Loc: Huntington
Beach
Crew: Bri
Conditions:
2-3 FT, cool, sunny, offshore, clean, empty, inconsistent.
I can’t tell you how much I have wanted to
surf Huntington these last, some odd months. I haven’t been able to because of
school, or because I end up camping down south when there’s a south swell. On
this morning, I’m looking forward to some good surf. The report says it’s going
to be good. It makes sense to surf here too because I have a fiction-reading
event to go to for school later this evening.
#
Bri and I wake up at about 0600. Everything
is going according to schedule until I realize that I locked my car in the
garage. Yup. The key for the lock for my garage . . . is in my car, and my car
. . . is in the garage. I’m a fuck-ing idiot. I’m so pissed at myself. I know
that this is going to set us back on this almost well-planned morning. I call
my best friend. No answer. I text him and let him know I’m going to his house
to rummage through his garage. I also shoot a text to his girlfriend, just in
case because I don’t want to spook her. Briana drives us, and as soon as we get
there, I see that my friend’s cars are still there. “He must be out of town,” I
say to Bri. I open the gate and head towards the garage. Before I attempt to
open it, I hear the knob turning from the inside of his back door. Oh cool, I’m
thinking. He’s here. Just as I’m about to speak, Smokey starts to come outside,
and my best friend’s girlfriend yells a shriek of bloody murder at the top of
her lungs. I don’t see her naked, but she’s behind the door frame. She scream
jolts me, I’m caught between apologizing, explaining that I tried to contact
her, and trying to tell what happened with my car. Meanwhile, I hear my best
friend yelling, “What happened?!” from inside the house.
“It’s Matt, it’s Matt!” she says.
Bri plays with Smokey in the driveway while
I’m telling my friend what’s going on, the purpose of my visit and what not.
Turns out he’s on a different work schedule this week. I’ve ruined his morning.
He should be sleeping still. “I don’t have any bolt cutters,” he says. “I can
get them from work.”
#
At home depot, Briana whips out her credit
card, buying me a pair of $25 bolt cutters. I offer to pay her back, but she
says, “No, you pay me back with cuddle corral . . . make-out cuddle corral.”
We’re an hour behind schedule, on the road
by 0730. When we reach HB, there is still surfer life going on, which is good.
The air is clear, the sun is beaming and making the landscape gold as usual
over the flat terrain. When we reach the water, we see that . . . it’s small.
Fuck, the tide . . . it’s almost too low. The surf looks inconsistent with some
small, weak peaks. It might get better, I don’t know, but it’s nice for Bri at
least, for the conditions are forgiving.
Just like Manhattan Beach, the waves break
on the outside but moosh out afterwards. There is barely anyone in the water.
Some of the bigger sets break so fast and disappear before you can ride them. I’m
on my Motorboat Too, my first time surfing Huntington with it. On one closeout,
I try to practice a floater like I have been on the Zippi Fish, but I mistime
it. I climb the face too late, and the curling lip pushes the board into my
right shin. I fall on top of my fins. Being in pain in the water sucks because
you have to get back on your board and keep paddling; there’s no such thing as
a break to recover yourself.
So . . . I’m irritable because I’m mad at
myself for my stupid car situation and mad because we probably missed a good
window of surf because my shit was fucked up. I end up being an asshole to Bri.
I can’t catch many of these waves, and I notice her passing up some rides. “Why
didn’t you go?” I say a couple of times. Well, it’s not her fault. It’s my bad
mood.
She says she’s cold after about an hour, so
she goes in. I can’t blame her because the surf is slow anyway. As she’s making
her way towards the inside, something happens. The new pulse of the new swell,
I’m not sure, but the surf starts picking up and getting consistent. Long peaks
start forming on the outside, small two-to-three footers, but fast, low tide
rides. On my first left, I get to the open face before I reach the oncoming
section. Again, it’s my first time with the Motorboat Too at HB, and I feel how
the extra volume is sending me down the line fast on a more critical wave. I do
a carving arc, from top to mid face. It feels different on a wave that’s
standing up more, like a lot of the wave as on my back and almost over me as I
do this. I see a lot of water displace. Man, this feels good. On the next wave,
I time my floater right, not doing it A.I. style, but enough that I climb the
foam and come back down. It’s good practice. For the next twenty minutes, I get
a mini buffet of waves.
I kick out on a closeout, the wave taking
my board and me jumping over the wave, when I feel tension release from my leg.
My board’s drifting towards the inside. Bye bye leash.
The Motorboat Too works well out here, for
these rounder conditions where the wave stands up more than Trestles, I think I’d
rather use my standard shortboard for this place, especially for the turns.
#
 |
| Too much damn fish sauce. From now on, only ordering Thai Food from Thai Restaurants. |
I decide to call the session, especially
with today’s late start. I take Bri out for her first Vietnamese Pho
experience. I gamble, ordering the shrimp Pad Thai, and there is way too much
fish sauce on it. I should have just stuck to the 50% off chicken pho for
$3.50.
 |
| Mentor Rick |
Later that day, Rick meets up with me in
Long Beach so he can watch me read. He’s a like a dad to me. We have a couple
beers on 2nd Street. I haven’t bar hopped in so long. The scene is interesting
with ladies starting their Friday nights early, already showing cheeks, tits,
and poontang. At Shannon’s next door, my classmates are drinking with some
other girls from school. Is this what the college life really is? I’m usually
at home, doing homework and whipping out the PS3 controllers by now.
 |
| I'm blessed |
BUT . . . it’s so nice to have my people
there to support me. Afterwards, us four meet up with Boris in El Segundo for
some beers at the Purple Orchid, and I feed Seba and Cheryl afterwards. Despite
my performance, it was a good and well-balanced day, filled with surf, beer, atmosphere,
and friends. I just have to choose a better short story next time.
 |
| The Duckbutter Cafe |
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