I woke up at 5:30. Now my body remembers what time it is, so I don't even need to set an alarm. Actually I use my alarm clock still. I have an analog clock with an alarm hand. It makes a tiny clicking noise in the morning when the hour hand passes over it. So when I hear that "click" noise, that's when I get out of the bed.
The swell size, as predicted, was already big enough that I was actually hesitating to put my wet suite on before leaving the house. I have learned in the past that when the condition would be marginal like today, it is best not to gear up so far in advance, because often I need to undo it without using any of it. But, just for a heck of it, I fully suited up, and just in case the close-outs are going to be severe, I thought I would try body boarding, so I threw in my old Morray Boogie board in the car in addition to two of my boards on top of the car, which are almost like the permanent fixture on my car year around. It sure helps to find my car in a large parking lot too!
As usual of the surf route I take, I drive up North on highway 1 from Half Moon Bay, I check the Jetty and usually nothing there, I either go to Montara, Linda Mar or now occasionally to Ocean Beach. It is kind of amazing that if I drive on the same highway, I can go to Rincon, Ventura, Malibu, San Onofre etc. Highway 1 is the Surf Highway and as such, probably it is world's longest highway that serve the people. I actually drove almost the entire length of highway 1 from the Mexican border to the Oregon border, except for a stretch between Mendocino and Fort Bragg. We are going to hit the area again when the sharks are less active, probably next summer.
Back to Jetty though, it was going at about shoulder level, and assuming that all other spots would be totally closed out, which I was right as I drove up through Pacifica on the way to work, so I decided to do a quick morning dip.
The waves were not that great, but one thing this location offers is faster breaks, and I got a lot of practice taking off. Rides were short and actually not very many other surfers were making any spectacular rides either. I also opted to really practice paddling so I was purposely paddling around to find good breaks.
Today, though, I noticed one thing in paddling and that's this.
I have realized that how much back muscles I am using these days to paddle. Especially today, I really felt that the deltoid and even muscles further back are moving and doing a lot of work. So I started to focus on these muscles and kind of "asked" to put more power, and that really helped my paddling power and also endurance to paddle longer. I think I am becoming kind of addicted to get my paddling muscles really strong. I really feel good to feel all these muscles working. I don't know why I did not feel this until today. But probably additional changes in my body are happening as a result of going out a lot.
Now I did not find much waves to surf on, the wind started to pick up really big, and just a simple act of waiting for waves became difficult as the board started to catch the wind and making staying on board rather difficult, and that was a time for me to leave.
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