Session 8098-8100: The Final Daily WavLOG

The Final Daily WavLOG

Day 98 - 100

Well, I did 100 sessions this year so far, and I am pleased that this year I have made some key technical progress than the previous years. In a nutshell, the key progress was made in the area of taking-off, and it still continues to need further polishing up, not to mention a consistent keeping up so that I don't lose it. 

In summarizing my progress so far, I have to say that if you have the will, you will get there though it can take a while depending your fitness and overall athletic abilities. 

I had a really late start in this sport and there were quite a few times it was very discouraging, and it will continue to be more discouraging to some extent, but once I realized that it is a long journey I have undertaken, it no longer bother me. I was able to prove that I can take on the people who have been at it 30-40 years in my 4 years or so of gearing up. 

So if you are thinking about picking up the sport, or want to start all over again, I think that perseverance and patience will really pay off a big time. And that's also goes for anything in life.

Thank you!

Session 8098 (Thursday): The swells from both N and S got so small but there was some potential of NW re-building. I want up north for a short session in the morning, and I did manage to catch a few. 

Session 8099 (Friday): At a local "hard-core" spot. A buddy checked out the spot, thought it was junky and did not get in. I did get in a caught some decent size waves with some fun shapes. I had one really good wave which broke, cut back around, and caught another section breaking inside and continued on. When that happens I am so happy that I get more power paddling back out!

Session 8100 (Saturday): The same spot as the previous session. It was a bit more crowded as it was being a weekend and such, but I did basically the repeat of yesterday with some nice build up sections. On couple of waves were just strong and fast and could barely go straight down, but the speed and pressure on my knees were much higher than usual. Once I got a taste of it, I would want to get more to do better turns the next time!

This concludes my daily session log. I thank you for taking a surf journey with me, and I encourage you to keep your own surf log either online or a small diary book. It is always fun to look back a few years later!

The WavLOG on StokeMaster.COM will continue with less focus on daily sessions but more focus on surfing thoughts, ideas, tips and philosophy, hopefully at least on a weekly basis. Hope you come back and check, and write a comment or two, or write a personal email to me.

Sessions 8093~96 Get Your Mind Some Excercise

WavLOG

Days 93~96

The primary reason why I surf is stay being healthy and that's the key importance for me. Whatever the means you got available to do so, I think you should do it. Surfing requires you to be fit, especially in paddling out and negotiating through waves, it requires quite a bit of muscle work. 

But it is also often forgotten that your mental health is just as important, and surfing provides ample opportunities to both nature and challenge us mentally.

One of the things I have realized lately is facing the ocean and the wild nature in front of us. I was talking to a local buddy of mine a lineup this weekend about this, and how scared I was the first time I went out at the same spot, and gradually I have been able to  build myself up to the challenge, and I am not as scared as used be, and I was thinking about how valuable that experience has been. It really gave me additional boost in confidence in other situations.

I think that it is important for most of us to experience this kind of a situation, as it will open up our minds a bit more to realize our very own existence with respect to the whole universe and also knowing how the very basic foundations of body and mind would react to it. In coming to terms with where the fear arise from and how we can be prepared to deal with them, I think we can provide ourselves a kind of mental exercise.

Day 93: Thursday was fun at LM with some nice right peaks perfect size and level of steepness for me to practice taking off and staying high on the wave right at the take-off.

Day 94: Friday, it got a bit smaller than thursday at LM, but continued to practice more take-offs and wave spotting. Ren has requested that I'd the party wave on the outside, so I took out my Walden Magic 9. I caught some fun waves until sets started come all in one big line and closed out the whole beach.

Day 95: Saturday the wave power continued to dwindle but the wind situation was quite good so more local spots opened up. I opened up the north-end of a local beach on Saturday. But as soon as people found out that I was "ripping" out there, dozen more showed up. I should pretend like I am having a bad time when people are on the cliff scoping things out :-)   Continued to surf on Walden Magic

Day 96: Sunday was quite flat all in local HMB locations so I drove a bit further south. I was almost ready to give up and ready to head home and I noticed a local prominent surfer friend getting out. He told me that this is only the name of game today. Glad I want out with the Takayama 7'2 Egg and also I double boarded with my trusty JC Ugly Stick 6'4 (with 5 inch vector fins in the back!). The Egg worked out quite good, had some fun and a couple of significantly long rides on about chest high waves. I don't know what about it was today but we were all pig-dogging our boards to keep the board in a trim. I guess because it felt like these small beach breaks were going to close out behind us any moment. It was a kind of bit fun to paddle through fresh-water lagoon to get to the beach.

Session 8082-84: You Got To Be "In" For the Upside!

WavLOG

Day 82-84

Perhaps you are all new to the stock markets, and if you have not been and if you ever will, you will hear from other colleagues telling you to the effect that "You have to be in it to catch the upside." I am now going to talk about the surfing, and surf condition and how well you do in them.

The key message here is that whether it is investing, your career or surfing if you are looking for the great opportunity, you have to always be in a lookout and the only way really you can do it is to be there all the time. For surfing, you do have to get out both on bad conditions and bad conditions, and even more bad condition days and then occasionally you run into a great condition day; all by yourself. You just cannot simply expect show up only on up days ignore all bad days. Even if you were able to, I think that the gain is probably modest.

I believe that this really goes for anything you are passionate about. You got to live through bad days and then you get to see and live the glorious days, of which, I also warn you that are very far and few in between.

So don't be so F greedy. Show up at the beach as many days as you can. Paddle out with me on poor days, fair days, and occasionally good days, and share every moment of it with me!

I will see you out there!

Day 83 (Friday): The wind has eased even more this morning and also the choppy waves. The overall swell size also has decreased a bit, making it smooth paddle out and nice rides especially for long boarders. I should have brought my Egg board! But I only loaded short boards as I had to put carry other loads a few days prior.

Day 84 (Saturday): The swell sizes were dwindling but the morning winds were small, and I enjoyed surfing at the "M" spot both with my Walden magic and also my Ugly Stik in the inside. It is always nice to have a long session where you can switch a board in the mid session and try them out!

Session 8047-48: Technical Update, Pushing or Pulling The Board During Take-Off

WavLOG

Day 47-48
Technical Note: Pushing or Pulling the Board While Taking Off

OK... for those who are bored with my philosophical logs, let's get back to some technical note right here and right now!

Learning a skill set is an iterative process, and surfing especially is. I must have written about this some time ago, but every once in a while I notice that a certain aspect of surfing get more refinements and realizing I am revisiting many aspects of the technique.

On this log, I am going to talk about "Pushing or Pulling The Board Ahead During Take-Off." I have found that being conscious to this shift is very useful in getting up on the board at different wave forms.

Here is my description of what happens.

• I see a wave starting to come. I turn around, paddle in the direction where the break is about to occur. This means that I look back left and right and actually paddle a bit to the left or right and adjusting the pace of paddling so that by the time the wave hits the board, I will be in the right place to give the last few strokes before getting up on the board.
  
• At the starting point of when the wave starts to lift up, I would paddle with my body more towards the back of the board. This is so that if the wave jacks up faster than I thought, I can still salvage the wave.
  
• As the wave lifts up the tail end of the board, I would feel how fast it is coming up, and I will adjust the paddling power accordingly. In general when the tail lifts up fast, I need to also paddle very strongly and leaving the weight more neutral (and not too forward) with respect to the board. If this happens I also try to get up fast and towards the back of the board. If I mistakenly get up too far forward, pearling is the inevitable result. In this case, I will push the board under me forward a bit just before I get up. This seems to accomplish two things. First while doing this, the board does not bear my body weight so it also feel less effect from the wave. Secondly, by doing this, I can stand way back part of the board. The steeper the wave builds up, I try to do this faster.
  
• If the wave is not building up as fast then I will still need to paddle hard in long big strokes because I could be left behind. In this case, I will also start to move my body forward in sync with the slowly building wave and try to apply my body weight and pressure more in the front of the board. This works especially well with longer and long boards when the board starts to glide down. If that happens, I know I caught the wave, and I can gently get up on the board and carefully execute the first turn and get back up on the wave.
  
• In reality many waves are mixture of slow and fast parts, and also depends on at which part of the wave you are trying to catch. In fact, in order to get into some faster waves, the success seems to come from paddling early, faster (like slow waves) and adjusting the weight back and forth in rapidly changing situation.
  
