TRESTLES--THE 180: SUN 5.29.2011 EVE

Move out!

CREW: Klaude, Khang, Christina, Dais, Francis, Nicole (cam duty)

TIME: 1500-1700?, 2 hours.
CONDITIONS: Onshore wind, consistent, strong southern current, long paddle out, 5 feet, occasional 6.

    Klaude cooked a wide array of dishes and served them in five course fashion. Thanks to the food that Shan left us, we had fish and shrimp on deck as well. Everyone turned in for the night which left Klaude and I by the campfire until 2330. We talked about our surfing, our goals, Bali, and just put out our surf theories and how much we hoped to improve. We brushed our teeth and fell fast asleep.

    I was awoken by the roaring wind. By roaring I mean violent, angry, tent-pole bending, WIND! I thought to myself, Wow, is it time to get up already? I was thinking that it was around 0500. I looked at my watch and it was 0015 . . . I was asleep for barely forty-five minutes. I took a peak outside and checked on our supplies to see if they were still in place. All still looked well, but the wind . . . I prayed that it would die in order to keep the surf clean for us, but things obviously looked dismal. 0200, I woke up at the sound of things flying off of the picnic table. What the hell!? I turned and watched Klaude slightly shift in his sleeping bag and drift back into a coma, completely oblivious to nature’s vicious rendition. I went outside the tent, gathered the supplies that were on the ground, and put the stuff on the table in the back of my wagon. I hurried back inside the tent, crawled back into my sleeping bag, and watched the tent struggle to stand upright as air rushed in everywhere possible. 0345, the sound of sheeting rain beats the tent all around and wakes me. Good God, I thought. We’re really in for it now! I ran back outside to check the rain tarp. Klaude’s side came undone, so I tied it to the portable picnic table to keep it secure. Unfortunately on my side, the tarp stake would not stay in the soft and wet sand, so my side had a little gap where the rain got in. Wet as I was, I figured that I might as well go back inside. I moved my electronics out of harms way and sacrificed the rest. A minute later I heard Khoa get out of his tent. In the middle of the rain their tarp completely blew off.

    0515, I’m awakened by Christina walking around our soaked chairs in front of the fire pit. Klaude wakes up right after. We are all out of firewood. I only prepared for two nights because I didn’t think we’d be freezing our asses off on Sunday morning. Christina’s tent that she shared with Francis and Nicole didn’t even have a rain tarp. Well . . . they had one, but they elected not to use it. Christina got completely drenched. Klaude and I gave her our tent which was only drenched on my side, where she fell asleep for most of the morning.

    It was pretty brutal. As everyone else woke up, we huddled by the propane fire behind the tent, as it was our only protection from the wind. The rain stopped, but now we had to deal with the damp, the cold, and the overcast. I tried my best to lift spirits my making coffee with hot chocolate and marshmallows. We eve had tortillas, eggs, and sausage going. We had to check-out by noon and move into our new spot by 1300.

The new site.

    Khoa, Sean, Karen, and Eloisa took off early, and the rest of us waited for our next campsite to be available. By the time we moved camp the weather changed, the wind died down a little, and the sun came out. I was happy with our new campsite and our perfect view of Churches’s right hand waves. I was still unpacking while the boys were already suited up and ready to paddle out. The energy was good, and we all wanted to make up for the morning’s lost session.

    Battle Positions looked good, but as we looked more towards Lowers, we noticed that there were sets breaking far out on the outside. We agreed that one of those waves could go for a long ride, so we paddled out just south of Lowers. Nicole chilled on the sand with her high speed camera. Klaude and Christina paddled out first, while Francis and I were a couple steps behind them. Dais and Khang decided to rest a little longer while we paddled out. Francis beat me to the line up and drew first blood, but I was too preoccupied with my own predicament to get to the line. It seemed like I reached it, but then I kept seeing that outside peak breaking, and it seemed like I had so much further to go. I finally made it all the way to the outside. I turned around and saw Klaude about half way to the Bud Light surf tents. I looked on land and saw that the current was already taking me south. I had no choice but to paddle; we all had no choice but to paddle. Despite the chaos, I couldn’t have asked for better conditions to work on my paddling. The whole session was spent fighting the current, with only small intervals of rest in between. On top of that, the sets from the shore were actually bigger once we got out. The outside was really consistent, and waves were breaking at five feet, easy, with occasional six footers. We didn’t realize what we got ourselves into. With the shore a far distance away, we were in for a little test.

Francis times his paddle out.

    That morning’s weather scared everyone away, for there were only three other guys out besides our crew. I’ve always said that Trestles is a gradual wave, meaning that it’s not as dumpy as Porto or fast and pitchy as HB, so despite the swell size, I felt the waves were still easy to paddle into.

I hate to say this, but this wave felt much bigger than it looks right here. My, how the mind works. . . .

My first wave was a right that had a fast and steep drop. I pumped my board and changed direction with the connecting section. It turned into a left where I was able to stall on the drop in, then I caught air as I went back up and body flopped over the wave. It looked more like I was violently tossed, but I could tell the wave had power by the force that I was thrown out of it. Khang said that he saw my wave as he was paddling out. Each wave caught was followed by a furious paddle back. Francis caught a wave all the way to shore, and I probably didn’t see him for almost ten minutes.

    One of my next waves was a left, another steep drop. Klaude was paddling out on the shoulder as I dropped in. I got in a couple deep trims as I had my arms outstretched towards him. I can’t go over every wave that I caught, but I was just feeling it for that session. I thought about my brother’s advice to try to catch as many big waves as possible, and that afternoon was perfectly set up for that. My timing felt “on,” and I kept catching waves. The drops initially felt critical, but the shape would hold and allow some time instead of pitching over. The result was a fast, board skipping, descent that produced a lot of speed. On one right I got two top turns. Klaude said that he saw me get some spray, but the funny thing was that all I wanted to do was not eat shit, and the turns came secondary. The two hour session felt like three hours. Christina never made it out, for the current took her all the way to the surf contest. I think Dais and Khang left first, then Francis, and then I waited last for Klaude.

We went back to the campsite and cooked an early dinner. Reptile Rick showed up and paddled out. I was stoked. I think everyone felt challenged with that last session. Sure, it wasn’t those fun and peaky 3-4 footers that we usually get, but the swell size was definitely a welcomed changed, especially from the funky conditions during the weekend.

    Everyone left, and it was just Rick and I. I would only realize how tired and worn out I was the next morning.