I stopped at Taqueria Santa Cruz (on Mission) for a quick lunch, since I have heard some good thing about this location. As I get ready to go, and I opened the rear hatch of the car, I did not find one important item. A Wetsuit! Darn it, I left it at home! Well, I can still rent one. So I went and had a couple of exquisite beef tacos.
I can highly recommend this place to other surfers to stop by.
Then Laura called up and told me that the Hook was flat. So I said "Waddell was happening, so I am sure Manresa will be good. I will go rent a wet suit and meet you at the Hook then we head out to Manresa." Also, on a recommendation from my wife's post, Nancy set her alarm clock back last night, only to find this morning that it was a false alarm! So she was hour late t get started. A typical surfing get together coordination, but we always have fun.
So I thought, if I am going to rent a wet suit, why not go to the source, so I stopped by at the O'Neill shop at the 41 St Ave, and sure they have a rental, but only "thirty two". I asked back the girl at the counter. Thirty two bucks to rent? And she said, not "three two". I have never heard people say "thirty two" before. But it turns out to be $10 a day and shop is open until 8:00. I knew that the water is luke warm 58 degrees today so I did not have a problem using 3/2. So I went ahead and got it.
Just as I predicted, Manresa was happening, and really nicely. The breaks were just like the OB on Saturday, just about shoulder high and nice soft breaks. With Santa Cruz being protected from the NW wind, the surface was glassy too.
Laura and I went in and immediately started to catch many many waves, and she was working on hang ten, while I was trying to prefect good take-off techniques. After an hour or so, Nancy and Amanda also arrived. They told me they have never been there. I am sure they will be hooked to this location.
The beach continued to produce perfectly nice shape and size for a nice Sunday afternoon ride with friends.
Today I continued to use the foam, because I was intending on going to the 38th and the Hook with a fully armored set up for possible collisions with other surfers. In retrospect, I should have brought the 7'5, that would have allowed me to do more of a short-board type rides. Laura did not bring her 7'6 either, so we were a bit bummed about it, because there were some good fast-enough sections and some short boarders were ripping good.
I really like the feeling of a successful take-off and then turning on the face of the wave. It feels like as if I am squeezing out some tooth paste sometimes.
One interesting trick I have happened to do today is this. When taking off, I push the board forward just about when I am ready to flick up. I do this also so that the board is inserted to toward the wall of the wave. What this allows me is to let me drop into about-to-form hook, and the board is much more forward, I can stand up towards the tail of the board. This allows me to push the tail stronger for the remainder of the initial take off part, and allow me to set up for the initial decent without being overpowered. I was amazed that how sharply of an angle I can set the initial rail this way, and stay towards the top of the wave. It remind me of things I do in skiing where I jump off a small "cliff"going diagonally and continue to set the edge to the wall descending.
I am going to explore this method a bit more for upcoming sessions.
What a treat today. Stoke 9 for catching one wave after another.
No comments:
Post a Comment