  One thing for sure, one paddling position is not the "catch-all" solution. On short boards, adjusting the weight shift can accomplished by simply a lift of a head or the chest away or towards the board.

Well, I could be doing something wrong, but there is a comment section on this blog and you can fire off your comments back to me, that will help me learn even more. So don't be bashful!

This morning's surf note: JT was flat but I surfed further north this morning, and I had another high-stoke session on my Walden Magic. I love the board!

Day 48: Microwave Surfing at JT. Tons of puny waves. Great take-off practice on my Egg board with Nick!

Sessions 8037-8038

WavLOG

Day 37 & 38

Day 37: Friday Morning: Small surf, tide all filled up at a local beach.
Day 38: Sunday Morning: Relaxing long boarding. Had a few really fun rides.

More coming... Just ran out of time this weekend!

Session 8035: Strange Day!

WavLOG

Day 35
Strange Day!

A beautiful but a rather flat morning. The only spot that seemed to have been breaking was the north corner of the beach if any. So I hurried down the path and then walked back up all the way to the corner of the beach, from where I paddled further to the corner.

Sets were really very far in between and when they came it was hard to catch as the waves either backed off and did not break at all.



Two unusual things happened this morning that would be worthy of reporting. The first was that while I was waiting for a wave someone popped up from nowhere and asked me what time it was. I then asked him where he came from, and he was at another beach further north and paddled there and all the way back. That's quite a bit of distance still since there is another cove in between!

We shared the lineup for a bit, but he took off. I waited for more waves but nothing came. I decided to paddle back to the path, instead of walking back, in order to burn today's quota's worth of calories.

But suddenly there was a huge "Whoosh...." sound just about 10 ft length away from me, and two huge black shadow came up the water. I thought for a moment, "Oh shit. Finally it is my turn!" And when they surfaced completely they were a pair of whales, and the sound was them blowing the water.

I have surfed closer to whales before but this was really close. Basically this was happening in the same space of my bedroom. I turned the camera on right away, but they did not come back or re-surface.

Any time I go out I am always mentally prepared for the last session of my life, so it was not so heart pumping event but I would also say that I was relieved and also really happy to see this special event!

Session 8034

WavLOG

Day 34

Finally back in the water this PM at the place in the photo album. Small, but there were some fun little waves. Hooked up with a local buddy "G" and it is too bad that he collided with one of the kids and got a hole poked on his board!

I may get back in there tomorrow DP!

Sessions 7152-7153 The Confidence

Lately I have been thinking of the whole thing about the confidence. Of course, it is one of the things that I think quite a bit, but this is to say that I am thinking a bit more about it each time I get out in the ocean.

Over the years I came to realize that there are basically the following categories of confidence that I mainly have been dealing with.

• The confidence that I know I can deal with the condition when I paddle out, and basically "no matter what" is the situation, I know I can safely make it back at the end of the session, or shall I say, I know I can end the session at my will.
• The confidence that I know I will safely deal with the break when it is coming at me; either not to take it, take it, or what to do after I have taken it even if I did not ride it. For this one , the improvement in the confidence also comes with the improvement in the power of the break that I can or I am willing to take.

The history of my surfing has always been in building up this confidence. Actually not; in very early days, I was ignorant enough that nothing really mattered, I went for bigger waves, poor conditions etc., and suffered the consequence. But now it is a bit different, I've acquired quite a bit of fear about the ocean, the wave, and even the danger of surfing in a crowd. Then it started become how to deal with these stuff correctly at all times.

Today, I know much better about when I can be totally confident, and conversely when I should be a bit more cautious, and more importantly when my fear is starting to take over and that I need to boost my confidence; for example when a steeper break is coming up. Even though it could be a bit fearful, I make myself listen to relax, I can handle this, I've done this before...

Doing this kind of stuff over and over has also been helpful for my everyday life decision making process.

Session 7123: The Importance of Working Within The Limit

When we are encountered with difficulties, we all tend to dismiss the current situation and start to have "wishful thinking."

We happened to been having some computer performance issues. I have a friend who habitually say to this, "On mainframes, we don't have these kind of problems..."

In surfing too. We have a lot of excuses.

