Session 8079-81: Morning Surf Report + Surfwise

WavLOG

Day 79-82

The state parks do not open until 8 am, so this morning I had a bit of relaxed start and checked out the water from the Jetty down further south. I will let you decide which one I surfed at this morning. But I must say that the level of the people at this spot is usually pretty high and I was definitely at a lower end of the totem pole. Many people were older than me, but some were ripping quite nicely there. It was mostly small but lined-up all across the beach on bigger sets and so without shoulders and also them being shifty, it was hard to keep up with where to be. On days like this, the best option seems to be to stay put in one spot and wait for sets to come rather than moving all over. I have been burned quite a bit in the past by paddling over to where it broke last then quickly penalized by nice waves breaking at the spot I was just at. It is a bit frustrating you know.

At one point in the session though, there were two waves that came one after another that was at least double overhead in size and when we saw this coming, everyone started to get to the outside frantically. I was too late and too slow and at the worst spot to be. I was treated to a nice flight followed by the trip to the bottom. I hate it when that happens.

So in terms of the quality of the rides, it was not that great for me. Sure glad it was not a competition day... would have been a brutal defeat day.

This evening, we went to check out a "consolidated documentary movie" Surfwise, which is a documentary film of a Stanford graduated physician Dorian Paskowitz who set out to raise 9 of his children on a long surf-trip and a wife in a 24-foot camper van.

Among my close surfing friends, we often talk about quitting everything and surf for the rest of life. And this guy have actually done that. I am not going to spoil the movie for you, but boy, I am glad that I have not done that. It seemed to have a number of 9 kids, who could not get conventional education. The movie has quite a bit of surfing footage in it and it too. I think you will find his opinions about life and education very interesting, and especially in this day of us thinking and driving our lives more and more with greeds, it does give some interesting perspectives. I would not necessarily agree or disagree with, but it definitely worth seeing and hearing why he chose to do what he did and what he thinks about the current state of American culture. With most surf movies showing people "just surfing their brains out", this movie involves the persona of each family member, and so it is actually a bit of a departure from conventional surf related "documentaries." I would like to continue to see more surf film makers focus on the surfer aspect of it than just technical riding part of it. That's far more interesting in terms of the stories.

Day 80 (Sunday):

After being punished a bit on Saturday morning, I headed to a beach further north on Sunday morning. The NW winds definitely picked up quite a bit and as a result of it the water also became quite choppy already. There were some SW sets still coming in. I have not been riding my Walden Magic for a while so this time I took it out as it was on a small side.

Well, I did end up "catching" waves a lot but it was difficult to take off. The small ripples were substantial enough in size even under bigger "catchable" waves. On just about every wave I took off on, there was a stair-step effect, and so as I get up on the board, I would skip over a ripple and land on the wall that's ahead with a big bang. It's similar to getting a bit of air off a bump on snow. Sometimes I got knocked up in the air so hard that it was a bit scary and difficult to maintain the ride, especially when I get up, my knees are not unfolded yet, so there is not much room to absorb it.

The fog and NW returns to Northern California this week. It is going to be a bit tricky to find a good down patrol spots...

Day 81 (Tudesay): Pretty crappy at LM.