mark Lukach.
Come Hell or High Water Trailer:
Bodysurf Competition Trailer:
Get to the Beach! from ***** on Vimeo.
Surf: Knee-Waist High, crumbly, bumpy.
With the Rip Curl Pro in town the beach has been a pretty active place. Pro surfers tearing it up in beautiful conditions, crowds of people cheering on the beach…and me at a desk. Poop.
The first few days of the competition had stellar conditions, today had tiny slop. Tiny slop may be bad for the pros, but a-ok for me. I paddled out, met up with a few friends in the water, and set about picking up little waves here and there. After a while the loudspeaker mumbled some unintelligible warnings our way as the boat drug the competition buoy.
Out paddled the Groms! Poor kids had to compete in this slop! I watched them from the water a while while picking up waves of my own. What amazing kids. They were punting airs left and right, shredding shoulders barely solid enough for me to get my longboard in. It was a lot of fun to cheer for them.
While I’d love to have been on the beach when the pros were out, it was still a fun little morning and I’m plenty stoked to see those kids shred.
Check out the Groms tearing it up on the rest of the tour:
