A good one

I did some gardening and some surfboard repair on Saturday. The repair was frustraiting because I was distracted, uncovering more problems as I went, and generally not into it. But still, progress was made. 

Sunday was the surf day and we made a good choice. Although the swell peaked on Saturday, the north coast was windy. Sunday dawn still had plenty of waves and no wind. We surfed Tres mile on the high side of the tide. Dealing with some backwash and shorter period swell, but still something to work with. I got my share of waves and so did JB. All around a good session. 

Afterwards I went and paid $60 for a Royalex hull. Someone had stripped everything off the hull, the gunwales, decks, thwarts and seats. The guy who had it never got around to buying any of the replacement parts and had given up on the project. I took it on and my plan is to go with vinyl gunwales and repairing the old seats I have. I'll make the decks myself out of wood, but I'll need to buy thwarts because I don't have any hardwood on hand. The first task is sourcing the gunwales and getting them shipped for something less than $300! 

 Edit: I had to come back to this. Later on Monday my legs were feeling tired and I banged them a little with my fists to loosen up the muscle. Instead, my thighs threatened to cramp. This reminded me of the most noteworthy part of my session, bottom-turns. I had a few kinda late drops on overhead waves. On those, my legs didn't respond like I wanted them to. They are too weak and the extension during the end of the bottom turn was delayed as my legs waited for the g-forces to lessen. I remember this feeling from many, many years ago when I had a 7'4" min-gun and I was first riding shortboards and big waves. Longboarding small waves never tested my legs and I was suddenly feeling to weak to do what needed to be done. Every once in awhile I get compressed on a drop, but yesterday it was nearly every wave. So I am once again doing more squats during breaks from the computer.

Continued slight improvements

Same spot, again slightly smaller. This time I wised up and went out on my 6'8", which allowed me a few early take-offs. Those I got in early on were fun, but both times I ran into the back end of an inside section and flopped into the water. Then most of the rest of the session was spent trying to read the crossing chop, boils, and shifty take-off spots out there. Although it was smaller than the smaller last time, I was still dodging the occasional outside set. I think it became more of a problem as the tide dropped, and the take-off zone shifted to be more difficult. I think. I don't really know because although there isn't much current, there is a lot going on out there. Things are shifting around and popping up. A wave looks like it will crush me, but then I can't even catch it. It's a challenge and a fun one.

I think I'll even go back tomorrow for a mid-week surf!

Unremarkable

This weekend's surf was mostly unremarkable, but I'll try my best to make it interesting. The wind forecast didn't look good for either day so JB and I picked the window that looked like it had the best chance to be clean; Saturday at dawn. I arrived at first light and it was cold, but not frosty cold. We've had a relatively warm winter up until this weekend, and the cold air gave us the first taste of what winter should be. The cold air had me moving slowly, and the buoys read about 10ft at 11sec from steeply north of 315. We didn't know what to expect so we walked the trail in the dark to go see what tresmile was doing. When we got there a set hit and it didn't look bad. Not as big as we'd been surfing it, but not small either. An in-between size that looked good enough here, and would probably be bigger than we wanted if we went north. The tide had just peaked and was going to be dropping that morning, so things would improve.

We walked back to the car to grab gear to bring down and suit up at our usual spot. The daylight was filling in. Moving about after the long drive was warming up my body. This day I had given up on the 7'5" and didn't see the need for the Channin, so I had the 6'8" with me. JB asked, "Is that your tresmile board." to which I relied, yeah, and it works great at some other spots too. Walking down the sand we saw our path was getting regularly washed over with waves, but not wanting to leave stuff where it's easily accessed, we put on our wetsuits from the sand, but walked our bags over to the hiding spot. Waves were washing over the jump spot in a menacing way, so we both took extra care waiting for a break in the waves. I still got hit by a wave in the channel, but not bad. Just enough to get a wet chill!

We were the only ones around and JB noted that it was hard to pick the takeoff spot because we both had been surfing it at the limit recently, sitting way off the edge of the reef. We each got a wave that looked good but died in the channel. We spent the morning chasing waves back and forth between the inside bowls, the inside reef, and the outside reef. Others joined us one-by-one, but the waves weren't very good. Good enough to stay out, but I figure those watching from the cliff were taking there time hoping conditions would improve.

