GOODBYE VIOLENCE, MON 09JAN2012 MOR

Crew: Francis

Time: 0815-1015

Conditions: Clear, sunny, cool air and water, mooshy, high tide, three feet, inconsistent.

     Khang’s probably somewhere down there. We planned to surf before 0700, but I’m late. I’ve been so unreliable this winter break. Also, this morning’s a little cool. The last couple days have been in the fifties, but my temp gauge read forty-six degrees before leaving the house. The surf looks smaller, and I don’t expect much until I see the locals on a peak just north of 26^th. Don, Roy, and Bruce are on it, but it’s one of the only good peaks left. The tide has drowned out everything else, and other than a few random pulses most of the waves break late and onto the shore. I don’t see Khang anywhere, but I paddle just outside the pack. . . . Nothing, I don’t catch shit. 

     Francis works his way down sometime after 0830. He says that he got worked on Saturday. “I had to try three times,” he says. “I tried over here twice, couldn’t make it out. Then I went more south and paddled out there, but I had to ditch my board like three times.”

     “Was anyone else out?”

     “Most of the locals were in the lot. When they saw me going out, they were like, ‘Good luck.’”Francis is gnarlier than I am, so if he had a hard time I know I would’ve been eating shit. 

     The place is pretty empty, but the few longboarders on the outside paddle into the waves early. I even have to back-out from an SUP guy. I have a feeling it was good before the tide rose. 

     “I’m gonna stay until the tide drops, about 1000,” says Francis. I can’t tell if the tide’s lowering, but there’s a short, fifteen minute window when it gets pretty consistent. The waves look walled, but the mooshiness holds their shape. However, they only get fun when they’re right over the sand; it actually gets a little hollow but way too risky. My rides end in calf-deep water. Out of the two of us, Francis is getting the most out of the conditions. I watch him get a handful of two-turn waves, even one final turn right over the sand. We have a chance at going back-to-back. He catches the first long wave of a set, and I paddle into the second one, but I pump too high and accidentally kick out. Another surfer on my outside is pissed; he backed out of it for me. Oh well. 

     I find that the reason I’m cold is because there’s a tear in my chest seal; this sucks. I got this wetsuit replaced by O’Neill over the summer. I know I’ve been surfing a lot, but I expected it to last longer. I hate that trickle of cold water that runs down my chest on every duckdive, and this is my thickest wetsuit too—3.5, 2.5. I go through wetsuits pretty quickly. 

     We’re done. When we call for our last waves, Francis gets three before I get mine. It’s a beautiful day; that’s all we can say. I later find out that Khang didn’t go, but he didn’t miss anything anyway.