• Wish we were in
• Wish I had board.
  
• Wish the tide or wind is
• Wish I have started years ago.
• Wish I was younger.
• Wish I was born as a female surfer.
• Wish I was born as a male surfer.
• Wish I was a Shark.
  

I am guilty of thinking like that and catch myself doing it some times.

Back to my friend's situation. I know there still are a lot of main-frame COBOL shop. If he seriously think that that's the better world than he is in, I would suggest him to go to the COBOL shop. These days, with much less COBOL programmers around, I am sure he can command a high salary. Either that or grasp the reality of being here and now and deal with it.

Same with surfers. If you seriously wish that you had been in Hawaii, then yeah, go there, get a job. If that's the ticket for my ultimate happiness, I would go to Hawaii or Bali or whatever, and get a Hotel IT job.

For me though, the ultimate happiness, that I also need to remind myself, is to work within the limitation and see how far I can take the maximum advantage out of this limitation.

So we get a lot of close outs here. Why not learn how to ride them?

So if it is hard to get out, why not learn how to get out. There are plenty of others whom we can aspire to who'd been outside and catch 2 waves before we can get outside, right?

How about dealing with crowds. I've certainly tried to observe what happens in crowded situations and how to catch more waves than the surfers on your left and right. I now can do better at that than before. In fact, it is sort of gratifying "stealing" lots of waves from those who are still at early stage of learning curve; that I know they are not going to catch waves. It sounds a bit mean, but on the other hands, if they try, I am certain that they will progress to the point that they would be catching a lot more waves, probably in shorter time that it took me to get there.

And surf boards. I happen to have 8 different surf boards. I like each of the boards not because I started to hate one boar and gotten the next. I really enjoy the "taste" of each board. Like guitars and motorcycles, they just "play" differently. But I feel that there are so much of "The board does not give me the ride I want." attitude around.

I am hoping that each and every one of you will catch yourself saying "I hate this.", "It is better with some thing or somewhere else." Instead, try to accept what you got, what your situation is, then make the best out of it, innovate and also point out to me any time in the future I am starting to fall in that trap.

People have created a master price novel without just a typewriter, and some have created a fine art with just charcoal on paper.

Let's get on to it!

Surf Report

Surfing could have been more fun this morning at a local hollow spot. I wish that the tide was a bit low and I wish I had a more floaty board, and I am going to regret the rest of my life that I wish I had a job that I could go out a bit later when the tide was higher, and that I had a carbon fibre hollow quad fish so that I could have caught more waves....

Session 7121 - Surfing Lifesyle

More often than not, the idea of quitting all these web related stuff, just forget about the people, the friends, and everything, and just go surf whenever I feel like it, and not even write about it. Definitely it is an easy way out. I sometimes feel like this is not what I signed up for.

It has been more of a hard paddle out than getting fun rides, it really mirrors my current state of surfing too.

But there always are other compelling reasons not to stop.

In a nutshell, it is really not about the ocean but all of the friends that I came to know each other, who have helped build the surfing life style for me.

You might wonder even then why would that be important?

May be I can be very selfish to say this, but I am sort of relived that I am not all alone in this endevour of the sport. Whatever the reasons, people have identified themselves with what we do here. Surely this is not SurfPulse or Surfline. But somehow, I am a bit gratified to know that we have started a group on this corner of the universe and we are all tied each other with the sport of surfing in its core.

You are everywhere.

A few yeas back I came down with Shingles after coming back from Japan after seeing my dying father. I had not been that ill for many years. Finally almost I got through it, I went surfing, and someone stopped me to tell me that he has been folloing my blog and told me how I was doing OK.

Yesterday at the Jetty...

You know Hwy 1 just run by the ocean (in fact it is only but a few spot where Hwy 1 is right against the surf spot. The next spot is 360 miles south at Rincon!

There were about 4 cars that came by hoking at me - ex co-workers, local surfers, surf shop owner...

So I will continue to go with the "flow" of things. You all help us continue to build this. As we are all familiar we are dealing with a fluid world in and out of the ocean. Evey moment changes and different. I like that notion.

--
This morning, I was a lone surfer. I am still really puzzled as to where people go. There were some fun good waves out where I was. The egg worked really nice.

