Surf: 4ft @ 6s from WNW at 299°, light winds.
More windswell, but with low expectations, sunshine, and a few inconsistent sets, it turned out to be a nice little morning.
Little bit of softness mixed with a little bit of steepness.
The shift change was pretty amazing. Went from sunshine and a handful of longboarders, to foggy and a good sized crowd of shortboarders.
Surf: 6ft @ 9s from the NW at 308°, light wind.
Nice to come home to fun, fair waves after a few weeks of travel. Sure, there were plenty of those familiar mush bombs and close outs, but friendly folks and sunshine (and those one or two fun waves that held up) made it a lovely morning.
Also nice, got a few kind words from someone who’d read this little surf journal. It means a lot to hear folks are reading. I’ve gona back and forth with wether or not to keep this site going. It was originally a way to share my surf photos with my very tech savvy grandmother and a fun way to learn css and php. It’ll admit, it’s a little embarrassing sometimes and I occasionally have trouble keeping up with my surfing habit. Still, it’s nice to scroll through pictures of surfy days.
For the handful of folks that do read my little site, is there anything you’d like to hear more about? or anything you’d like to see done differently?
Thanks! 😀
Surf: Ankle to knee high. Glassy.
The roaring north winds finally backed off and the remains of the storm swell were actually looking a little bit fun. Without a surfboard I boogied boarded around for a while before a neighbor offered up his board.
I was pretty excited, it looked like one of the sandbars might still be working, but things quickly fizzled. I spent the next hour horribly kooking up in the small shallow shorebreak. Man, it was embarrassing. Sigh.
What a rough summer. I feel like I can barely surf at all anymore. I really hope to get back into a groove before fall.
Surf: Waist – Chest high. Disorganized. Warm!
A storm swept through during my first few days back home on the lake. I watched the mid-lake buoy jump from around a foot or two to finally max out at 13ft at 9s. Naturally, I didn’t want anything to do with that kind of ridiculousness.
Wes got a photo of some of those waves hitting the breakwall in the city:
Cool to look at, but after last years pummeling I was happy on land.
When things calmed down a little, Wes and I picked up some boogie boards and goofed off in the shorebreak. Yes, we have life vests on. The rip currents on the lake are fierce and with mom worrying on shore, I was happy to wear one. Plus it’s an extra layer of padding when you slam into the very shallow sandbar. I got a mouth full of sand after skidding along the bottom. Plech.
Water’s warm. About 80°F 😀
Surf: 2.3 ft at 13.8 s from SSW at 242° Low tide. West wind. Messy, barely breaking.
One of those “all forecasts and buoy readings suggest marginal to no surf but let’s go looking anyway” mornings. Checked a few spots. With the low tide, wind, and mix of tiny short period NW swell and tiny medium period SSW swell there wasn’t much on offer.
Thankfully it was better in the water than it looked from the cliff, but it was still pretty not great out there. Things were rideable and I got a few that were fun, but it was mostly a game of dodging shallow draining closeouts just to get a second or two of face time.
I’ve also been surfing just terribly, which didn’t help. I blew plenty of waves. I’m not sure if I’ve just forgotten how to surf a longboard, or it’s conditions, or summer funk. I did manage to make myself laugh pretty hard by falling a way I’d never fallen before: I had my tail pretty solidly in the curl and was trying to walk up. The thing was the wave was pretty much just breaking on the tail and the board was bouncing like crazy. I got bucked forward and towards the shore like a springboard diver. Splosh. Ah, summer.
Surf: Thigh to Waist+, poorly organized. Light to breezy sideshore wind. Low Tide. 5.3 ft at 7.1 s from NW 309°
Shuffling into the low tide shallows I saw a big ole orange and purple crab. It scuttled off pretty quick.
The surf was better than Sunday, but still not so hot. I got a decent wave and a handful of drop and washy waves, but nothing great. Lately I’ve been feeling like I’m surfing terribly. I’d love to blame it on conditions, but I dunno. I’ve been blowing quite a few waves on the take off, missing waves…it’s a little discouraging.
After splashing around a while, I took one in. While bellying the last bit into shore, I saw what was probably the same orange and purple crab shifting around. Dude was probably spending the morning bodysurfing.
}-(^_^)-{
Surf: 5.3 ft at 7.1 s from the NW at 318° Light winds. Low incoming tide.
While slightly cleaner than a few other spots we checked, this particular breaking wave was still offering up plenty of short period shiftiness. It seems like lately it’s all been short period shiftiness. 12s would seem pretty nice right about now. The churning inside felt like winter, the disorganized outside was summer for sure.
With the low tide and the nearly overlapping waves, it was a bit more work than our usual haunts. All and all worth it to snag a few chest and occasional shoulder high waves with a surfable bit of shoulder. I’ve spent so much time on my little boards in little waves that I’d forgotten how much lean I needed to make a solid bottom turn on my 9’4 in slightly bigger surf. I got some pretty fun ones, but those were some wide wide drops! Ha!
Surf: 3.6 ft at 8.3 s from the NW at 314° High incoming tide. Strong W winds.
This surf session had a few strikes against it from the get go. It was a weekend and it was windy. I’d hunkered down to do chores around the house and other less than exciting things when Blam suggested surfing. He was only back in town a few days, so I gave it a go.
The surf was waist to shoulder high with a mutant-esque bucking crumbling shape that was less than inspiring. I managed to squeeze two pretty fun, good-sized waves out of those lemons so I went home happy enough. Always good when your “wave in” takes you all the way to the beach.
Surf: 3.6 ft at 12.9 s from the SSW at 196° No wind. Outgoing high tide.
With a high tide and almost no swell in the water, I brought low expectations and a big ole board. Driving down the coast, almost everything was flat. Flat flat flat. Flat and crowded. Flat. Kinda breaking. Flat. Windy and barely breaking. We went back to Kinda breaking.
Sure it was thigh, maybe waist high, but it actually wasn’t bad. I got a few really fun ones off the bat that held up. Then I started kooking things up, terribly. I blew a few waves, got a few closeouts. I gotta remember to give my big boards some water time so I don’t forget how to surf them! Finally got a redeeming wave all the way into shore. Little bit of sun rounded the morning out to be kinda decent. 🙂
Surf: 4.9 feet @ 10 seconds. NW (326°) Light winds. Low tide.
Decent little morning. With the low and still falling tide, I didn’t have a lot of hope for good waves. We were joined by a coworker on a project I’ve been working on, so we opted to just paddle out rather than drag him around all morning hunting for something slightly better.
My first wave right off the bat was super fun. I got a clean peeling right that held up all the way. I got some swooshing turns, a little cutback like thing, fun fun. About halfway through my ride I heard THWACK. Looked around, didn’t see anything. I wrapped up my wave and looked around some more. Chris was standing in waist deep water holding a leash with no board. Leash string broke and the THWACK I heard was his log hopping its way into shore. After some minor repairs, all good to go.
A gal in the lineup commented that I had a nice popup and that I made it look so effortless. Aww. Stoked to hear that. I have a hard time with compliments surfing. For the longest time I thought people were saying “good wave!” because I was kooking so hard out there they wanted to offer encouragement. Either way, it’s always nice to hear some good comments from friendly folks. 🙂
The rest of the session was all over the place. As Chris said, it was quite the sampling of Linda Mar: clean peeling waves, whomping closeouts, sun, fog, sometimes crowded, sometimes not, sometimes current, sometimes not… The rest of my waves were drop and wash but still fun enough.
