Just like yesterday, I told Shan that I would be by 26th, but on the way there I couldn’t help but pull into El Porto. That place has been a magnet to me, and when I’m not there I just imagine that place going off. Despite it being dark, the lot was pretty full. I ended up parking close to the bathrooms again. I didn’t even bother to look to see how it was. There was a lot of people there, so I just wanted to park and get in the water. I had put on my wetsuit at home, so I was on the sand within minutes of getting there. I couldn’t tell how the waves were, all I knew was that I wanted to get to where the crowd wasn’t. I had an easy paddle out to the line up in front of the tanks.
I had to share the break with some other people, but it wasn’t that bad. All of us in the water stared at 45th as we saw the lefts that came that way. We could hear all of the hooting and hollering every time a big set came. A couple walls came through, and I caught my first couple bombs. By about eight o’clock the water changed a little. The high tide pushed the water up to the rocks’ edges. The walls became a bit softer and more forgiving. Best of all, some left hand shoulders started to form on the waves that were coming in. It was every man for himself out there, and I was lucky to be in perfect position for a lot of waves. Since it got a little mooshy, I had to catch the waves really late as they jacked up. I had a lot of fun steep drops, and this time the waves opened up a little. Sure, there weren’t perfect shoulders, but the face of the waves weren’t as vertical and allowed some nice front side carving before they closed out. I pumped and took the highline on a couple. I didn’t do anything new; I was just happy to have some shape to work with and stayed on the wave as long as I could.
I felt pretty weak again this morning, and after the first hour of surfing, I was hurting before my second hour was over. I caught my last wave all the way to shore again.
There aren’t too many details on this entry. Some black guy was talking to his friend by my car, talking about how his girlfriend was pissed off at him because he surfs too much. I’m glad I don’t have that problem. I met some French surfer in the water. He told me he saw me go for a wave that was over head. He was pretty cool, except when you meet people in the water, they come too close and steal your waves- another reason to keep to myself. I was happy with this morning’s session, glad that I got some kind of pay off after riding nothing but close outs the last couple days.
Today’s lesson learned: Stay patient, carve, carve, carve on the front side. Let my surf progression be natural and self expressing; enjoy the wave. When I started surfing, it wasn’t to do anything technical. All I wanted was to get on a wave, whether it was straight or only one foot high.
No comments:
Post a Comment