Session 7043: Saturday LM Late Morning

This morning's session started out OK, I think I caught some bit of fun waves, but the tides were still low. Someone told me a long time ago that immediately around the Easter we have a period of negative low tides and it works out good in Santa Cruz. He was probably right.

At any rate, I had fun for a while. But I have to figure this one out. On an incoming tide when there is much stronger tide surge like the one this day when the tide go super negative to super positive, I think there is a period of time when some big sets breaks. I have seen this happen many times, but I will try to observe if this is actually the case.

At any rate several of us who were there were creamed by these big overhead set waves that broke over shoulder high depth and it was a bit frightening, because having been too late to paddle to the outside, I went all the way to the top of the wave then took a dump and smashed on to the bottom, held down there for a bit. Good thing nothing broke, but one would never know when this sort of thing happens.

Session 7036: No Crowds But No Waves!

Like I said, as soon as I start to talk no so humble, the karma turns bad.

Nobody in the wave, but caught zero wave this morning.

The nature always teaches you to be humble!

On Bigger Days...

Last December, I remember from Christmas onto well into January, there was not a single day we could surf since it was stormy and big. This December, and right now we are starting to get into week 2 of "too big to surf" because as soon as the first 20-ft class came through there is another 20-ft class waves. The northern part of Pacific becomes a roaring mess of 50-ft seas often times. We all hear about that on the news, but I now understand a lot more about 50-ft class seas today than before. No wonder shipwrecks are fairly common in the winter and around Alaska and northern Pacific.

I used to not like big days. Simply because I could not find a place to surf.
But now I look forward to big days not because I can surf big waves. I now can surf bigger waves but not big waves, but what I am waiting for is the replenishing of sandbars.

This last half of the summer was quite lame on the sandbar department in Half Moon Bay. Just about all of our favorite local spots, the sandbars were all raked out and even on some decent swell days, all the waves were just breaking very close at the shore. This caused a choice of spots and types of waves we could surf.

But on the book I have studied on Surf Science: An Introduction To Waves For Surfing, there was a great section on how sandbars form, and I came to scientifically understand why big messy period of time is needed to rebuild good sand bars, and probably like anything in the nature we all tend to destroy and neglect, there are much more ecological benefits for this to happen.

So on bigger days, I would go out and enjoy the beauty and the magnificence of big waves, and wait for it to shape our playgrounds!
Cheers!