Got up and checked my PC for the current condition. Still 5 ft 11 seconds, 5 knots wind? Great! Yesterday, my buddy called in the middle of the afternoon telling me that Montara was happening, so I just ignored all the locations and drove straight there under the clear sky.
Sure enough it looked great. I took my JC 7'5 out and run down the stairs, and do a warm up while I watch the breaking pattern. To be honest, this is the time I am most scared, as I build up the anticipation of where and which area to attack. I find a little calmer area up and look for the ripple and the flow of the water for the sign of a channel. The shore breaks are horrendous and they are up to overhead. I wait around still looking around to see where I would paddle out to. Finally the sets stopped coming, so I jump forward as far as possible, splash in, and paddle hard to get out the break zone. This sometimes is difficult, as knowing my luck, the mountain of the shore break build up as soon as I get in, and wrestle with me and grab my board and use it as a weapon against me at the same time. But I am now getting a bit better at outpacing the breaks, and in no time I'd paddle out a 100 yard.
Several quiet minutes pass by, and sets are now in, and I go for it. It was definitely overhead and jacking up fast, almost ready to crest and start throwing the while fangs, I keep smiling telling myself, I can take this one, and so I turned the board around. The wave was strong enough that when it back of my feet, I could feel the pressure. I am telling myself, don't stand up, I need to paddle a bit longer, and in just at that moment, the board picked up a tremendous speed forward, felt like going at 35 mph, but I could not see anything as I was surrounded by white water everywhere. I kept on paddling, to get ahead of the wave, and tried to stand up, but I saw the shore sand just only a few yeards away, so I had to bail.
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