Back up to speed

Spent the weekend in SC. There was a good swell over the weekend and I went out Saturday on the falling tide before the low tide crowd. I got some good waves using my new approach at John, and riding the Hess Pacheco. I doubt I could have made the waves I did if I was riding a mat, and I struggled to understand why. I think the reason is that having fins on a board allow me to abruptly convert speed in one direction to a different direction. This allows a quick pump half way down the face on the drop to project me into the first section with enough speed to make it. I think the mat can go that fast, but I can't get it up to speed fast enough.
Later that day I checked out the new shop Sawyer Land and Sea on the westside. I dug the casual, quality vibe of the place with polished wood and technical outdoor brands clothing. It's the kind of place you might buy an understated hoody that just happens to be windproof and "technical." I also realized I had met the owner before, back when I was working retail at Bugaboo. I like what she's doing with the shop, and my wife said she wanted the shop to be her living room, and wanted to buy everything in the store. She settled for one shirt and I left empty handed, but I hope to direct some of my limited disposable income to this shop in the future.
I didn't surf Saturday evening and instead had a nice dinner at Laili.
The next morning I checked the westside but decided to let JA and JB decide where to surf. They brought me down the the beaches and although we saw some good waves, only one good wave was ridden. It was 6-8' with a few bigger waves and mostly walled up. This made it difficult to ride and difficult to paddle through. I guess they like going there for the lack of crowds, but I can stomach a bit more crowd if it means much better waves. Also, I don't need to drive to SC to surf beachbreak.
Mid-day was spent at the UCSC arboretum looking at protea and other flowers. The wind was blowing hard already so I didn't need to check the surf at low tide, I knew it was ragged. I did recheck around 4pm and the wind was sideshore making it surfable, but it was smaller with a decent number of people surfing, so I didn't bother. Even if I didn't get waves at the beaches that morning, I did get plenty of exercise.
So that was the weekend. Had I been alone I would have spent more time sitting at the beach and would have gotten more waves. But relationships (friends and marriage) is about compromise now and then. Now I feel like I've given some, next time I'll surf more, and surf my waves.