Sessions 5137-5138

I was planning to meet Steve this morning at Waddell or Scotts, but I did not get out of the bed until 7 this morning. Part of it is that I have not been in the DP mode for a while as things has gotten quite busy at work and so I start at work early and "sneaking out" of the office to go hit the beach in the afternoon. I am using the work "sneak out" because if someone sees my walking, no matter when it is, there invaluably is some kind of a question or problems they want me to solve. So I carefully time and plan the secret exit route out of my cube at the end of the day.

At 7:00 am the Pocket PC started to play the ring tone, it is usually my local buddy that would call me begging me to come out and surf, but I know he is out of town, but this time it was Steve hunting for the wave along the coast. That basically was the wake up call, and I slowly put things together. It is so easy not to get into the DP mode!

Well, I did meet up with Steve this morning. I had to apologize to him since he was looking for my blue wagon and also I pulled the custom MANABU3 license place out of it, since I have been becoming to be one of the more exposed surf characters in our local surf scene due to the web site etc, so I decided to take this opportunity go somewhat more anonymous (so please don't look for the blue wagon, and if have been conspiring to wax the window, it would be a wrong car!)

As I drove south, the things did not look great. As I passed by San Gregorio, the water was kind of a mess though far out there were some nice swell lines, plus the sky was heavily loaded with this usually foggy dense gray stuff.

But as I gone past the Pigeon point, I saw the sky beyond Ano Nuevo and I got a bit more excited.

Waddell was very small, but definitely some surfable waves there.

I saw Steve already parked there and I was looking for him, and suddenly he popped out of nowhere. Based on what he thought of Scotts Creek, we decided to go in before the tide would come and "fill in", which actually ended up happening in about an hour.

This was the day 2 of trying my new board and today I had a better time riding the board than yesterday. What I have been noticing is that once I am on top of the board, the board was much "looser" once I get going and in fact it is so loose that the board was wobbling left and right quickly. What this means to me is that it is significantly much more sensitive to directional changes than other boards I have been riding. The board is probably willing to turn in any direction I asked it to faster, but I am still not used to it that I would need to make further adjustments in riding this board. Also, I am starting to find out that a less "foam" on this board allows me to duck through much easier than ever and also definitely I would be less overwhelmed with the power of faster waves. Paddling is definitely a bit harder with this, but thankfully, I have now gotten "buff" enough to the point that I can manage that too, and continue to build more muscles.

Before I could practice more, though the waves started die down. Steve hit south and I hit north possibly for more waves.

I ended up at Kelly and I put back the wet wetsuit on, and got in. The waves were going overhead and the side current was treacherous with no real sign of rip current. I started out by the camp ground stairs and by the time I thought I reached the "outside" I was already flushed all the way to the Kelly St. level. When I rode in, getting back out was so difficult that after I tried to get out 3 times, I decided to call it quits. Only really good surfers were making to the outside breaks, and it still was not yet for me to fully enjoy the breaks. Part of this is that I was definitely psychologically defeated. If my buddy was there to watch out for me, I would have tried it or even the waves probably would have looked easier.

Tomorrow I am going to give one more shot at these local beaches and let you all know about how I am doing with my new board.