Session 5145

We drove to SC this late morning. This was an unusual summer day when the sky was clear all the way from HMB to SC. Of course, I was checking out all of the state beaches along the way. Actually some of the mid San Mateo locations looked promising, but then there were nobody surfing, so I decided to move on to further south. With the sharp 180 degree S swells, I was not hoping much about them affecting anywhere, and my favorite Waddell wasn't happening, so I've decided to do Manresa on the medium tide period. We pulled into Carpo's on Mission and had a nice roast chicken dinner.

Manresa was packed with cars and I almost did not find any spot to park in the "paid" lot. But I did finally find one. It is a bit maddening to see a camper with a trailer taking up 5 parking stalls, but hey, this is a free country, I guess. When I put on the suit it was a rare occasion that I got really hot inside and I really had to get in the water as soon as possible. I have even seen a few surfers with just board shorts and a rubber top on, so it was almost like San Diego condition today.

The breaks were the typical Manresa beach breaks that happens not very consistently, but nevertheless we had good chest-shoulder level rollers that were fun. Today, I took out my new 6'3 Piranha and I really felt very comfortable padding out, ducking through and taking off. It is very likely going to be my next "all round" board as I graduate from the 6'6 board.

Today I continued to work on take offs, but in terms of the rides they were just standard kind mostly going straight down into closing out waves. I caught bunch of waves, but now I really need to practice setting up the initial turn.

Helmet Saved Me Again

I forgot to mention in one of my previous messages that I actually ended up breaking part of my helmet. Here is what happened. I was standing in the shallow water when there were a lot of white water coming. When one of the waves started to build up as a shore break, my board hit the side of my face. It was a bit painful at the time, but then I did not think much about that. Much later on I have found out that a piece that covers the ear has fallen off. Now that I thought about that, should I not have been wearing a helmet, I could have broken my jaw. That would be painful.