I was in kind of mood to go surf by myself, and that's what I did this morning. I just wanted to get a quick session in, come home, do some chores then I promised to go check out the new De Young museum. The morning was crisp and cold after a clear night. I also have decided to take a long board as well as my new JC 6'4, so I can decide which way to go. I was not sure about the condition with the W swell coming in. Now that I live so close to the Jetty though, I am now starting to get in a habit of taking time and check out here. And when I went there, the set waves were well spread out and breaking further out. This is the kind of a day makes the Jetty fun. Usually the break is very close to the shore or at a limited spot by the breakwater. It is definitely a good treat we don't usually get here.
So I went in.
Paddling out was not easy as there was just one front of white water after another, and with a strong side current it was easy for me to get washed further and further into the impact zone. When this happens, I usually walk the beach back to the spot where a channel forms, wait until the set subsides a bit and then paddle as fast as possible to get out of the inside mess. Unlike the first few years, now I can do this with a small smile on my face, and I am now paddling out faster than anyone paddling out at the same time. Once I am out of the inside zone though it is amazing how quickly the things calm down, and with the help of the moderately strong rip current today, it was not so tiring to get out.
But I also situated a bit inside and tried to catch many more waves and possible. This also worked well because all the inside waves quickly reformed allowing me to climb back up on the face after a straight down take off, and being on a long board it was easy to catch waves, gave me very satisfying long rides on some of the waves. These past few weeks, I was re-discovering the fun of long boarding. It really give me more time to do more things on the board as a result, it has been a very good cross training for short boarding too as I was exploring more about using the whole length of the board? getting thrusts when I get slower, and gaining more speed at the front of the board, and perfecting the weight to back and forth to set up and following through turns. And when I execute them on a long board, they are really smooth and the board and the knee can really feel the large amount of the water that I am shifting against to get these turns going, just like on a water ski but using only the wave's power and my own weight. Come to think hard about it, it is really amazing something like this is actually possible!
And to top that off, my last ride took me exactly where I wanted to get out of the beach. Everything worked out really great this morning!
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