Surf: 5.3 ft at 9.1 s from the WNW at 304°.
Still sloppy, but plenty fun this morning! Margit is back from her surf safari in central america. While I didn’t get too many details on the trips certain awesomeness, we did catch a ton of fun, silly waves in the sun. Nice morning. 🙂
Surf: 5.3 ft at 7.1 s from the WNW at 297°.
I get terribly spoiled by Santa Cruz. While it was more crowded, the rides were very long. Today was a little messy and the rides were shorter. It was still plenty fun (messy but fun will be a theme for a while.) Even with the slop, there were still some long rides to be squeezed out of the lemons. Wheeeeeeee.
Surf: 11.8 ft at 15.4 s from the NW at 306°. Incoming tide. Light winds.
Birthday surf is pretty much my favorite excuse to skip out on work and head to the beach. 😀
It was Chris’s birthday yesterday and unfortunately yesterday was full of meetings so today we got up very early and headed south to escape the local winds.
The surf in SC was pretty solid. It had a little texture on it from all the winds out in open water, but otherwise was running just a little bit overhead and lovely. I took my longboard hoping to get a few extra waves in and hoping I could sit further outside for maximum birthday hooting. Of course, I wound up doing what I always do and camping out wide of the peak to get the soft sets that miss first peak.
I got some funnn ones. Big ole longboard swooshes and swoops. What a blast. Everyone else got some nice ones, too! We were out there for about 3 1/2 hours. I was starving by the time we were done.
Headed to Paula’s for some seriously syrupy breakfast. That totally hit the spot. Grabbed a new wetsuit for Chris (finally!) before head headed back north.
Napped on the beach waiting for the tide to change. 😀
Surf: 5.9 ft at 9.1 s from the WNW at 306°.
We got a late start this morning. Winds were better and waves were significantly cleaner, but it’s the same old story of closeouts into shallow water.I’m really struggling. I know it’s been an ongoing cycle of me getting better, getting lots of waves, getting clobbered, then starting over at zero, but zero is still really frustrating!
Everything I got into, I dug a rail when it got steep, but most waves I just couldn’t get into. It felt like I was in a slow motion clip of awkwardness. Snarl.
Well I got one wave in at least. But sheesh, so demoralizing!
Surf: 8.2 ft at 16.0 s from the W at 279°. Outgoing tide to 2.77′. Light winds.
This morning was a little bit of a long shot. The incoming swell seemed like it would be a little jumped and, sure enough, it was.
Upside was there was something rideable out there and I got to put in some practice on my heelside turns in the smaller stuff. I got that squiggly speedpump I normally do going right to work going left. That’s exciting. It was pretty much the only way to get a decent ride without a longboard today.
Moved further north for some bigger waves. Got nada. Everything had lump and bumps I couldn’t get over, then pretty much slammed shut on top of itself. Oh well. Squiggle is a good start!
Surf: 3.9 ft at 11.4 s from the WNW at 291°. Low tide 2.3+. Light/offshore wind.
I hadn’t planned on surfing this morning, but went out anyway. Things were about what I expected, closed out with occasional size. I got some fun big drops followed by getting just wrecked by the inevitable closeout. One I accidentally got into a nice barrel stance before the hard stop. So much sand in my wetsuit, even with the hood on. Oh man. It came up my arms, up my legs. So much sand.
I would have liked a little more face on today’s waves, but it’s sunny and half decent. I’ll take it.
Surf: 2.0 ft at 5.0 s from the NW at 306°
Winds were up, swell was down. We skipped the boards and grabbed some swim fins instead. While the water was a little brisk, the morning was pretty fun. I got probably the longest ride yet and had the fun of actually getting a shoulder and riding it out rather than getting pounded by the shorebreak. Yeeeeheeeeew.
There was a lot of dolphin activity this morning too. One jumped out of the water just a little bit aways from us in maybe chest deep water. It was a little spooky, but pretty cool. They were churning up the water a bit and I decided to paddle further south to give them space.
I’m sure if we’d really hunter, we could have found something surfable, but in was a pretty fun morning anyway. 🙂
Surf: 5.6 ft at 10.0 s from the WNW at 294°. Slightly offshore.
Winds were light again this morning and the waves were looking fairly clean. There were plenty of closeouts, but all around, things were looking fun.
I got a few okay ones, but on one I just got swallowed by the wave on the inside. I haven’t had a wipeout like that in a while. I got clobbered, went over the falls a couple of times, bounced off the sand, and got drug for long than I would have liked. After that, I want back to being scaredy cat and didn’t get another waves. Sigh. Made some progress, lost some progress.
On the upside, I didn’t get clobbered by incoming waves, which is a nice change of pace.
Chris got some great ones.
I was a little chilly in my beat up old suit. It might finally be a “summer suit.” Poor thing. I might need to upgrade my backup before it really gets cold.
Surf: 5.9 ft at 8.3 s from the WNW at 284°. Light, occasionally offshore winds.
I’d written today off given how windy it was yesterday. Fortunately I woke up early and checked the winds. They looked reasonable (and almost favorable) so I headed out.
Things were a lot more organized, not too much cleaner, but fun! I’m getting a little better and getting into closeouts. After the big bad beatdown winter, I haven’t taken as many chances on waves. Some days all there is is drop and wash, so it’s been something I’ve been trying to get back into doing (as safely as possible.)
I got a few decent ones. I’m digging this whole snappiness thing. I don’t really know how to describe it, but since I can climb and drop faster, I feel like I’m getting a little more action in before the wave closes out and, when my timing is right) I’m getting in a good spot to straighten out when the wave finally closes out.
Maybe it’s my fear of snapping my longboard (or getting clobbered by it), but I don’t tend to climb when it’s on the more closed out side and I’m usually trying to figure out how to straighten out earlier or how to plow through a section using the weight of the board to get the last little bit out of the wave.
While I won’t say one is better than the other (I was totally jealous watching Chris grab the outside waves I couldn’t get into), it’s certainly been fun learning something new.
Surf: 5.3 ft at 7.1 s from the WNW at 282°. Windy.
Took a shot on this morning knowing the would would be howling both close to shore and out on open water. While it was a sloppy mixed up mess, it was actually surprisingly fun. There were some racy little scraps that lined up. I got a few rights that went pretty well. Fast, lots of quick squiggly turns. Crazy. Not sure if I’m stoked because my expectations were so low they were greatly exceeded or because I feel like being able to make terrible slop work with this board might mean I’m starting to figure it out.
Totally stoked on my orange fish. 😀
