I was hoping for the swell to fade a little so the waves would form some kind of real shape. I pulled up at 45th and scored on the free parking at 4:45 P.M. I gave Shan a call and told him that it looked a little walled still, but that it seemed a little bit smaller. He said he’d check it in the A.M. Just as I got off the phone with him, the fucking El Segundo parking enforcement made me move my car, so I did a loop through the parking lot then came back to park. The tide was a bit high. The usual spots were crowded, so I went to my usual spot (surprise surprise). This time, I wasn’t so lucky on my paddle out. I walked my board as far as I could stand, and there was just endless sets after that. I ended up duck diving, stationary, for at least five minutes before there was a little lull. Miraculously, I made it out. There was another crowd out that afternoon. The whole south bay surf community knows about the current swell, so everybody and anybody that has a wave addiction was there. My back muscles were sore from my last work out at the gym and just from all the surfing I have been doing in general. My paddle felt weak, but it definitely wasn’t the time to be lazy about anything out there.
I mentioned earlier that I had hoped that the shape would be better. If the shape was better, it wasn’t by much. The size did come down just a tad bit. The only good thing about this session was that I racked up a high wave count and didn’t wipe out on one wave. Yes, they were mostly close outs, but I went for a lot of them, bailed out as soon as they closed, then turned around for more. I was doing pretty good compared to the other guys around there. Some guys didn’t want to paddle into those that I got, but it was either that or no waves at all.
On some of the walls, I was able to paddle in right where the little shoulder seemed to be above the sea level, but by the time I was paddling into them, they still ended up closing fast. I got caught on the inside a couple times which was really frustrating. I just couldn’t successfully duck dive under the roaring rapids. The duck dive is one of my major weaknesses.
A clean up set came through after I caught my last wave. I talked to a guy that was on the shore, and he told me he just swallowed a gang of water because of that set. We talked about how it was dangerous and not worth it. Either way … I was somewhat satisfied that I got a lot of waves, even though they were closeouts.
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