A WEEKEND AT TRESTLES: PADDLING INTO ORANGE, FRI 3.25.2011 EVE

CREW: Solo
FLAKES OF THE DAY: NA
RAN INTO: NA
TIME: 1900 - 1930, 30 min.
CONDITIONS: Lighter onshore winds but still prevalent, high tide, swampy, backwashed, warm water, inconsistent, but serene.

    What a fiasco after this morning’s session. When I checked-in to the camping office, they were cool as hell. They gave me all the details I needed to know, then I headed to my spot. Just as I was hoping, it was right there on the sand in front of the beach. The only bad thing is that the waves don’t break there. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but wouldn’t it be nice to have good waves in front of where you sleep?

Waves in front of the campsite. Not so good.

    The tent . . . what a fucking pain in the ass that was. I pulled it out, set it on the ground, and I couldn’t find the tent stakes; there were none. Son of a bitch, I thought. No offense to my friend Dan that let me borrow the tent. I was trying to save some money. I have a K-mart one-man tent that I bought years ago, but I didn’t want to use that fucking thing. There was only one way to deal with this: I had to go on post to get another tent.

    I went to the base shopping mart and bought a propane stove, and a bunch of other shit. Thankfully, I found some tent stakes on sale, so that solved the tent problem. After that I went to the grocery store. I bought Spam, eggs, sausage, and more stuff that I’m not even sure that I’ll be able to eat by the time the trip is over. In fact, I will probably be force feeding anyone that arrives in hopes to get rid of it all.

    I also called the firewood delivery service, but they said that their truck was broken down. At least they said they’d keep me updated if they could deliver some fire wood or not.

    I got back to the site to set up the tent. VICTORY. Motherfuckin’ victory, except . . . where are the poles for the rain tarp? Where are the chords to fasten the rain tarp? There‘s pictures of them in the set-up manual. No, no victory here. FUCKING FAIL AGAIN! I was pissed. The people in the sites next to me saw me struggling to set up the tent, and now I was going to have to take it down again? I resorted to the fact that I would have to go back to the base to finally buy another fucking tent. After a couple minutes of being pissed off, the option of keeping the tent with the loose rain tarp resonated with me; I‘d just sleep in the car if it rained.

    Firewood. I called them again, and I got a voice mail that said they were out of wood, so I still had to go back to base anyway.

    I couldn’t relax. I kept on going inside and outside of the tent, and then back inside again. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the ocean. I wanted to paddle back out, but the onshore wind was just howling strong. The water looked uninviting. Yes, there were waves; some of them were breaking way on the outside. The rides looked a little racy, but there was a little shape. It looked kind of like Porto on a blown out day, except the peaks had faces to work with. I kept watching surfers coming and going, paddling in and paddling out, but I was waiting for that right moment for the wind to die down; it didn’t.

    I drove to the base accepting my decision not to paddle out, but then I started philosophizing about it. If you don’t paddle out, then you can stay home, stay on the sand, watch the waves from the warmth of your car/tent, etc. The problem with that is, you’ll know what you’ll get out of that: dryness, not even suiting up, and no chance of catching anything. At least if you try to paddle out, regardless of the 50/50 chance of getting a good ride or not, at least you try, and if you try then anything is possible, and you might get that one good wave to make it all worth it. I couldn’t help but think that maybe I was being too picky, but did I have a right to be that picky? I thought I did. Every other session at Trestles was close to perfect conditions, today it rained, the water was stormy, excuses, etc., etc.

    On my drive back to camp I saw that the sun was setting. I wanted to get back in time to take a picture, but it was gone. I looked at the American flag flying over my neighbor’s trailer; the wind had died considerably. I looked out and saw a couple shoulders worth going for. If I could just get a couple of those, I thought. The desire to just get wet and paddle around in the latent day was too tempting to pass up. I changed and paddled out at 1900. Surprisingly, the water wasn’t that cold. I made my way to the inconsistent line up and waited for anything with a face or shoulder. No one was out any more. The horizon was a fading orange, and some dissipating clouds left faint trails in the form of a V. The sound of the waves crashing, the dark blue and black triangular shapes that dominated the water, the orange reflections from what was left in the waning light, my snuggly camp site waiting for my return, the distance that I had from the familiar and the stressing, they all gave me a feeling of serenity and a peace of mind that I haven’t had in a while. I caught one close out back to shore, and that was perfectly fine.

    In the showers there was a surfer that just got out. He said, “Hey, have fun, didja?”

    I replied, “Meh, it was all right. A little too much wind.”

    “Awwww, mate, but you can always find something baaad to say. . . . There were waves, weren’t there?”

    Fuck . . . he was right. “There were waves,” he said. Yes, there were. I guess that’s all that really mattered, and I missed it. Too picky? I don’t know. You can’t win them all, all the time. I expect tomorrow to be my day. I hope that it doesn’t rain and that the stormy conditions will be over.

    Sitting here now in the darkness with a cup of hot chocolate, outdoors, with the sound of the ocean behind me . . . I am happy.