Session 5082

I should not say to the point that I am "relieved" but I must admit that sometimes, it is good for me to go and pick the spot I want. Why? Because I can whimp out a bit and pick some easier spots than my bros go. To be fair, I've been at it only for 3 seasons, and my bros been doing this many more years. Sure, I try a lot of catching up by going basically at least 4 days out of 7, but I did not start this as a grom and so I have a lot of catching up to do. A few days here and there of relaxing surfing won't hurt, right?

Also some people have asked me often where exactly I surf, and sometimes I tell you and sometimes I don't. Well, I am going by a "mantra" that if you can see the spot from the Pacific Coast Highway, then we can write about them, but if not, we are not. That's the general community agreement all up and down the coast. I am sure that this will steer up some discussions, but I cannot be single handedly responsible to let people flock to a spot because I said so. And, these spots are not hard to find folks! You just spend additional 20-30 minutes out of your session time and go look. Basically from any point on the Highway 1, if you turn West, you will hit the ocean and you go and check if it is good for your surfing or not. But I know, from my previous experience this kind of scenario. I write on the message board "Hi, we will be going to Manresa State Beach." And invaluably, there are some surfers who would ask me whether to turn left or right at the San Andreas exit. So, for those who still don't have a clue if you are going South bound on The 1, the beach is toward your right, and if you are going North bound on The 1, the beach is towards your left, man! Please note that this is true from the CAL-MEX border all the way to Oregon, but I digress.

Back to surfing, since you could have seen me surf this morning from The 1, I can safely say that I did surf at the Jetty this morning since the S and SW are filling in. It was on a super low tide but we did have some fun, if not big, waves, and we have a good share of head highs and hip highs too, but all were really fun to catch.

There are two "firsts" today.

Number 1, finally my leash came off during a ride. I was not too freaked about that one, but that never happened to me before, but I did not quite secure the leg collar. But I had enough confidence in swimming that I caught up with the board no problem. The board did gone pretty far away from me, say 20-30 yards, and I did have to swim for it. Speaking of that I was actually impressed to seen when I was at El Porto in So Cal there were many surfers going leash-less (both men and women) and they'd swim for their board as if it is a routine thing. I am not going to do that yet, but at least, this was a good practice.

Secondly, I stayed really close to the rocks at the Jetty and caught bunch of smaller waves. This was actually a good practice and a good morale boost from yesterday when my bros were catching head highs no problem and I was still struggling for them. But also this is somewhat significant move for me because when I started to surf, I used to watch people take rights from the spots extremely close to the rocks on the Jetty, and thought that these people must have had enough confidence to do that. Now I am starting to become confident enough to do this, and the reason why I know I can do that is not because I know how to turn immediately, but mainly I know how not to take off or stop.

So again, it was a fun morning, and when I have fun in the morning, I have a better rest of the day too.