Surf: 7.9 ft at 12.1 s from WNW at 287°
Yay cold water! Yay carpooling!
My car spent my mexico trip camping out in a safe place while I was off getting melted in the sun.
While the waves were just okay at best, it was really nice to be back in cold water. Sure 90° water SOUNDS nice, but in the hot Mexico sun, it’s brutal. 55° water is just what I needed to recover.
Photo by Brien
Surf: 3.6 ft at 13.8 s from WNW at 294°
Yeeeeeew. I got a new board!!!
A 6’10 Andreini Vaquero came up used at Mollusk. I’ve been drooling over these boards for a while and extra drooling since I tried out Mike’s Vaquero a few weeks ago.
Yeah, in the land of beachbreaks, it’s not that practical but man is it fun. Paddles easy. I got into waves right off the bat (which I wasn’t expecting AT all) and it did some fun swishy things to get around sections on the inside. Coming from a longboard and singlefin background, the board feels good. I only got one frontside wave to really feel the slide these boards have, but so far so good.
I’m taking this board to Mexico. I bet it’s gonna be fun in those right hand point breaks. 😀
Surf: 4.3 ft at 10.0 s from NW at 317°
Little better than yesterday, but still mixed up. Nice weather.
Surf: 4.6 ft at 10.0 s from NW at 308°
Windy, waist high and closed out. Ehh. I’m still grumbling about how I’ve been surfing like crap lately. Oh well, sunshine.
Surf: 4.3 ft at 16.0 s from the S at 182°
Ran into Jessie in the parking lot. Always nice to put a name to the face. 🙂
Caught a few mid-north, but there was a bit of a crowd and north north was looking a little interesting. Watched Jesse get a few, watched a bodysurfer get a really nice long one yeeeeew. But other than that, the waves were a little funky. There are days when it seems the waves are ONLY breaking in the rip. It’s weird.
Ahh well, sunshine!
Surf: 5.9 ft at 13.8 s from WNW at 292° SLight texture and wind.
Went hunting for some waves. The usual spot was crowded and uninspiring. The second usual spot was big and mean. Another spot was warped and weird, but the last spot on the hunt seemed okay. It seemed a little large, but workable with a few folks out.
By the time we’d suited up, everyone else had gone in and the waves had come up. I’m not quite in shape for this kind of stuff yet. My first attempt paddling out, I got tossed pretty good trying to get through a closeout. I’m not sure what happened, but I couldn’t catch my breath. I had to dive the next two waves without a good lungful of air. As the fourth wave approached, I called for a do-over and bellied in.
Huffing and puffing and coughing up water on the shore, I briefly though going back to uninspiring usual spots might be worth the wet car ride of shame. Chris seemed to be doing fine, so I put my fears aside and paddled back out.
I got one good, fast ride down the line into closeout city. BOOM. The rest of the time I spent dodging outside waves and bailing out of other waves like a big ole chicken.
Saw a guy get a really nice hollow one as I was getting out (or rather, struggling to get to the beach on the inside), but as soon as we’d packed up the gear all the other folks were gone too.
I think I need to hit the gym a little before heading back out in conditions like that again.
Surf: 6.9 ft at 10.0 s from NW at 296°
I hit the beach early to borrow Mike’s 8’7 Vaquero. I’ve been wanting to try a hull for a while, but hadn’t been able to get the stars to align to be at the beach on the right day when a friend had theirs for me to try.
It was pretty fun. The board paddled as easy as my 9’4 and cutback smoothly. As it was crowded (and I was worried about dinging Mike’s board) I got mostly short waves. I managed few longer ones where I could see more of the swoosh factor in action. I’d probably need to change up my stance to surf something like this regularly. I’m a little too…braced for impact. I’m digging in when I should be squiggling.
When Mike was packing up, Chris said he was on his way, so I hung out in the lot a while. A dude in the lot was teasing me for taking pics of the meh surf and offered to take a picture of me instead.
Eventually Chris showed up and I took out my 7′ to pick up inside waves as the crowd thinned. I got a few slow ones, nothing fancy. We moved to a larger area of the beach, but I was too tired to get anything decent. After 4 hours of surfing, I opted to belly one in and finally get to work.
Surf: 8.9 ft at 17.4 s from the W at 280°
Folks had been hyping this swell all week. I get that people are swell starved, but man, people were frothing. I had a suspicion it would be big, but rough around the edges. Reports were bouncing from 6ft to 14ft to 8ft… I figured Chris and I would check out our usual big day spot and if it was too snarly, get donuts and hit work early.
It wasn’t epic by any stretch, but it was rideable. Things were raw and a little ragged, but I still got a few really fun ones. There was the occasional cleanup set that was a good reminder the seasons are changing.
Kinda weird thing, even tho I got some decent ones, I was getting really frustrated. Ugh. Not sure if it was the crowd or conditions making me edgy. Ahh well.
Surf: 4.3 ft at 8.3 s from NW at 305°
Andrew was looking for some water time this weekend. Bolinas sounded like it was barely breaking so we tried Lindy. As usual, it was crowded and closed out. There was plenty of whitewater for him to practice on, but only a few shoulders here and there for me to grab. I got a couple closed out waves and spent the rest of the time bellying around, cheering Andrew on.
Surf: 3ft @ 8s from NW 311° with a little bit of south in there maybe? Incoming tide. Calm winds.
I’ve spent the last few months swooshing little waves on my longboard. It’s been fun. I like riding a board I know and there’s plenty to learn on my log.
With fall coming, I figured I’d take a break from my old standby and get a workout in taking my 7’4 out. I figured it would be rough. I haven’t taken that board out in a while. Sure enough, I struggled trying to get into waves. I blew a few takeoffs. Timing off, positioning off, paddle strength off. Uff.
Around the time when I was accepting that I was going to get skunked, I finally got a wave. It was a smooth, peaky, shoulder high wave. I got two cruisey turns before casually kicking out at the end. That one wave made the whole session for me. I didn’t get a single wave after, but I still left stoked. That’s the largest wave I’ve gotten on that board so far and one where I felt pretty comfortable.
