Tag: california

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Birthday surf

2013-MT-08-16

Surf: 3.3 ft at 10.0 s from the NW at 305°. High tide. No wind.

That’s the Montara I remember. Glassy, shoulder high, and fun. Yeah there’s the big closeouts, but woooohhhhoooo that was fun. What a great birthday surf. 😀

I took out my steep wave longboard. I’m sick and I figured the bigger board would help keep me floating when out of breath and coughing up a storm. Thankfully I avoided getting clobbered and instead got some plenty fun drops and a few long ones.

There was sun, fog, dolphins, sea lions, jellies and most importantly, waves. All around fun fun birthday surf. 😀

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Junky

2013-MT-08-14

Surf: 0.7 ft at 10.0 s from the WSW at 304° but very mixed, lots of wind.

After yesterday’s fun surf, today’s junky waves were a little bit of a let down.

Another challenge was a dude who wasn’t exactly looking before he’d paddle for a wave, take off right on top of me or other people, then blow the wave and shoot his board and yet even more people. Uff. I was tempted to say something. When it’s this junky, there’s no peak and it’s easy to not see where others are sitting on your inside. It’s really important to be aware because no one wants to be that jerk that injures someone on a lousy 2 ft day. I couldn’t quite find the right words so I tried to exercise some patience and paddle to another peak. The problem was, the dude followed. I appreciate all the slack people have cut my ridiculously kooky self over the years, but there’s a fine line between cutting slack and letting someone continue to do something dangerous. I’ve certainly had other people call me out when I was doing something dangerous. Yeah it’s embarrassing, but better than someone getting hurt.

Oh well.

Moving to yet another peak, I was able to get a few waves and forget about the other group.

I had some amazing faceplants on my fish. Ha. I kept slipping my front foot and plowing right into the wave. Got a few longer ones, but MAN it’s hard to connect all the little bits when it’s this junky. Made it around some sections, that’s a plus.

I miss clean waves!

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Kinda decent!

2013-MT-08-13

Surf: 3.0 ft at 6.7 s from the NW at 306°.

I had pretty low expectations for the morning. It sounded windy, it sounded like crazy short period, but all around it wound up okay-ish. I took out my 7’0, but could have done okay on my fish. Got around some sections, got some nice long ones. Bogged a few turns, but not bad.

One of the guys asked if I’d seen the dolphins go by. I said no. He said really, they went RIGHT past you in the wave. Bummed that I missed a wave full of dolphins, I went back to paddling around. A few waves later, sure enough, that wave was full of dolphins. Rad!

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Cross stepping success! :D

2013-BO-08-11

Surf: 3.0 ft at 10.8 s from the NW at 310°. Incoming tide. Sideshore wind.

I’ve neglected Bo this year. The forecast has been so small or the winds so high that I haven’t felt like making the haul.

A couple of the girls wanted to give it a shot and needed a drive, so I agreed, despite the feeling that it might be flat.

Thankfully, there was a bit of a wave at the patch that was perfect for my longboard practice (peeling, nice little wall, super low consequence but not total mush.) Plus sunshine, so much sunshine. Wow.

The big highlight of the day was actually completing a full cross step up the board (4 whole steps!) without falling on my face. The waves were a little short so I didn’t get to walk back to center before I ran out of water, but it’s a huge improvement. I’ve never been able to get the second step in without losing my balance.

I’m super stoked!

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Saturday

2013-LM-08-10

Surf: 3.0 ft at 11.4 s from the W at 269°

Got roped in to some weekend surf. Larger than expected (the photo doesn’t do it justice), but pretty fun for closeouts. I took the longboard and tried to work on my lessons. It’s so hard to try and work on a move when the waves are just slamming shut.

Saw a few friends I haven’t seen in a while, that was pretty cool. Watched a couple gals cross stepping all over the place (which of course made me feel like I should be able to get at least ONE step in, right?)

There was a lot of seaweed and flotsam in the surf. While grabbing a post-surf snack, I went to take down my hair and a huge clump of seaweed fell out of my hair and went SPLAT on the floor of Starbucks. I thought the woman next to me was going to have a heart attack. Whoops.

