Noriega, day 1

I headed south before dawn today on a misguided mission. As I looked at the reef in the 5:00 darkness I realized that this spot doesn't like the negative tide. I headed into town for the spot that Does like that tide and the south that was here, but there wasn't enough swell. I futzed around town, considered going rock climbing, but ended up surfing. I went out to Scotts, which isn't a south swell spot. It was high tide and the waves were 4' and the reminded me of sewers. Peaky bowls with the rare wall but mostly technical drops into zero shoulders.
The board felt good under me. It has float between the wheelwright and buttons so I could chase waves but still do a decent duckdive. I think it will work for me, but I have work to do too. I could feel that I'm weak and couldn't paddle continuously for very long. I thought about which gym exercises I'll do to strengthen for surfing. Let's see if that really happens.
I know I'll appreciate it if I do, and regret it if I don't.

Making space

I got the Wheelwright sold, I'm giving away the kneeboard, and I'm still trying to sell the Buttons. All this is an effort to clear out the closet a bit and refocus my surfing efforts to those boards I regularly ride, and add one to fill in a gap. If I'm going to continue to surf OB throughout the year, then I need to add a board that paddles better than my Pacheco, but still duck-dives well. And it should have a narrower tail while I'm at it. There are days out at OB that are big, but not scary big, just exciting big. I've tried the Haut2 but didn't have the paddle to stay in position, let alone get to the peak. I tried the Buttons is the same situation and had the same problem.
So, as I'm writting this I go over to the Hess blog to link a picture of a Noriega, which is a board I think would fit this gap, and here's what I find. "Monday, July 25, 2011Personal Noriega semi-gun For sale" WTF? It's kismet for sure! I already sent the "I'll take it!" email, let's hope that nobody already offered him for it, since it was first posted 5 hours ago.

Jetty Memories Session

Last week I had work on the coast and kept an eye on conditions. It was more than breezy but not blown out. There was a south swell in the water. I called JZ and his suggestion was the Jetty. It's been a very, very long time since I've surfed there. That was the first place I rode waves when I was in 5th grade (or there-abouts) just riding whitewater strait into the sand. The beach has changed with sand migrating out and no harbor dredging replenishing it. Even so it still has days when the rebound wedge is working and it's surfable. This was one of those days and even though there were 10 people in the water, I still figured I'd get some waves. I caught several, and JZ even shared a peak with me that was my best wave of the day. My balance at the take-off tipped me so that my shoulder was right in the pocket, kinda stuck in that position as the wave reeled along and my board kept pace. It felt good. It ended up being a relativly short session, but with better waves than I've ridden in awhile and playfull fun. I rode the Pacheco and it felt fine, despite still only having basecoat wax on it. JZ gave me a few scraps of sticky wax so hopefully the next session will be solid.
Forecast for this weekend doesn't look too good.

Double-dip = 1/2 Session

Last Saturday I got up at 3:15AM to arrive at Ona before first light. Waxed up the new board and followed Darrel down the beach. He and I surfed for an hour or two with no other takers. I got one sorta good wave and a lot of typical Ona crapa. I headed into Davenport and had a wonderfull breakfast and enough coffee to motivate me for a second session. At 10AM the north coast was still clean and I jumped on the first surfable spot I found, which was the rights at the south end of Davenport Landing. What I saw from the beach was peaky/bowls with some long walls to run and nobody out. What I saw from the water was shifty sucking ledges with steps coming up the face on the take-off. A few near freefall drops with no shoulders to run, but mostly paddling back and forth, in and out and never landing a winner.
I think I've cured myself of the dawn at Ona tendancy. I think nobody else came because there were waves at all the other spots. I expected wind but instead it was clean. I think the call would have been Waddell Reefs...

Pacheco

I almost drove out to the beach this morning for a surf, even though the conditions are bad up here. On the surf report webpage there was a link to a report on the carbon footprint of surfing. As I know, driving to the beach is the largest CO2 emitting action surfers take. I decided to save my CO2 for a day with better chances of being fun. I was considering biking to work to offset my "surfing carbon", but got lazy and ran out of time and went to my car. It wouldn't start, so I biked to work anyway! Being a scientist with an atmospheric background I feel guilt for being wasteful in any way because I know how these things contribute to the problems our society has. It gets to the point that I feel guilty about everything, then I snap and feel no guilt and the process starts over again.

I picked up the new Hess Pacheco a few weekends ago. The surf that day was going from bad to worse and by the time I picked up the board there was no way I was surfing. The next weekend I had plans with the wife and, even though we went to Santa Cruz, I did not surf. It's getting to the point that I need to just get wet, and with no signs of improvement in the forecast, that may be just what I do. Now, thinking about the CO2 footprint and all that, and since I only biked to work twice this week (not enough to offset the trip to the beach) I'm considering trying for the bus to beach again.

The photo is the new Pacheco on the left and the Quintara on the right. I think the aged and sun-darkened Quintara looks nicer than the fresh Pacheco. This photo also shows the difference in the templates very well. In person, at a more perpendicular angle the Pacheco looks like the wide point is forward of center and the Quintara looks like the wide point is back from center.

I pulled out my fin collection and found some interesting things. First, the original Haut fins are different than what I had on the Haut2. The front fins were similar, but the rear fins of the Haut were smaller, and set and the back of the box as compared to the Haut2.

When I bought the Quintara, the guy gave me two sets of fins. The ones that came with the board are more similar to the Haut fins, but the other set that I used are more similar to the Haut2 fins. I've decided that I'm going with the smaller rear set on both Hess boards and I'll see how they feel. (I probably can't tell the difference!)

What I need (and have needed for a long time) is a week of surfing where I can surf more than 2 hours in a day and really get the feeling of surfing again. It's been too long with marginal waves and short rides. Working in Berkeley inhibits surfing good waves.