BAY STREET, AN OLD FRIEND: FRI 10/28/2010

    I was on a mission all morning and part of the early afternoon to find a damn Halloween costume.  I ended up buying the Cobra Kai uniform (gi) from The Karate Kid.  I drove all over town for that.  It was 2:30 P.M. when I visited Lauren at work.  I had two options.  I could’ve headed back to El Segundo, worked out, surf for an hour, then came back to Santa Monica.  My other option was to just take a look at Bay street, and stay in Santa Monica until Lauren was off. 

    It’s been over a year since I surfed Bay St.  In fact, it was just a couple months short of two years.  I last surfed there for Jon’s farewell surf session in Dec. 2008. …  That’s a long fuckin’ time!  I parked right there on the hill by the meters.  I walked down to the lifeguard tower and peeped the scene.  It was sunny, a little choppy, there was some light wind, and the waves were similar to that morning, except it wasn’t as clean.  It was really consistent, though, and only a small group of long boarders were out.  I must’ve been suffering from surf fever because I saw one three foot left come through, right in front of me, with nobody on it.  Once I saw that, I turned my ass around and went to go change. 

    The endorphins fired off on full auto once my feet touched the water.  I forgot how beautiful Santa Monica is.  There is so much more to see than Porto:  hotels, people, the pier, and the mountains.  Also, my dumb ass got a little cocky when I saw all the long boarders, and I wanted to get in the water and show them how the west was won.  When I got in, a lot of them left, and there was one older guy and three kids that remained.  I caught some rides right away.  The lines were long and a little crumbly, and the shape wasn’t quite there to allow a long ride.  It was three o’clock, and I put two and a half hours on the meters.  On another note, God bless the meters over there.  At least it’s still twenty-five cents for fifteen minutes. 

    After the first forty five minutes I realized that I kind of bamboozled myself.  It wasn’t as good as it looked from the shore, but I tried to make the best of it.  Strangely, there were a lot of dolphins in the water.  I know that dolphins are a norm, but for some reason they are more brave at Santa Monica.  There were a school of about eight dolphins playing in the distance.  Soon enough, they were all around me.  I mean, literally, just a few feet away.  They were playing with the waves in my spot, swimming behind me, surfacing right next to me, and everything.  At first it was cool, then I got a little nervous, then my bitch ass curled my toes inward thinking that one of those bastards might nibble a toe off.  Of course, that whole thought was ridiculous.  Everyone from the shore, and even the other surfers in the water were tripping out.  Maybe I’m the Snow White of the ocean? 

    Just as I began to drift into a depression, I saw Shan paddling towards me.  My eyes lit up to see this handsome gentleman on his fiberglass stallion, approaching to embrace me in the water. …  Okay, that was a little homo.  Once we were out there together, the session naturally became better.  We were both racking up high wave counts, despite the lack of real shape.  Every once in a while a wave would open up.  Get this, my wave of the day wasn’t even three feet high.  It was a little left.  I paddled my ass off, got the slide, then I pumped my board hard and fast to go all the way down the line to shore.  It was fun.  Shan even saw it. 

    We left at about the same time.  The showers near the beach are being renovated, so you have to walk more north on the walk path to the far showers. 

    It was Shan’s first time there, surprisingly.  He said he would check it out more often, but I warned him … when it’s alright at Bay St., it’s usually better at Porto.  Either way, it was great surfing at an old familiar break.  There will always be a special place in my heart for Bay St.  It was the place that Jon, Cheryl, and I would go with our goofy long boards because we were too cowardly to surf at Porto.  We have history there.  DRC started there.