Session 7117-7118: Complexity Of Setting Up A Session With Other Surfers

Complexity Of Setting Up A Session With Other Surfers

Before I set out to write this session log, I am not complaining, but I am describing the situations that I have observed over the past few years.

Through my surfing I have had various challenges setting up sessions with buddies. I now came to see some basic pattern in surf buddies, myself included, and the combo of those factors make it really difficult for all of us to be surfing at the same spot at the same time.

Everyone has a little element of those characteristics, like a virtual mixing board where the knobs and sliders are adjusted all differently.

Time Bound Buddies

This happens a lot with people with children. It appears that the children controls their surf plan. Can't blame you, but nevertheless, we both need to plan carefully around plans.

From time to time, even people without children fall into this category as their "better half" appears to be the controlling factor in schedule.

I too am time constrained to the extent that the session must be early in the morning before I can sneak in to the office or the morning meeting.

The challenge with surfing with them is that we can never meet up at the right time and right place. You know how timing is very important in surfing.

Location Bound Buddies

OK... I used to belong to this class of surfers.

I see a lot of this, a lot of people only want to surf Linda Mar and basically only there even if we tell them that other spots are firing at better quality. They also tend to paddle out exactly right in the smack of where most people are and take off in all at the same time. And if they do their idea of surfing other location is Cowells or Inside 38th and do exactly the same... paddle to the most crowded spot and take off when others are taking off. They tend not to surf nowhere in between.

The challenge surfing with them is that I often have to surf their breaks with crowds, and I often do not want to.

Quality Control Freak Buddies

There are some people I know who would only go out when the condition is in a specific way or must pick the best out of the worst. They tend to choose bigger and hollower condition that hold the shape. They tend to be almost totally opposite of the location bound surfers; they are everywhere on the coast. We all know their cars, and we tend to go where we find their cars are parked, or we also know that we've missed good waves when they are going past the other direction on the highway.

Also these are the people whom I ran into them at parking lot a lot, but not much in the water. They are just checking and usually on the way to another spot that they know could be better. Once they leave the lot, us "regulars" on the coast will always talk about, if, how, when, and what they do to fund their surfing, let alone other things in life. Nevertheless, they are here year after year, and they are just way above and beyond technically from most of us.

Challenge setting up a session with them is that we can't.

Quality Insecure Buddies

I will never become this type.

Getting in the water "anyway" is very important to me.

I have seen a few people in this category, and I have hardly ever seen them surf. They only go out locally if the condition is super great, which of course we all know that does not happen very often.

Challenge setting up a session with them is that they won't go out even if they come. That makes me feel really bad about dragging them out to "my" break.

Skill Bound Buddies

This is, actually where I falls under presently.

This is a variation of Quality Bound buddies. We tend to choose waves that we can only handle, but we are more or less more at the mercy of the nature. We tend to like small, mushy, safe conditions without wind and . As a result this tends to limit the locations where we can surf, and can't hang around with large crowd because either we get in the way or they get in our way.

Challenge setting up a session with them is that we vary in skill set and preferences that we can never agree where to pick, by the time we did all the surf checks and discussed about it the session is over. You know we are all in the sensitive generation, never rock the boat, and never hurt other peoples' feelings...

Geek Buddies

I too am VERY guilty of being in this category of surfers.

These days especially in affluent area like NorCAL or OC, you find them everywhere. There are some surfers that own very expensive latest brand new pro gear, from head to toe, surf boards for all occasions, hot fins, nose guards, tail guards, wax removing system or any other accessories that can be found at surf shops and online, wear just about everything that can be worn, for helmet, hood, hot skins underneath, speedo, webbed gloves to the latest model booties....

But their surfing is not just up to par. The surfer next to him/her with a 5 year old dinged up board out-paddles, knocks their socks off... catching 10 times more waves. Because of that and all new shiny equipment, they stick out like a sore thumb in any lineup.

Advice to myself. The water is warm in the summer even in NorCAL, take my hood and gloves off, get refreshed with a bit chilly but wake-up water, and use solid equipment without much gimmicks like funny (t/r)ails and funny fin configs. Approach the realm of a surfing Yoda. People used to rip on their redwood planks!

