What a difference a day makes. At 1100 this morning, the swells were generally from W going at 4 Ft 10 seconds mixed in with the wind swells 8.5 Ft at 6.7 seconds at Half Moon Bay. Drove by the Jetty and it was stormy and nasty, but as I drove further up, Montara started to look cleaner and, in fact it looked like it was giving off 1.5 x OVH across the entire beach and not closing out. We had quite a bit of SE wind though and as I was preparing, my gloves and hood blew away.
The LM was quite roomy this morning and I had a lot of fun, caught many waves and was not much of an issue to get out. Thought due to the prevailing strong wind, all of the lineup was being blown towards the N end of the beach, and the 54F water was a bit more piercing through the suit. Waves were going at shoulder to OVH, and not hard closing like it does usually. We often talk about the wind swells being not so good, but I think I should correct that. No matter how we try to forecast, it is just so difficult to predict what will happen!
Today, I did not take my 7'6 out when I should have, but instead I took out the 9'0. I really felt rusty, falling backward off after the take off. Speaking of that it is interesting to note that I am more often falling backwards than pearling, which often happened earlier last year. But towards the end of the session, I became back friends with my long board and I had a few very smooth runs. Also today, my weakness in the backside surfing were very evident, some of the waves were lefts, and could not turn so well. Could not build stronger turns like the rights.
A stokable advance today to report. Yes! I did start to get the hang of "pull outs" and I am almost back on the board in paddling position after a run. What appears to be the key is the turning, and I was putting too much weight in the back essentially stalling the board before so it never crossed the ridge of the wave but with a bit more forward in weight, I was able to continue the turn. In addition, when the board crossed the line, I just lifted my weight off by bending my knees a bit straight up. I would say I upgraded from a "D" to a "C" grade on pull out today.
All in all, it was a happy 90 minute session especially with seeing a rainbow in the background across the ocean, probably welcoming back to home in this weekend!
No comments:
Post a Comment