After the session yesterday and on the way back, I saw many of the South San Mateo beaches throwing beautiful waves, so I had to hit one of these spots. Lately Waddell has become one of my top spots for having fun. After asking on my Stokemaster message board, Steve Hinman has agreed to DP with me. I was really psyched because Waddell can be lonely sometimes.
When I left home, it was pitch dark, but by the time I go past San Gregorio, the sky started change the color, still very dark and cold; my dashboard was indicating 41 F degree outside. I thought I could not see the usual beautiful section of the coast, but to my surprise, the breaks are throwing eerie light. It must be the bio luminescence that is produced by agitated planktons. When I was very small, my uncle would take me to summer beach camp outs in a small island and at night, and one of those rare moonless nights, he would take my brother and me back to the beach and demonstrated us about bio luminescence by throwing stones in to the ocean on pitch dark nights. He explained to me that it is the same as how fireflies light up. He would pick flat stones and throw them on its side, that made the stone to skip several times, I could see the ring of light that came up at all of the spots the stone hit. Then showed me where the shore break happens and how it was lit up across the break. Sure, it was pitch dark so come to think of it, the only way that I could see the breaks are because the water was emitting light! Growing up meant a lot of discoveries like that.
By the time I arrived at Waddell Creek, it was still dark but sufficiently light, still about 45 minutes before the sunrise. In almost 10 seconds after I arrived Steve pulled in; perfect timing. With this dude, I cannot use my usual tactic of telling people getting together at 6:45 and I show up at 7:00 just to be right. He almost abandoned me yesterday at the DP too. I guess, it means DP crews are really stoked to get in the water as early as they can!
We checked the waves, and there were some period that looked messy then there are some periods that were throwing good overhead size barrels, when we saw that, we had to go in; not because I can ride the barrels, but at least there were some waves.
Waddell and my JC 7'5 always work some magic for me. I was able to taste couple of phenomenally long rides. This happens when take off works well, where I can drop straight down and using Wado's terminology, "Cranking the bottom turn." Go straight down and board starts to skip over some ripples then whack that turn and it is like igniting a booster engine, it just picks up more speed, but now the board is planted in the water and suddenly it start to make a smooth arc over the water. If it is Linda Mar or something, that's about the extent of an excitement, but here. Here the wall just continues to form even starting on the inside like I do all the time, and I can climb up to it, cut a sharp right and repeat more bottom turns. Compared to my 6'6 fish board that flaps all over the places (the way I am surfing it), the JC makes a really nice smooth turn, and I am always amazed how a board change can make this much difference. It seems that I had more fun on the fish when waves are smaller like chest to hip high on beach breaks.
When I rode back to the beach, a fishing guy was really stoked at my last ride. That made me really happy and I uttered a big loud "thanks" to him.
This is a kind of a day with a big pay off, I was driving with big smile on my face all the way back, and my wife just woke up from a relaxing Sunday morning beauty sleep while I was duking soups and paddling hard to against the currents to stay in position.
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