Tag: dawn patrol

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Vaquero

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.

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Raw Fall Swell

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.

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One Wave

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.

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Clean Lefts

Surf: 4ft @ 10s from NW at 318° Calm.

Caught a few lovely later-shift waves this morning. The crowd was focused on a little stretch of fairly log-like waves, but Chris and I headed North for another peak. We found a nice bunch of clean, mellow waist high peeling waves.

Our quiet spot soon attracted attention and a small crowd formed. A group of guys camped out right infront of me on the inside. I heard one of them say: “Are you sure we should sit here? That girl is getting like, every wave and we’re totally in her way.” My first thought was “well yeah, you _are_ totally in my way” but feeling generous, I decided to wait a set out. One they got a couple, everyone shifted around nicely and folks were sharing waves peacefully with minimal drop ins and chaos.

I spent some time working on sneaking up the nose. Nice to have some smooth waves again. 🙂

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Buffet Style

Surf: 5ft @ 8s from NW at 307°

Nice little morning sampling various breaking waves along to beach. Also nice to see lots of folks I haven’t in a while, usually because they headed to Ocean Beach or I headed to Montara on the small summer days. Little bit glassy with plenty of mush on the incoming tide (plus plenty of closeouts as per usual), BUT plenty of actual waves too.

I got a few swoopy little squiggly waves and one mostly hilarious cutback. I put so much rail in I was nearly laying flat on my back. Just when I thought “I _might_ make this turn!” I blew it trying to come back around. So close!

Towards the end of the session, I was furiously trying to paddle back out for one more. Things were starting to get a little more mixed up and I Was huffing and puffing. After about 10 minutes of paddling and making no progress, I heard HEY! Brien had swam out to me to let me know he and Chris were going on. I sheepishly turned around and bellied in. Gotta get back into paddle shape before winter.

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Pickup

Surf: 4ft @ 9s from NW at 304°

The morning started out pretty soft and slow, but eventually picked up a tad. I got a handful of fun long rides, then spent the rest of the morning waiting. Things went from soft to steep and shallow as the tide changed.

Pretty spectacular scenery, a flock of seagulls, and a swarm of jellyfish.

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Choptara


Photo by Brien

Surf: 4ft @ 8s from NW at 305°

Oh man. Crowded, windy, choppy and sloppy. But somehow, still rideable. I think every desperado for miles wound up at the same stretch of beach this morning. When the crowd finally left, I managed to get a few barely passable waves before heading off to work.

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Shortboard Shift Change

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.

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Back in California

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! 😀

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Kookup

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.