Session 5198: Become A Surfing Animal

I was hoping to catch some remnant of the S swells this morning at the Jetty.

I also made a commitment to myself this morning that I am not going to fool around too much in the morning, instead, I become a surfing animal -- I just get things together and get out and only think about surfing for the next couple of hours. There are many things going in my life right now. I am not going to get too much into the details what they are, but definitely there are some "a few time in my lifetime" type situation that is happening, and so I have been rather distracted and not being able to focus.

So I wanted to get away from all of that and just find a moment of solitude for an hour or two. And my wish did come true.

It was almost embarrassing to show up in the middle of rush hour traffic, being the single surfer in the beach, probably looking like a fool paddling up and down to find waves, but not finding any good waves.

But the water was smooth and not too cold. It really felt good on my body as I slowly stroke my arms through the water. It really brought back some of the important reason why I like participating in Surfing. It is kind of a sport I can really enjoy myself alone and also even if I don't catch any waves, just simply being in the water alone can be a nice thing. Even though was just a few hundred yards away from a stop and go traffic, when I turn my board around and gaze at the horizon in the general direction of where I was born, it really soothes my mind. It is a kind of a void and quiet place where I can allow myself to get rid of all the thoughts and just focus on one basic thing; to live and play and become a part of this totally liquid world for a short period of time. I am realizing more and more about how surfing places me in a totally different world than being on a solid land with people and associated stuff that goes with that. I do like to be in both worlds, but the fact is that I now have the key to both worlds and that's something that I was actually not expecting to realize when I entered the sport because it was some challenging or fun thing to do.

As I looked over the horizon, I saw a large black fin sticking out of the water. Then two other fins converged to the first fin, and then started to swim around. They zigzagged the surface of the water sometimes completely hidden and sometimes doing the standard dolphin-through moves, but swimming very slowly, in a relaxed pace, the same way I was paddling around. I was also pulled out to the outside on a slow rip currents, and eventually we came just a few yards of each other. Dolphin encounters do happened often enough in this area, but this morning it was really special because I was totally alone in the water and I really felt that they are now my friends sharing the water with me; a part of an experience to become as much of an ideal surfing animal.

Again, I have not scored any ride this morning, I took off on waves but they all closed out so I had to pull out on all of them. But I really don't even have to report on that aspect of today's session, because I have really found out more about why I like to return to the water so much.

STOKE 10