Sunday Short(er) Board, with a mix of Sinus Congestion

My sinuses are once again clogged. I am actually at home early from work cause I might be catchign something. It's not a good thing at all. Sudafed isn't living up to its end of the bargain by draining my sinuses. Then again, the water quality hasn't been all that great, so it has a tough job ahead.

I decided that I should spend more time on my 7'0 hybrid. It's fun in the sense that I can drop in late because of the huge rocker, but paddling is a bitch.

Only one wave comes to mind, a left. I turn, paddle, feel the board catch, grab the outside rail and pig dog for a little while. This is something that's happening more and more to me lately, where I pig dog lefts and am very close to the tail of the board. Each time this happens, I'm super close to the curl and can see the wall of water to my left looming up, ready to bowl over. It's pretty cool being that close to the curl. Like an idiot, I stand up cause I feel like I should, and leaned a little to the right, getting me out of that nice spot. The wave passes by and I can only relish the moment I had, completely connected to the wave.

Now, I just have to be able to do that on purpose!

Overhead Beating

Well, the biggest swell of the summer was big... but inconsistent. There were some head high bombs that came through, one of which, cleaned my clock, so to speak. It was the typical scene where someone yells, "Outside!" In this case, no one really yelled, "Outside!" but I turned around in time to see I was in the path for a bruising. I paddled as fast as I could to see if I could at the very least duck through the wave on a 7'11 fun board, but the wave didn't feel that was very nice of me to get avoid it like some creepy girl who stalked you after class one day just because you wrote her a note saying how hot she was when it was really directed to the really hot girl sitting next to her. I got pushed to the sand and just sat there for a short while so that everything would be nice and calm afterwards. Luckily, the inconsistency allowed me to paddle back out again without any more beatings.

I didn't have a memorable ride that day, but it was still fun, even with the beating!

A day at the Zoo

The Sunday after a great double header Saturday (the morning made it worthwhile) was very disappointing. The waters back at the home break were red... again! When will it ever stop?

The waves were a little on the small side, but were bowling for some reason. I brought out the 7'11 and continued my streak of pearling. I really had to drop in at angle and even had one of the locals tell me so. It wasn't for lack of trying, just didn't angle it enough most times to catch the waves and teh waves I did catch, it was straight. There weren't any shoulders to ride on and even if there were, I'd have to slalom amongst the crowds. It was just that bad.

In fact, one of my friends dropped in on someone and promptly hopped off after the guy waved for him to speed it up. He jumped off, the guy behind him wiped out cause of my friend's board, total kook moment.

I only stayed a little while cause really, why bother? It was the last weekend of summer and everyone was out there, as if there were no more waves to be had the very next weekend.

Speaking of which, the very next weekend was still red tide days, but the crowds lessened to a degree and the waves were better. I surfed a couple of hours, tried not to wipe out, and went home. Of course, I wiped out enough times that my sinuses were once again clogged. I promptly bought some Sudafed Night time stuff with pseudophedrine to drain things out. It was so bad that even though I went to the beach the next day, I didn't set foot in the water for fear of making things worse. After getting 2 ear infections simultaneously with 2 sinus infections from last year's red tide, I learned my lesson (to a slight degree, since I still do surf in that crap).

Can't wait for this weekend. There are reports of surf and I borrowed a friend's pseudo fish to try out.

Double Header Saturday (Labor Day Weekend)

A friend was going to be in SD for the weekend, so me and my surf friend/instructor decided to head down to hit the waves in either Carlsbad or Torrey Pines. It was great! There wasn't a soul to be seen for 300 yards. When we got there it was kind of small, so we took a quick look at La Jolla Shores.

We paddled out to conditions that couldn't be more perfect, well, if the sun burst through the clouds, then it would have been even more perfect than it was. The waves were clean and glassy, so who needs sun? There were some shoulder high waves coming through with some shoulders to work on. I have to reiterate that San Diego waves are some of the best around. Even the small ones have enough push to get you into the groove.

After taking a couple hours break for lunch, we decided to head back in for a 2nd session. What a mistake! The waves looked alright, looked clean, but there was something different. On the first wave, I have to paddle harder than I did in the morning to get into the wave, stood up, then promptly pearled. What the hell just happened? I paddle back out, try for a waist high wave, get up, nose promptly goes under as if there was a vacuum pulling the board down. Every wave after, even if I pig dog it, the nose goes under. My friends were having some of the same issues. Guess the waves can't be perfect all the time.