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.

New Spot

Beach access around Moss Landing is difficult. The reason for this is because much of the area is state park or nature reserve. The result is that it's hard to check the whole stretch of beach break, but also if you find something away from a main parking lot you'll probably surf alone. This is in contrast to Ocean Beach where there is continuous access to the full 4 mile stretch.
Yesterday my work took me to Watsonville and, after a check with the guy at Manresa to verify that was not worth surfing, I went to Moss. Moss had one peak that was actually crowded, which was a surprise to see that many people surfing there. There were several bars along the beach but only that one had surfable waves with all the rest creating shifty close-outs. The sun was peaking from behind the clouds and the wind was offshore, so I really wanted to get some waves. I decided to drive further south because the direction of the wind would make it more offshore than side shore in that direction.
I ended up at Monterey Dunes where I found a crowded parking lot but only a few fisherman on the beach. There was a peak working right at the end of the trail and I got a few waves there before the tide filled in and made that particular bar soft. When I came in the bar down the beach was no longer closing out and looked good, but I had other things to do that day and my shoulders were tired anyway.
Overall it was a good day at a new spot I'd never even checked before. The waves were fun, but smaller than Moss. I also wish I knew what Pajaro Rivermouth looked like. And I'm also curious how hard it would be to get to the Salinas Rivermouth. Perhaps that's where some of the owners of the cars in the lot were. I swear some of those trucks belonged to surfers and not just fisherman, but I never saw anyone that looked like a surfer walk by.

Hesitation

I've got a $1400 board on the way, and I'm getting into climbing, and it's been a terrible spring for surfing. All these things have combined in my head and I was ready to sell off a few surfboards. I say was, because as I was scraping wax and composing my craigslist addvert in my head, the story I was telling made me think I want to hold onto these boards a bit longer.
I was considering selling the Buttons and the Wheelright. These are two single fin boards in the shape of the 70's transition shapes. I've learned from riding these boards that they work well in hollow waves when all I want to do is sit deep. The narrow tails stall back into the pocket without as much up the face twisting as wider tailed boards. The wide point forward helps them drop into waves, but the rocker makes it hard to make late drops because they are longer but flat and don't handle the transition at the bottom of the wave. Something about the tail or rails makes it hard to take the late drop more sideways, like I can do on my Haut2.
But, when things come together the Buttons feels so good in hollow waves. It's just not floaty enough to be a bigger wave board at OB. I've taken it out on bigger days and the current was too much for me to move around. The Wheelright would probably have enough paddle, but it's a bit to big to duckdive solidly. I feel like I'd like to have a board that is in the middle, but until then, maybe I should keep them both...
No hesitation on giving up the kneeboard. I should probably gift it to someone on the kneeboarding website. I had some great waves on that board, but the last time I surfed it the feeling was so foreign that I didn't want to be riding it.
So I need to get my head strait and then get to posting on craigslist. I should also to a bit of lurking first to see what I should charge for these boards. My sense is that used boards aren't selling for as much because the economy is still slow.