Tomorrow through Friday, I will be out of town, out of ocean and will be locked in a deep maze of a major hospital in Pacific Northwest. I will be seeing happy people with a good news of an addition to their families, and I will see people in despair, and some preparing for the ultimate departure. When I hit the ocean, I think about these things, my friends, and myself, people who I've met and people who moved on. It is a good place to contemplate these life issues alone. From this stand point the ocean is a spiritual place for me, and that's the part of the attraction that compel to bring me back, every day, if possible.
When I got up this morning, the wind was blowing still, and I had to cancel the down patrol routine. I was looking forward to it, because missing it means I could not get back to the ocean until this weekend. Sounds rather selfish, but on the other hands, I made a life commitment to lead a surfer's life and planned everything so that I can keep surfing. I am sure many of you can related to that, and there are many of my coast side buddies who are doing the same.
Occasionally throughout the day, I was looking at my forecast tool on the StokeMaster.COM home page that I have built; yes, I even build a tool to make my surfing life easier. As the day went on the wind started to come down. The hope returned, and I did take off exactly at 5 PM from the job to do some last-minute wave hunting. And I found the waves! And they were perfect size and shape. Not too big, but not too small either and I know the place can be punchy. Which could be fun.
I now know the place. I know where to hitch a ride to the rip current, and where not to paddle back out. I even know that where I will be caught inside if I paddle back out. So I just get out and walk to the channel. Even though it is relatively calm, paddling does require some effort, and with some backwashes it was a bit bumpy. But I've even learned to like them as they cause all sorts of big bumps that you can surf on and around!
I surfed really hard for just over an hour. Kept moving, kept paddling and kept getting into as many waves as possible, and some waves were thrilling and really fun to ride. The F4 board worked really well.
It was very satisfying when the waves, the weather, and the possible disappointment turns all the way around. Miracles do happen.
While I don't hear from many of you, I do appreciate you taking a virtual ride with me through my WavLOG all this time, and I hope that you will have sweet rides too!
Surfz Up!
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