Eventually JB and I had had enough. I got bored of chasing after waves only to be disappointed with what they were. We took waves in and called it a day. A thought lingered about whether using a surfmat and catching a big one off the top of the reef would work. That wave is hard to drop in on, then just rolls along for awhile before doing who-knows-what when it hits the inside reef. I think it could be fun, and might give it a try one of these days.

I wasn't tired from the session, and the day was shaping up to be pretty nice. I hung around town for a bit but couldn't think of anything to do. I decided to drive home over the coast route and look at some spots. The wind was coming up just a little and nothing looked very good. I realized we probably made the best choice of where/when we surfed.

I've had the 7'5" up on craig's website for a few weeks now. Besides a flurry of interest by 4 people all in two days, I've heard nothing. All those guys found other boards to buy. There have been a good series of boards available, and most of them for less $. I'm slowly lowering the price I'm asking, and being patient. But I've told myself I won't order the next board until I have this one sold, so it's hard to be patient.

Holiday Waves

It is a tradition that the ocean has been keeping for there to be a good swell and perfect weather for Thanksgiving. Unlike our family, the ocean was able to keep this tradition despite the pandemic gripping our country and most of the world. Because 2/3 of our family has the entire week off, I also planned for a week long vacation at my parents cottage in Santa Cruz. The swell and weather was forecast to arrive, and in my stoke I brought 6 different surfboards with me.

Sunday the conditions weren't great, but I rushed up the coast and forced 4 waves in poor conditions. The weather was warm and I haven't been out in awhile, so I was happy for what I got. Monday was a family day that ended with me checking in on my work projects to find others hadn't done what was needed by the time it was needed. My stress level went way up and I frantically typed away on the borrowed laptop trying to deal with the situation. Tuesday was spent working at a makeshift "desk" that was a kitchen counter and sitting on a footstool ladder.  Wednesday morning I went to go look only to find even my garbage surf spot was crowded. I headed up the coast but it was mid-morning, a bit junky with mix swell, and surprisingly crowded. By mid-day Wednesday I was burnt out and the swell was filling in. I went to my garbage spot and snagged two small waves among the crowd.

Thursday, Thanksgiving, the peak of the swell and great weather. What I thought was crowded the days before now looked great in hindsight. People everywhere. I felt fine not trying to surf and instead took my son for a beach day adventure (which was also me scoping out a somewhat hidden beach during the swell). The weather was great and when we first arrived the beach was mostly empty. We walked the sand, checked a few tide-pools, watched the waves hit the rocks at the south end, and played in the little creek at the other end. I was watching the waves and thinking how I could take advantage. It didn't look great, but with the right approach waves could be ridden. As the day went along and the tide dropped, I swore I saw something cranking along the inside. One wave looked kinda good. Then later another one in the same spot. Then another. Then a grizzly guy with a shortboard showed up and it looked like he was watching that wave. I'm pretty sure he was, but my son and I had been in the sun for a few hours and I was getting hungry, so we headed back to the car. Just as we were driving away two more shortboards were heading down the path. Hmmmm....

On the way home I drove along west cliff. It wasn't very big because the angle had too much north, but the tide was low and the weather was great. It was crowded, but I didn't stop because I wasn't there to surf, just to see what's what. Middle Peak had overhead waves and a ton of people. The angle wasn't sending very much down the cliff, with almost nothing left at the statue.

Friday JB and I agreed to go to tres mi at the top of the tide. The tide was too high and the swell was dropping, so we figured that would keep the crowd to a minimum. We were right, and we were the only ones out. High tide is really bumpy at this spot, with reflecting waves from two directions. Still, there was enough wave energy to ride and I got a few long and fast rides but was only able to hold on through all the bumps and not able to make a turn without falling. It cleaned up and got better, but then more people started showing up. JB wasn't linking up with any good waves and was getting grumpy, so we left before we had to interact with anyone else.

That was it. The best waves I got were bumpy lumpy but uncrowded. I felt fine "missing it" because I didn't want to deal with all the people. I felt good about knowing what my other options are, and taking advantage of that knowledge. I also feel good about still finding new opportunities for waves, especially ones that are in-between waves I already surf. I think there are still places to have fun and avoid the crowds, it's just a matter of working harder to get there.