There is no challenge setting up a session with them to the extent they go anywhere, any place and any time, even the condition is better elsewhere. They see the ocean, they suit up (fully of course) and go in and don't catch any wave.

I am starting to get it though, so this season, I have shed my helmet, gloves, hood and if I am in So Cal, wet suits and booties are out too. Now I can really blend in.

Session 7115.5 and 7116, Slow Surf Day + More Stupid Competition Stories

Yesterday, I was intending to surf after work. But that competition and the super "day after" session completely exhausted me. I was almost nodding while driving to the beach. When I got to the beach it was shrouded with thick fog, and the waves looked really small as far as I could see from the cliff.

So I reclined my seat and decided to take a nap. Not much later, I heard a familiar local buddy's voice, "Hay Mano!" I was awoken, and sure enough it was my local buddy Mr. Z. And we B.S'd for a while. He asked me about getting a fish or some board of that nature, and I ended up getting my 7'2 Takayama Egg board, and explained to him about how much I started to like the board, etc. etc. It is kind of a lazy summer late afternoon thing when the waves are bad, but we still are engaged in a type of surfing activity... This is a kind of moment I would remember for a while, it is really a part of a surfing life experience.

This morning, I checked my own web site for the condition and the S swells are starting to hit, so I headed back to the same spot. Jetty wasn't happening yet.

Sure enough there were 4-5 surfers out already at the south end of the beach. I decided to join but the tide was really too low, and we all know that it is a bad news when the waves are running backwards towards ocean, and you can actually paddle into paddle out on a few of these backwards waves (back washes). But they really are bad news because when you do catch an incoming wave to ride, these would collide against the wave you are riding, and at best you can practice some floaters, but in most cases, you'd be reflected back on the colliding splash.

So I did not stay too long, especially when there was also strange current thing going on making me hard to stay where I wanted to be. It is a spooky feeling when you are all by yourself (other surfers left) and you are clearly being carried out to the ocean.

So I caught the white water and ridden it to the shore (one would never paddle to the shore!).

Anyhow, another local buddy shows up when I was changing, and I told her that I was a bit bummed about the stupid situation at the surf competition this past weekend, and she told me her stupid surf competition story.

On one competition she was in, she was so nervous that she picked up someone else's board and started to paddle out. Realizing this, she paddled back and got her own board.

Also, I almost forgot to tell you that a few years back our own surfing mama, Ren did the same stupid thing as I did, which was not realizing she had advanced, and forfeited the whole heat.

We all get so nervous about competitions, that we really start to show the stupid side of ourselves, which I think in the end, is kind of fun carrying on the surfing lifestyle, share these stories, and we all laugh about it. I am really enjoying, now that I feel being more a part of it.

Session 7106

Session 7105

Small day. But I did get out, and had a fair share of the waves.

Session 7103 Angry Letter Written on Water

There is a Buddhim teaching that goes like this.

The first type of anger is compared to letters written on stone, they never change, they never go away. The second type of anger is compared to letters written on sand. The third type of anger is compared to letters written on water.

As one of the people who know the sand and water world intimately, I feel that this is something that I practice both in and out of the water.

The nature, the sprit and minds all come together on most any surf sessions.

Become aware of it.

Session 7102

The worst fear of all is the fear of looking bad to others. I have been trying to overcome this fear all my life...

Who cares!

Session 7100, Did Not Get Caught Inside!

This is the 100th session of 2007. No it does not mean I had surfed 7100 times in my life!

We are in the height of the summer condition where there is not much local winds, but further north in Mendocino county are usually a lot of NW winds, causing some summer fun waves locally.

Weekends usually has been the time to go out with our neighborhood friends to a beach near-by. We cover anywhere from Gray Whale to Waddell Creek on these sessions, but mostly confined to the area of Montara to within the city limits of Half Moon Bay, and occasionally we extend our visit to Pacifica. But that has become less and less especially in the summer.

