Thursday, May 19th, 2011
South Swell, Whales, and Hot Chocolate
Photo by Chris
Surf: Waist-Chest high. Peeling. Long lulls but lots of energy.
Nice south swell rolled in this week. Cowells was breaking sooo nicely. It was crowded for sure, but plenty fun. Got some nice long waves that really zipped on the outside and held up all the way through. Plenty of otters chilling in the lineup and a whale splashing around outside the kelp. Grabbed some hot chocolate, a pastry, and cruised on in to work.
No Comments » - Posted in surfing by Tracey
Thursday, May 12th, 2011
Welcome back, SC
Photo by Chris
Surf: Mellow, Knee-Waist high. Glassy.
Ahh, back in cold water. Missing Mexico with all my heart but still feels good to be home. Surf was super mellow with long lulls. Got some nice little rides in.
No Comments » - Posted in surfing by Tracey
Thursday, April 28th, 2011
Stoked!
Photo by Chris.
Surf: Fun, glassy, 2-4ft with some bigger sets. Mellow.
What a morning! I’m still stoked.
Went in with low expectations. Higher tide, forecasts were all suggesting conditions would be “just okay.” Still, happy to get a change to surf Santa Cruz before work.
It turned out to be a really fun session. The waves were clean and had a nice little kick to them. Bright warm sun, blue blue water, and long peeling waves.
My first wave started out mellow and medium sized. As I completed my bottom turn I realized I was looking up at the lip. My mellow warm up wave was turning out to be a nice, peeling, substantial wave. So stoked. So much fun.
Got quite a few nice rides and some compliments from my friends. Spent the whole day beaming. Stoked!
No Comments » - Posted in surfing by Tracey
Thursday, April 21st, 2011
Board Meeting
Surf: 1-2ft and 2-4ft. Mellow SW swell. Light Winds.
One of the projects I’m on involves frequent trips south of San Francisco and another needed me to swing by Palo Alto today. It’s been a negative low tide and nearly flat locally the last few days, time for some pre-work team surf in SC. 
Nicole, Chris and I paddled out at the Cowells side of indicators where Darren had already been catching a few of the small slow waves occasionally rolling in.
I got some nice long ones on the super mellow little waves, but the crowd was growing and the guys had their eye on some waves further west.
Paddled over to find the break to be still mellow, but bigger and with a punch at the end. I got a few really fun drops and enjoyed the sun.
Pastries, then off to client meetings. Excellent team work.
Meeting summary: Fun, chill waves were ridden.
Next steps: schedule more team board meetings.
No Comments » - Posted in surfing by Tracey
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011
Santa Cruz!
Surf: Soft, mellow. Knee high.
Finally! Been bugging Chris for ages to do an SC dawn patrol. Winds were light and the waves were mellow. Nothing epic but plenty of little fun waves. Sea otter chilled with us for a bit. Grabbed pastries after before making the trip back up to the city.
My old wetsuit is back from being repaired. Sadly RipCurl wanted $125 to repair everything so I just had them do the worn out knees. Looks like it will be a summer suit from now on. Poor suit, it was fun while it lasted but since it was deteriorating after less than a year I can’t imagine it will have too many summers left.
Hoping to get more SC time in now that the sun is coming up a little earlier. 
No Comments » - Posted in surfing by Tracey
Thursday, January 27th, 2011
Welcome home, Cowells
Surf: Slow, mellow knee-waist high waves. Clean. 6ft @ 14s from W 278ยบ
Nice to be back in the water after my work trip.
The surf was plenty big in the city and, after almost 2 weeks dry, I figured a mellow SC session was in store. Shannon also had SC on her mind. We took her big surf van down there. I haven’t had the luxury of taking BOTH longboards before. Swanky!
Cowells was slow and sweet. I got man long, mellow rides in with long mellow paddles back out. I was beyond beat. It’s amazing how fast one gets out of shape.
The drive was beaut. The surf was firing all along the coast. I saw whales spouting, barrels being thrown, and some of the most beautiful sunsparkled mist I’ve seen in a while. Great day.
No Comments » - Posted in surfing by Tracey
Sunday, November 28th, 2010
Lazy SC Sunday
Surf: Thigh-Chest high. Inconsistent. Little Texture.
YAWN. After a busy week I >wanted< to surf but I didn’t want to get up early, drive, or get worked up about the surf.
Lucky me! Aaron was also lazily contemplating some surf and offered to drive.
Sure, we were there over high tide, not ideal, but there was still plenty of fun to be had. It was a little crowded at the main peak so we snuck off one peak over and picked up mellow waves. I had a few super long rides including a sweet little stall to keep a wave while avoiding someone who looked determined to drop in.
