Location:
HB
Crew:
Francis
Time: 0630-0930
Conditions:
4 FT+, foggy, glassy, clean, fast, hollow with low tide, rippable at medium
tide.
Pre Blog:
The surfer himself is guaranteed. If
motivated, he will wake up in the dark hours of the dawn, grab the necessary
equipment, and head out the door with board in hand. He will show up to the
beach, step out, take a look, smirk, scratch his chin, pull out his phone, text
his friends to spread the word, or look at other reports to explore his options,
and then a decision will be made. If the surf is good, then he’s already on the
sand. If the surf is bad? Well . . . he’ll decide how much he really wants to
surf.
The waves themselves are the opposite. The
surfer is at the mercy of both the waves and conditions. Dry spells of failed
expectations and anticlimactic sessions are a must. They are the dues that we
all pay, and we wear them like badges of honor:
“Yup, yup . . . skunked again.
*sighhhhhhhhhh*”
We have it on our faces in the lineup.
Unforgivable lulls keep surfers stagnant like crocodiles in a muddy pond. A
surfer paddles through the lineup, expressionless without a sound, gazing at an
empty spot to sit where nothing comes, but . . . like how all good things come
to an end, bad things come to an end too. Eventually things change. The surf
can’t suck forever, and when it gets good . . . you better make sure you packed
some lube because anuses will be tapped.
The Call:
I was supposed to hang out with my cousin
Chelsea this weekend. She’s a freshman at Cal State Fullerton. With everything
going on in my life, I’ve failed my promises to hang out. I also got an invite
to go snowboarding with my military friends on Sunday, the last day of the
snowboarding season. I tried to fit both of them in. When I told Chelsea that I
would have to drop her off on Saturday, she said that she’d rather hang out on
a weekend when I’m not busy, so that left me with Saturday free to surf.
That night Francis called and asked what
the plan was. I told him that there was no way I was surfing local again, and
that I had to gamble on HB.
“What time?” he asked.
“Early . . . we gotta leave here no later
than 0530.” We had to leave early because I’ve been skunked hard on high tide,
especially if this swell is barely three feet; we need a good window when the
tide is low.
“Okay,” said Francis. “See you tomorrow.”
I extended the invite to Klaude and
Christina, but they both couldn’t make it. I played PS3 until 0100. As I lay in
my bed, I thought about the surf. I didn’t expect much.
Something
in the Fog:
Francis shows up right on time. Smokey is
crying, running back and forth, whimpering, and waiting for Francis to
acknowledge him. I’m surprised at this. Smokey’s never this happy to see me.
We load up and hit 405S by 0540. It’s a
dark drive. I’m thinking that I’ll be stoked if it’s glassy with little two to
three foot lumps, something that I can scratch into, pump, and at least get one
little turn on the inside.
Again, it’s a morning without any signs of
surf life. There are no cars rushing it and no surfers making their way to the
sand. It’s also a foggy, undesirable morning—a morning meant for slapping the
snooze button repeatedly and sleeping in. We park at the usual spot, where a
truck and two vans are. There’s an old guy in a wetsuit talking to two women.
He looks at us, and continues to prep his board.
We sit in the wagon for a good thirty seconds
before stirring. There’s no need to take a first look, but the wagon’s so warm
compared to the moist atmosphere that awaits. We open our doors which make a
peeling noise, officially breaking the seal open on the morning session. With
custodian-like energy, we change into our wetsuits. I wax my board like how a
security guard, who never fires his weapon, loads his gun. It’s in the air and
the atmosphere: pure skunk.
We take the familiar walk over the paved,
key-shaped walkway, gazing at the fog with blank faces. At first, we see the
inside waves through the mist. The tide’s drained out, receding back further
than usual. There are two guys in the water already, just north of us. “Look
over there,” I say. A right breaks to our north. It’s a little fast.
“Over there,” says Francis. To our south,
fast left breaks towards the inside.
“Okay, it looks like there’s something out
here.” The rides don’t look long, but what the SS is telling me is: “The tide
will rise, and the conditions will improve.”
We warm up and make our way to the
shallows. Just then, a wave breaks on the outside, A-framing but fast. “Whoa!”
we both say.
“Okay, Francis. We gotta make this
official.” Reminiscent of the surf flick High
5 and also something that Klaude and I used to do, I tell Francis that we
gotta do a jumping high five to start things off. It’s homo, but we do it. I
even kick my feet up in the hair behind me on my little jump.
We fail to notice a couple surfers behind us
who saw the whole thing. I have a feeling they understand.
Pull in:
During the paddle out, I can finally tell
that the water is glassy. It’s a longer paddle than usual. Francis leads, and
then I pass him up. I duck dive a couple inside waves with crashing lips, still
able to punch through efficiently. I sit too far on the inside, missing a wave
that breaks right in front of me. It’s classic HB. The wave looks moundy, but
it hits the sandbar and morphs. I catch the next wave which is so fast that I
have to go straight. On the paddle back out, Francis tries to position himself
for the next wave, but he’s too deep. The wave stands and forms a perfect
four-foot barrel. Francis sits on the shoulder and raises his arms as it passes.
The wave is hollow. I think to myself, Oh . . . it’s gonna be one of ‘those’
mornings.
At the lineup, Francis turns to me and
says, “It’s definitely ‘next level’ over here.”
Next level indeed. After surfing Porto slop
for over a week, it’s different seeing round waves that jack up and pitch.
“We’re the third and fourth guys out here,”
he says.
