Session 5135

This season has been different from any other, since I have surfed local Half Moon Bay beaches on a regular basis with my buddy and we had so much blast. We will just go out on good days, bad days, this beach, that beach and we shared so much surfing philosophy in common; just get out and have fun catching waves, and as a result of it, I have gotten a bit more solid on my skill and further, I have really gained the confidence to be in most types of waves that happen in our area.

Piranha ate the Fish: This afternoon, I finally decided and picked up my next board in my quiver. The goal is to start improving real short boarding skill sets that is now starting to become possible for me. After talking to Darin at Half Moon Bay Board Shop, we came to the conclusion that I do get the Rusty Piranha, 6'3, with a squash tail. It is still wide in the middle at 20.5 inches! The 6'6 was a great wave catcher, but I found it a bit difficult to make nice and snappy turns. According to him that's because I have too much float on the board (I needed that for easier paddle). He said that with this new board, I can turn better from the tail, but I can still work the rail better once I get into the turn, I am more used to rail to rail, smoothly drawn out turns than the snappier turns. So I am hoping that this will help me a bit of transition. The general consensus on the fate of my 6'6 SurfTech Fish is that "use as a long board." Last year, that concept would have been absurd to me, but now if I think about it that's exactly what I have been using it as, and when I was in San Diego last month, I was riding it side to side with long boarders. It is a long board that fit inside a small car, now that's a benefit right there!

After that, I headed out to a beach. My buddy was there already, but with his kid. This time, he watched me from the shore and pointing me in the direction of a rip when I was getting out, and then pointing me to the break. The second wave was just perfect, exactly like how he would catch. I got into a nice right pocket and surfed on with a bit of pull out action in the end. It was glassy, foggy that makes the wind to calm down (or other way around), and sets would roll in every 3-4 minutes just perfect to paddling out to make back to the breaks.

I also tried his Merrick Flyer 6'2 that's similar to my new Piranha and it was a nice board, and paddling around on it really felt just at home.

With it will be like this every day.

But I've learned recently that this buddy and the family is uprooting to East Coast at the end of this year.

Things change and nothing stays the same. We should all enjoy the changes rather than suffering from them.

Also, I was thinking on the way to the car that how incremental the improvement has been, but I would just relax, enjoy the ride and continue to build my skills without really feeling like hurrying.

This season though has been one of the most memorable yet!