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Slightly more swell

2013-OBP-08-09

Surf: 2.3 ft at 14.8 s from 286° plus a 2.0 ft at 13.8 s from 221°. Moderate wind. Incoming tide.

More swell, but more chop. Then both MORE swell and more chop. Holy crap the more swell.

Here’s me, minding my own business trying to make something out of chest high funky waves when suddenly OMG that’s a much much bigger set. AAAAA paddle for my life. I’m pretty sure Ocean Beach loves to do that to me. Especially if I’ve just blown taking off on the first wave of the set and the next three are snarling. I’m assuming it’s the two long-ish period swells overlapping. Perhaps a couple sets both hit at just the right time to turn little slop into pissed off sets. Ooof. It’s been a long time since I had to walk though my whole “this is going to suck” headgame. I have to say, I kinda freaked out a lil. Sigh.

I did manage to sneak a little fun. I got a couple of long ones. I worked on my swooping quad turns. Fun fun.

Highlight of the day: a whole pod of dolphins when past Chris and Brien inside a wave. I was further out, so I only saw 3 fins surface just in front of Chris’s board. Amazing.

2013-OBK-08-09

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Still no swell

2013-OBK-08-08a

Surf: 2.0 ft at 14.8 s from the SSW at 195°. Incoming tide. Light winds.

Not much happening on the surf front, but met up with a good crew of people up for goofing off in the water. Handplanes, boogie boards, longboards, fat flat shortboards. We had all the bases covered.

Occasionally you could kind of stretch out a closeout into something a little fun, but for the most part, it was all goofing off stoke, party waves, and good times.

Managed to fit both my longboards in the car too. How about that.

Screen Shot 2013-08-08 at 10.54.14 AM

2013-OBK-08-08b

2013-OBK-08-08c

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No swell

2013-MT-08-06

Surf: 2.3 ft at 14.8 s from the S at 181°. Low tide.

The swell was too small and too sharply south to really do anything up here today. Linda Mar was unsurfably flat. Montara had a little bit of wave, but plenty of jumble and close out.

Thankfully, there were occasionally bits and pieces that held up, either for a long ride or for a swooping drop and a hint of a turn before closing out.

I tried to work a little on my step, but as the waves alternated between steep closeout and mush, it was hard to really get a good first step in.

I keep crossing my fingers we’ll get those glassy rolling summer days, but sadly it’s all wind and wrong swells.

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Ladies surf day

2013-38-08-03

Surf: 2.3 ft at 16.7 s from the SW at 216°. Sideshore winds.

Back to Santa Cruz to meet up with a group of ladies. Nice folks. 🙂

Surf was okay. It was windy and crowded, but I got a few in on my hull. I’d been wanting to test out the new fin in SC.

I think it worked pretty well. I’m not any further on my “be able to articulate the differences between equipment” plan. I felt like I had to keep swooping in order to go down the line, rather than the board just going, but it was much tighter of a turn than usual. One of my best waves was also loud. Sheesh. What is the board doing back there?

With the crowd, it was pretty hard to try and test out the things I learned with Ashley. I wasn’t even trying to cut back (since every wave was a party wave.) One wave a guy was like “you can cut back! go! cut back!” so I tried to remember to lead with my shoulders, all of that.

Caught a movie afterwards:

IMG_1542

Bedtime. I’m totally beat from all the paddling and positioning. Looking forward to sleeping in.

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Afternoon wave

2013-HK-008-03
^This is actually from 8/3, but the conditions and crowd were about the same.

Surf: 2.3 ft at 15.4 s from the SSW at 196°. Incoming tide.

After lunch and picking up Beamer’s van from summer camp, we headed out for a few more waves.

It was crazy crowded out there. We opted for the hook to get some shortboard time in, but the place was pretty mobbed. I watched a crew of guys get wave after wave. It was kind of nice to watch the good loggers do their thing after my class this morning. Okay, there’s the left-go-right drop. Okay, now he’s right in the pocket and stepping up.

While that’s great for thinking, it was tough for actually surfing. I got a few short mushy waves that went wide, but everything else I had to pull out of to let a logger through.

Finally one of the older guys called me in to one. Wooooo. It was little, but just right for me to zip zip zip on the fish. I got around a section, I did a little bitty floater. It was enough to make it worth sticking around for the extra session. After that I bellied in and headed home.