I look around. “Yeah, it’ll get crowded.
But at least we’ll have it to ourselves for a while.
I’m still not completely sold. The waves
are so fast that every time I pop-up, the section runs away. Even the shoulders
are fast. Francis manages to crank out some gouging spray going right. When he
resurfaces, I throw some water in the air in acknowledgement.
A guy to our south paddles in at the peak
and gets a washy barrel. It’s not flawless, but he makes it out. I realize that
I’ve been catching these waves wrong. No turns right now, it’s too fast for
that. I think about Bali, and how I barrel-hunted really hard my first session
back to LA, but since then something changed. During a couple big South Bay
swells in the winter, I failed to pull-in. Being completely honest with myself,
I was scared. I still am. I have a natural tendency to bail out early or
straighten out when the wave’s going vertical. It’s something that I’m not used
to.
I try. It’s not an easy morning. I catch a
wave late and purl, slamming into the flats on my way down, but I’m churned-up
and out the back so fast like it never happened. Francis too, I see him get
sucked over the falls on a pitchy lip—a rare sight. I get pitched too on the
next one, chucking my board to the left as I air-drop off to the side.
A random wave breaks on the outside. It’s
not like Porto’s long peak with the little section at the end, no. These peaks
are defined. Not Lower’s defined but still good. Like the other guy, another surfer paddles
in at the peak, hugs the face, and gets a washy barrel, completely disappearing
and coming out. It’s messy, but it counts. On cue, I paddle exactly where he
caught that wave. Five minutes later, another one comes. It’s a beauty, another
peaky A-frame, but I’m in position for the left. I hear viscous paddling
disturb the water towards the inside, but I already know that this wave is
mine. I paddle-in just in front of the peak for a fast drop. I bottom turn, and
climb the face for a carve, but I end up trimming it because the wave is too
vertical to turn on. It’s the moment of truth; I know this isn’t a wave for
turns. I stay close to the face and set my line. The wave stands up even more,
and the lip starts to go over my head, giving a view of curling water. I fight
my instinct to penetrate out the back; I hold my line. The pocket gets a little
foamy, my board feels squirrely, but I’m still in it. I lose my board at the very
end, but unlike my other barrel attempts, I don’t get sucked under into
complete blackness. I can see the brightness of the blue water and gray sky,
and I emerge instantaneously near the surface. I almost made it out. It wasn’t
a legit barrel, but I got some cover-up, or what Klaude would call: “shampoo.”
I haven’t smiled like this in a while. The
guy who got barreled before me is looking at me, saying something to his
friends. They’re strangers, but I still can’t stop smiling in front of them.
“You got a good one,” he says.
“Yeahhh. I saw you made it out on yours. I
almost made it.”
“It was still a good one. Good job.”
“Thanks!” I paddle past. “I’m so stoked!”
Tide for
Turns:
About halfway through our session, the tide
rises to midlevel. Even though there’s more of a crowd, there are still enough waves
for everyone. I get one of my first decent rights in weeks, getting one turn
off the lip before it closes. Francis does the same as I did earlier, throwing
up a small toss of water. Even though there are rights, the south swell is
making the lefts line up better. The consistency slows down a little, but
random bumps still move through the fog, making us paddle hard for position
every time.
I get this stand out, peaky left. It’s
steep which gives me good speed. For the first time, I feel my frontside bottom
turn progressing. I crouch, fade out, and rebound up face so fast that it feels
like I bounced off the bottom. My first top turn is a little slow, but I still
hold a complete, grinding arc, able to redirect again for a second turn. I’m
not concerned about my frontside spray, I’m just happy that I’m learning.
I told my brother about my recent
developments. He told me to be patient. “It will come,” he said.
High Tide:
It’s been a while since I’ve looked at my
watch when it was 0930 and said, “I’m fucking tired,” but that’s exactly what
happes. We’re drained despite how early it is. The surf delivered so much that
we have to end it after three hours, and it’s not even 1000.
Our peak slows down, but the river jetties
are still going off. It’s more crowded but so consistent over there. We see two
wipeouts in a row on one set. Guys that are just too deep, but to see them in
that succession, paddling and free falling gives such “awe.” It’s that kind of
morning. It’s that good. We paddle closer to the action for our last waves, but
the tide has the inside too mooshy. The initial drop is fun, but there aren’t
many turns after.
Heading to Bob’s Hawaiian Restaurant in the
surf wagon, we talk about how we scored, how calling a 0530 start time was good
jusdgement. We comment on the guys just paddling out as we were leaving. They
missed the window, the good window; we caught the best one. We’re wiped and
speechless, with only lounge music filtering through the speakers. It’s been a
while since I felt this good.
I order Da Big Hawaiian, and Francis orders
the banana pancakes and something else. We throw a shaka to the live duo
playing on stage. “Where you guys from?” the lead singer asks.
After he talks to Francis, I tell him that
I’m from Napili and that I used to pick pineapples.
“Oh,” he says, “you used to pick pine?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I smile.
“So you know how, yeah, fo’ grab’m and snap
da crown off?”
I nod in return. I know exactly what he’s
talking about. Back in those days, to show off, some of us would snatch the
fruit up so fast and tweak it so that the crown snapped right off. I haven’t
thought about that in years.
I plead with Francis to slow down, as he’s
already halfway through his main course while I just barely tapped into my
pancakes. The energy’s good. I turn to Francis and say, “It doesn’t get any
better than this.
We head back and unload our gear. I meet
with my military buddies and snowboard on Sunday. Only in California.
