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!

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.