still sidelined

Good thing there are no waves for me to miss.

One of my friends is going to be buying an epoxy board and I've been seeing them a lot lately. You can tell because the colors look a little dull. I wonder if the boards will ever come out looking like the old polyurethane boards. More importantly, is there a performance difference?

When they first came out, people were saying it didn't have quite the same feel, in a negative way, compared to the old foam boards. The sensitivity or flex was gone. They are cheaper and more resilient than the old boards, but they don't look quite as nice. I hear they are super light as well. Lots of pros and cons.

Anyone care to comment?

I'm waiting for my surfing mentor to pick up one up. He totally surfs the hell out of his foam boards that they fall apart (delamination) after a couple of seasons. He treats his boards really well, too, except for the abuse they go through from the turns and the kick outs.

I'm not going to be buying a board anytime soon, but will be rehabbing an old board. It has some delamination rework done to it, but I think I'll try to find someone to strip it and reglass the whole board. This is after I get my tax refund back and then I'll have to go find someone to do the glass work. If anyone knows someone in Orange County or LA County, please forward me their contact info.

Fun Saturday

Waves were big, water was glassy, crowd was only moderate. No sun though. The waves were pouring in non stop for awhile and there were some head highs poking through every now and then. I caught a bunch of waves, going right of course. A few lefts here and there, but nothing to write home about.

The next day, I got to the break a little late because of my late night the night before. I didn't even bother paddling out. The waves were big and even though there was a lull every so often, I decided I'd only get pounded and didn't have the energy to paddle out.

Instead, I hung out with some of the older locals, listening to their stories. The stories weren't necessarily about waves or surf, but they mostly centered around the other characters who surfed that spot. It would appear that a lot of the locals used to be ex military. They had stories about that as well as the other people who were. Some people were less liked than others. This was all while they were watching the surf and cheering for some of the more energetic people catching waves.

The waves are pumping right now, unfortunately for me, I won't be surfing for the next few weeks with a slight tear in my calf muscle. Not a fun thing at all, but there isn't an injury that can be characterized as "fun" is there?