Afterwards, Five Guys. Nice.
No Comments » - Posted in surfing by Tracey
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010
Day Off!
Surf: 2-3ft, mellow with long lulls. Clean.
Work has been pretty stressful and pretty frustrating for months now. MONTHS. Every week I’d tell myself “If I can just get through this next thing, next week I’ll take a day and drive down to Santa Cruz.” Every week I’d get through the next thing only to find a large pile of thing after that. Sigh. With much of the project now at the printer, I found myself with some warm weather and a day where no one really needed me to do anything. It was soooo on.
I was taking a little bit of a gamble with a small wave forecast, but figured at the least I’d get some sun, some water and a milkshake. Things were in fact small. I spent a bit of time waffling between two spots before deciding. It was plenty mellow and I chased down a lot of waves that didn’t turn into anything, but I got some really nice ones as well.
Lots of waist high rights I spent wiggling down the line, connecting on all the way into the shore. A few solid smooth longboardy lefts. I spent some quality time up on my logo working on a nose ride I just didn’t quite make. It’s funny, I feel like I surf completely different depending on which direction I’m going. Left is more stand tall longboard, few turns, lots of rail. Right is more dips, turns, and the occasional mini-floater. No idea what it is. Seem like today I had to navigate more sections (and kelp) on the right, but I’ve noticed this trend elsewhere. HMMM.
Crowd was pretty friendly too. I got a few compliments on my rides and a big thank you from a guy I called into a wave. Everyone was really stoked to be enjoying some warm sun with their little waves.
No Comments » - Posted in surfing by Tracey
Saturday, September 18th, 2010
South Swell, SC BBQ
Surf: 3-5ft, 6+ standouts. Somewhat sectiony in the morning but mostly clean. Glassier on the falling tide.
I had a birthday bbq to his in SC and decided to catch a few waves before dropping by. It’s fairly safe to say there was swell in the water. I stood on the cliff for a long time watching pretty good sized waves roll through. Nothing crazy, but after a whole summer and then some of rocking the knee-waist high wavelets, a solid 5ft wave looks pretty intimidating, especially on a longboard.
Pierce and I paddled out in a calmer spot between the hook and sharks. We waited, watched, and got creamed a few times before shifting even further east to a smaller peak. Since there’s been a bit of a wave drought, we watched folks for a while, taking care to pick up scraps so we wouldn’t drop in on anyone. A few hot tempers in the lineup and some squabbles between old timers kept us on our toes.
After a while, Aaron, Shawn and Tracy paddled out. After a few more larger sets, the crowd focused on Sharks and the Hook leaving this nice little wave for the 5 of us and a friendly SUP.
Aaron got some really great waves. I was pretty happy with a few of mine. After 4 hours my arms were jello. I decided to pick up one more wave at Sharks before paddling in. Man did I get a wave. Nicely shaped, pretty clean, and smooth enough I could drag my hand in the water along side me the whole ride. I had a nice cutback, straightened out for the wash, then paddled in for the day very stoked. I’ve never thought to drag my hand in a wave as I’m zipping on by so I’m not sure exactly how it happened. It’s a dorky thing to be stoked about, but I had a fun day.
After wrapping we met up with our friends for burgers, beer pong, and a pretty fun afternoon. The exhaustion when I got home was just epic. I couldn’t even sleep I was so tired and my arms were too spent to drink water. Whew, what a week!
No Comments » - Posted in surfing by Tracey
Friday, August 27th, 2010
Santa Cruz Friday
Surf: Knee-Chest high, mostly in the knee-waist high range. Clean with long waits between sets.
I’ve been wanting to sneak down to SC on a weekday for a while. Thursday I sent ou over a thousand pages of work to be proofed and reviewed by the client so Aaron and I took advantage of his “every other friday off” schedule and cruised on down.
The plan was to swing by Pleasure Point. I’ll admit, it looked good. At 9 there were already plenty of people on it. The hook was a little more open and the lines were looking pretty good. Jumped right in.
I had a lot of fun. While there were long waits, the waves were pretty nice. Rather than my usual cruise/nose riding attempts, I decided to practice making some swooping turns. Man it was fun. Plenty of dipping down, then sneaking back up high side. I nailed a pretty fun little floater too.
The big thing I took away from the day was realizing how much I’ve improved since the last time I surfed the hook. After a summer going left at Lindy, my cutback and my dipping on my rights is a lot stronger. I got a couple hoots and a “that wave looked competent” from Aaron. He did well himself, he’s totally getting signed.