After a brief surf check from atop the cliff (that's usually the NorCAL surf check), we decided (actually I've convinced my buddy to) get in the water at the location in the picture. It looked easy enough but it turns out to be the same old pattern, very hard paddle getting out. Looking back even just a year ago, I think that I have given up on that. I was even on a Takayama DT4 this time, which is a 9 ft long board. But I was able to get out without too much fuss, at least the first time. I had to time the lull and dash out. Now the dash out number works. Previous season, even dashing out was not working. I can tell this because there were couple of more local surfers that I went out a lot last year, and they could but I could not. So that's one thing that I have really starting to be able to do. I am definitely much faster than short boarders who were there, and that was not even the case last season. I'd be on a long board, and I paddled slower then!

Back to the session, my buddy finally given up after catching a few rides, so I got out too and asked him if he'd try again, and as we talked the ocean started to become calm. But he joked that as soon as one of us would step in the waves start to crank up and he went back to the car. That is usually so true!

I walked up much further into the north end of the beach and got in. As soon as I stepped into the liquid, sure enough, the waves starts to crank. It was shallow enough I could walk for a bit deeper, but more inside wither water kept crushing on me. I just hanged onto the board and let the side current take me to wherever it wants to go. But after a while, I was successfully swept into a rapid rip, and that was all I needed to get out. Initially it was a mess with water colliding from every which directions, but the further and further I paddled, it got calmer and calmer, and finally I made back to the outside. There it was just nice and calm with occasional sets coming in.

When I was starting out, I look at these people in amazement that they get out to way way outside through these kind of mess. I am vividly remembering that. First I could not even understand how they could do that, and what kind of a confidence required to get so far out. "What if they cannot come back?" "Can they swim back?" I thought that they must be awfully confident about themselves. And when I tried, I was so scared of it and I often wondered if I could continue with the sport much longer. Even a more blow to my confidence, and so to my own personal existence, was there were young kids, man and women of all ages that did with smile in their faces, all seemingly relaxed.

This season, I think that I can bear more smiles on my face as I get out in more conditions, and to me personally, I do feel that I have overcame a lot of fear, built more confidence paddling out as well as riding back. For me that's truly a sense of personal accomplishment. And this is coming from a person who was a "D" student in high-school physical education classes.

Sessions 7097, 7098A, 7098B

We are really into this summer NW wind swell pattern that's just perfect for places. And finally, it will be the 100th day of surfing this year tomorrow. Summer brings small surfs, but it also opens up possibilities of places were we don't normally get to surf.

But also it has been too bad for the Jetty this summer. I actually feel sorry about local kids who rely on this spot. Now we are already talking about back to school sale (didn't you used hate it when you heard that?)

I have been continuing to work on paddling muscles and also fine tuning take off techniques all this spring and summer. I have basically gotten rid of that fearful feeling of currents, and I think I am starting to be looking forward to the times when the NW swells gets to be 14-15 seconds day at the Jetty in the winter. This winter, I can paddle out further out with much more confidence and also I can try taking off to more varieties of wave shapes.

But before that, I am looking forward to the fall surfing. The wind is starting to really calm down both in the morning, and in the late afternoon, and sun is out now many more days.

Surfing just before the fall dusk is really pleasant way of ending a day.

Session 7093: The Only Game in Town

Every once in a while "the only game in town" situation occurs. It is like a high-school reunion. Everyone... people like me who is not very good but surf a lot, and then there are super champions at local competitions, and peopole whom I never see on this side of the slide all in one mix, all bunched up in one spot, and all at the same time!

This past week I often surfed alone, or with one or two more people in places and these people never show up, so it must be that they must really surf totally different places than I do and they know what's better.

As for the session goes, it was still walling up and not easy fun wave, but the best of the breeds were making some good moves on the wave. Definitely I am planning on getting there.

Also, this morning, I had a late late start of 9:00 as I had to work on a customer issue right when I got up and took for a while. So it is also the case that some of the better surfers just spend all morning finding a good spot. Not for me, I have to get what comes for about an hour and have to get to work!

Sessions 7085-6, More Summer Surfing

One of the things that I am starting to realize is this.

Local wind swells, especially mixed in with background level swells, make it very difficult to forecast what is going to happen.

In Northern California, many of us are familiar with micro-climates, but they also apply to local swells too. Also, it really proves me the point that wind swells are really ridable. Of course, if you ask people who venture out in the middle of winter in the Great Lakes all know about it.

The waves come from all directions, and also not consistently but it is kind of a situation where if you wait long enough there can be some fun waves.