Session 5178

One of the surfing skills that I am trying to acquire better is the forecasting skill set. When I started surfing, I was really curious about why on some specific day people tend to be surfing on a specific place, and not the other places. Of course today, I have the answer to that one. People tend to stay longer when the condition is better so that automatically creates the crowd.

Nevertheless, I did not know, for example, when Mavericks would start to happen. After I started to surf, I started to see web sites and NOAA buoy sites and see how the numbers they spit out related to my surfing experiences, and today I have a much better idea of what to and when to go. Still, though there are many days and times that I feel I don't know what the heck I am doing. This also goes with my surfing skills too, by the way. In both areas, there just are days that I feel like I am a total beginner in the whole situation not have learned anything about anything even though I have been at it for a while. Compared to, say, music, that is a bit different, because when I play my keyboards I am clearly building upon what I have before. There are good days and bad days, but I don't have a day in which I have forgotten how a voicing on a chord is supped to be, and how the scale over that chord progression is. Yes, sometimes the fingers tend to move smoother or faster, but when it comes to surfing, there definitely are days that I feel that I have not made any progress what so ever.

Before I get into this morning's situation, though that I was clearly having fun. So don't think that by reading this that I was a miserable time. There are miserable times though, say when it is in the winter time, a 7:00 AM DP, it is a constant drizzle out, the swell period is 18 seconds 8 ft from the WNW, and I am paddling, paddling and paddling out never finding the true outside, and when I thought I found it, I take off and I get plummeted and held down for a good several seconds, and after catching zero wave (I mean no wave) all fatigued barely making it back against the tremendous current, I have to change to regular clothes. That's a miserable time.

Compared to that today was a relatively flat day, working with near shore breaks, and try to catch waves that are coming down rather fast. And I could not do anything about catching waves. I take off but they either crumbled or just thrown over, and as a part of the reward of this, I hit the sand bottom (thank got it is just the sand). Of course my buddy Dog Haus was catching tons of waves. I am not just simply there to do what he does. But I saw that he was geeking out with his new iPod ? and his unlimited text messaging feature he just figured out how to do (by the way I sent him several text messages in the past several months and now he confirms that he got them, about the NW swells we had in SC this winter, for example) so I now have some hope for him to become a part of my regular society.

It was not a miserable time today because the sun came out, and I was sharing the wave from the Zen Master, Dog Haus, and Caryn Stokemasters, and I was so stoked because she is a short boarder Stokemasters too! Instead of catching tons of waves, I really had a good time talking to her on the lineup.

It is always interesting to meet someone for the first time. This Internet community culture really have added one more dimension to it, because there are some people whom I have not really met live but know the person for months at a time, not even knowing what they sound like on the phone. But this mooring, I got a call from her, and from then on I started to formulate in my mind what she would look like and surf like and then when she actually shows up then I would compare about the actual differences are.

Well, there are much more I can write but I will stop now. Please come back again and read more, I know you all do.