Friday:
Got up a bit later in the morning, the sinus problem has started to clear, and the buoy was indicating 5 ft at 20 seconds. Clearly the south swells are still in. Finally I am back in the Jetty. Knowing that the situation is going to be crowded, I decided to at least paddle out in this condition, just to see how it was like. A total number of days that 20 seconds swell would hit us in Half Moon Bay are probably countable with the fingers on my both hands.
The breaks were all different pattern than the usual W or big NW swell days and how they built up are also different. Waves seem to pop up from the bottom of the ocean rather than more like "swept in" type pattern. So you'd wait on flat water for a bit then suddenly the water pushes up underneath.
As with Thursday session, I was clearly not up to be able to fully surf these types of condition. Getting out was not an issue but catching the waves were not possible for me yet. There is so much water movement that adds to the speed of the break that extremely powerful and fast take off is required and once you take off, again strong knee actions are needed to stay on the wave and make turns. If you can get that power and speed, I am sure it will be a lot of fun. But with the crowd and my current abilities, I opted to stay on the lineup, not really trying to take off and just enjoy being in there and see some of the best people take off and making great moves. Floaters, Roundhouse? you name it, some of the people were making those as if they do it every day. Where do they come from, by the way?
Saturday:
Initially I was not going to get out. I was going to rest. But when I saw my new blue helmet sitting in my room and a dry wet suit hanging, my spirit was lifted immediately and I felt a strong surge of energy pumping within myself. The Stoke is back and the ocean is calling me to come and play! Then there was a call from Luke that he was already at the Jetty, now I really have to go.
There were a lot of things I had to take care of this morning, but I finally got things together and got out to the Jetty. Sure it was crowded, I was really determined to go out but still well prepared to do what I did yesterday. Sorry I was a bit too late but did catch Luke on the way out. Which, of course, I was really happy to, because there always is an anticipation of hitting the waves and it is really good to see someone coming back "in one piece." No matter what types of waves are out there.
Once I splashed in the situation looked similar than yesterday, but a bit calmer, so to speak. There still were a lot of waves and water. It is interesting that all that waves have traveled from very further north to reach and showing the last show of the energy as if they are doing their best to show their end of the journey in our corner of the earth.
There was so much water movement out in the area that a constant adjustment of the position was needed. Like yesterday, if there are a lot of sets coming then a huge rip current would form and in no time I am way outside. So, in order to maintain my "comfort zone" position I was continuing to paddle.
I probably missed about 20 sets, then finally the set came, it started to break right where I was and I was smiling because I know I can catch that and I looked left and right frantically as I paddled to the shore. Of course the wave I was dealing with was much smaller version of the ones that were breaking by the break water, but still, I had to paddle extra hard to catch it, because if I do not catch it, there will be a consequence of either thrown over or held under or both. But this one I caught and it was a good wave! I love it when I see the wall forming right of my eye as I take off. I look up as hard as I can to set the line and I try to crank the bottom turn as hard as possible to get back up on the face of the wave. Then the darn wave start to close faster, and I made a hard left turn, then there was a big backwash bump. I hop over it and then with the very strong impact of that I jumped against the bump and dismounted. I was way up in the air as the board also shot up too.
So there was only one ride but that one was really fun!
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