This morning, as I promised I went to surf at Linda Mar with Ren. It is a special day for me because this is the first time I surf with her after she gave a birth to a girl. I knew Ren when she was not pregnant, and she was surfing a lot with us at Linda Mar, then at the time, I was thinking that how long she will be put away from the water, but pretty much everything was on schedule, and this is the end part of March and she is back in the water again; already! The part that actually amazes me also is that she gave a birth to a new person, and when I she joined this group, this person even did not exist, and we surfed together for a good part though both their lives! Life is a full of amazement like this. I used to see diet weight control ad on a highway billboard, "I lost 150 pounds." Well, if I lose 150 pounds, I become negative weight.
Going back, Ren is a big influence on the Stokemasters group and with her brief absence, the things has changed a bit, but then now that she is back, she will be back again to rebuild the old flavor, so to speak. As for me, it is really fun to be involved in this what basically amounts to be a very American sport. Nobody would have guessed when I was a grom in Japan that I would eventually be building a surfing community of a sort in California and getting involved in other surfers lives closer.
And so our community is becoming really established with so many people turned out today at Linda Mar this morning, and not just our group but there was a Japanese surf girl that I met though surfing at Linda Mar and also a buddy from Surfrider chapter too were there, that's total 8 surfers at one place at the same time!
And to top that off, the surfing was fun. While the wind was a bit blowing strong, it was generally in the offshore direction, so that kind of saved the day. Also, in order to surf with Ren, a long boarder, I took out my less frequently used long board, but I was really glad I did, because I had several good long rides on it, and was able to practice a lot of ups and downs along the walls today!
The last 1/3 of the session, I switched to a short board as more people started to arrive and I thought I would sit inside and catch ton-o-smaller waves. It is often good to do the switch because I'd learn a lot about the similarity and also the differences. It is like side-by-side wine tasting. Both are real fun, but there is something really nice about powering through smooth big turn on a long board. It feels like I am being on a huge swing and I am just going through the bottom as I bend my knees for more energy. Really smooth and the way it builds the speed is like having a large block V8 engine under the hood!
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