Surf: Start – Waist High, Finish – Head high. Clean, lully.

Yay, another mellow Ocean Beach day! Or at least a day that looked like it was going to be mellow…

Paddling out the waves were very mellow. Waist high sets would roll through with some frequency but the paddle was relatively easy. After a few waves, it was pretty evident that the size was increasing.

I’ve been pretty lucky my last few times out at Ocean Beach. I’ve been out on mellow days with low to no current and an easy paddle. Today was a bit harder. I had at least two paddles back to the lineup that must have taken at least 20-30 minutes. It may not seem like very long compared to the 45 minute paddles most folks do on bigger days, but on my longboard unable to duck dive it was a lot of punching, pushback, punching, paddling, pushback, etc etc.

I was really starting to appreciate those lulls. Whew.

I got some pretty dang fun waves today. Lots of big drops, long rides, and swooping turns. I got one big one on the outside that was quite a drop. There was a moment when I was screaming down the line that I realized all the shortboarders on the inside were looking at me with some very wide eyes. I’m sure it was a mix of “that girl on the longboard is going to run me over” and “I am about to take a pretty big wave on the head.” I hope I did everything right to not embarrass myself. I made my drop, I didn’t run anyone over, and I almost made it to the shoulder after a few tentative turns.

After a few more lovely waves, I decided to go for another big one. I was way too deep. I fell out of the air, attempted to still land, bit it, then went over the falls with my longboard. Oww. I managed to whack my forearm and my shin on the rail pretty good while swashing around, but hey, I didn’t “lose” my board I guess.

I paddled back out to shake it off before getting a super fun right all the way to the beach. Fun fun.

Surf: Waist-Chest High, smooth, and super mellow. 4′ @ 10s, NW.

I love mellow days at Ocean Beach. I get to surf with folks I don’t normally get to surf with and the change of scenery is nice.

With the high tide things were pretty soft. I had a few embarrassing moments paddling out and paddling for waves. I’m still huffing and puffing from being sick and I”m always nervous at Ocean Beach since I don’t normally surf there. After a few blown waves, I got into a much better groove.

Stoooooked. I got a few nice drops followed by long swooping rides. Beautiful morning too!

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:

Surf: Small, slightly bumpy soft waves. 2-3ft with some 4-5ft standouts.

I like surfing ocean beach when it’s small. In the summer it can get nice and mellow and I can paddle out with my longboard like it’s any other day. I’d mostly neglected the usual OB breaks over this summer. I guess I’d gotten into the habit of picking off lefts at Linda Mar and wasn’t really thinking much about surfing our local avenues.

Today Linda Mar was flat so Chris and I headed back up the coast, checking out the usual alphabet streets.

I got a real nice wave right after paddle out, then a few warbly drops on other jumbled waves. OB is always a surprise. The wildlife is a lot less timid and some pretty large waves can come charing through a spot that had previously be sleepily breaking at knee to waist high. Trying to scrap over one larger wave my board got yanked my the wave. I had a few seconds of bobbing around before realizing my board was surfing the wave without me. I had a nice long ride being drug along behind my board that was happily enjoying a nice wave all on it’s own. The 9’4 really gets moving fast, even towing me splashing behind it.

SURF: 4-8ft.

I met a few stokereporters out for dawn patrol at Ocean Beach. I was optimistically assured by Josh it would be a nice 3-5 and good practice on the shortboard. Arg.

It was definitely bigger than I was expecting. I still haven’t been able to duck dive my 6’8 so all and all the morning was much harder than I anticipated. I let Veronica borrow my 7 that is nearly impossible to duck dive. She wound up ditching it and swimming with it in tow. I wanted to do things my way so she made it out and I didn’t.

Ahh well. It was a beautiful morning regardless. I did manage to bruise my leg up pretty good in the shorebreak. I’m not exactly sure what law of physics ocean beach had to break to administer that beatdown, but I got beatdown pretty good.

Some big waves moved in to our area Friday night. Buoys spiked to 30ft and a lot of folks were on edge wondering if the waves were going to come in clean and rideable or big and scary.

It was big and scary.

I met up with Tom in front of Wise. We walked around North Ocean Beach and the Cliff House, gawking at waves there. There were waves breaking so far out ir was unbelievable. We cruised on down to Sloat, Rockaway, and finally Linda Mar waiting for Josh to wrap up his session at Half Moon Bay.

Rockaway was, well, hurling rocks:

There was one lone dude out there. He was holding his own, I didn’t see him get stomped but wow. He was a tiny dot surrounded by big angry waves.

Linda Mar wasn’t as big as projected, but still looked rough. A handful of people were out getting waves.

I stayed nice and dry. Had lovely brunch at the Cliff House instead.

SURF: 2-3 ft.+ knee to chest high and fair conditions.
This morning’s dawn patrol: Small, semi-clean lines in the waist-chest high range the occasional workable section.

Inconsistent, low energy waves this afternoon. I managed to pick off one nice ride from all the mush. Big score today was in sunshine. When we got to the beach the sun was out, skies were clear, just BEAUTIFUL all along the coast. I’m bummed I didn’t have my waterproof camera. I only snagged a shot of the hillside from my car. No photos of sunlit fog and surfer silhouettes, no shots of deep blue waves, no sand dunes. Next time!

SURF: 2-3 ft knee to waist high and fair conditions.

This morning’s dawn patrol: Clean, scattered lines getting up around waist high. It’s fairly small-scale, but definitely rideable this morning.

Waves this weekend were looking pretty small up and down the coast. I met up with Cryptomail to spend a little time on my Stewart at Ocean Beach.

Waves were indeed small. I got in a handful of really nice long mellow rides. I saw a dolphin and some sea lions. I pearled quite a bit and was having trouble going left but it was nice to be out on my board again and great to surf at a new spot (especially when it’s small and manageable.)

There was a group out at Kelly’s having a reunion. They had a best/worst surfboard competition, a bbq, and a memorial to surfers who have passed on. We checked out the boards. Very cool to see such a tight knit surfing family enjoying the day together.

Oh, I picked up a shortboard recently. It’s on perma-loan from a friend. I have no idea if I can even ride it.

It’s a little thick so I’m hoping I can duckdive it. I’m also tempted to pick up a great sounding little fish but I’m worried I’m collecting boards without any idea how or what I want to ride. A fish sounds like a fun small wave alternative to a longboard. Part of me wants to challenge myself with a board that can take bigger waves but I’m also afraid of taking on bigger waves. It would be more practical to have a shortboard that can work well in steeper or larger waves that my longboard can’t, but it would be fun to have a fish and goof off in the little waves!

Surf: 3-5 ft. waist to head high and poor-fair conditions.

This morning’s dawn patrol: Slightly jumbled, crossed-up peaks on offer this morning. Looking a bit more disorganized than yesterday, with a few rideable corners still making it through at times.

I have never surfed on a shortboard and I have never surfed at Ocean Beach. Shortboards are harder to paddle, harder to catch waves with, but when you’ve got them you can tear up waves. You can also duck dive with a shortboard (swim under an oncoming wave with the board instead of paddling over). Duck diving comes in very handy at a place like Ocean Beach where the waves are bigger, more powerful, and take a lot more paddling to get through.

I’m on a smaller, harder to paddle board facing bigger, more powerful waves. Fantastic idea right there in the works!

Cryptomail gave me some pointers on duck diving and waited patiently as I failed at it over and over. I didn’t manage to paddle out past the breaking waves. I did catch one wave boogie board style, but spent most of the morning under water or falling off the board. I need a lot of practice before I stop looking like a flailing wet mess and look more like a surfer. Ha.