Loc: El
Porto
Time:
0730-0930
Crew: Bri
Conditions:
1-3 FT, walled, fast.
Rick, my surf mentor, texts me at 0415 this
morning, saying that I should roll with him and his brother to a secluded,
south-facing break north of L.A. Once again, this is at 0415. My alarm is set
to go off in about an hour. I text him back, saying that since I traveled down
south yesterday, I don’t feel like being on the road again. I’m staying local,
I tell him. He continues to text me back, trying to convince me to go.
At 0530 I hit the snooze button. My
intentions were to wake up early because of the fucking high tide. I snooze. I
snooze hard. I get out of bed at about 0630. I’m supposed to meet Klaude at MB.
I brush my teeth, wake up Bri, and then we head out the door.
At 0715 we drive by our favorite local
break in Manhattan Beach, and it’s . . . small. Small again. After riding the
Zippifish yesterday evening, I’m really not in the mood for small surf. Bruce
and some other local vets are watching from the parking lot. At the intersection,
I wait a little longer and for a set. I know Klaude’s out there, but . . . I
can’t surf this. I need at least a little more size. The lull’s a long one, so
I drive to Porto for a look. What happens next is a flurry of indecisions. We
check Porto. It’s only a hair bigger with a crowd factor, quadruple that of
where we just came from. I ask Bri if she’s down to go to Bolsa. She says yes,
so I head back towards the 105 to get to the 405, but then I come to my senses
and realize that I can’t be driving all over the place for surf, especially
after going all the way to Trestles yesterday. What if I get skunked or it’s
too crowded again? We turn the whip back around towards Porto.
“The jetty looks like there’s waves,” says
Bri.
I pass an empty parking space on Highland
Avenue, stop, throw the car in reverse, and score a spot that’s immune to the
Manhattan meter patrol. Before changing, I shoot a text to Klaude, letting him
know that I’m paddling out at Porto instead.
As we walk towards the jetty, 42nd and 45th
street are breaking well, but they’re too crowded. In the distance, we see a
crowd at the jetty too. In front of the tanks, just past the rocks, we find
some dead space in the lineup.
Paddling out here reminds me of the days of
old. “This is where it all started,” I say. “Rick taught me how to surf here.”
I look at the jetty. “Well, not ‘here,’ more like over there.” I look towards
the shore and see the large cylinders behind the fence line. This used to be my
favorite spot, less quality in shape but less crowded too. “Jonathan and I used
to surf here a lot!” I think back to those days. We used to show up to the
Porto lot around eight in the morning, thinking we were cool with our
longboards in the back. In the lineup, we’d throw up a couple of fingers to
indicate how many waves we had caught. Cheryl used to come out. I had met Shan,
Klaude, and Nicky out here too. Now here I am, more gray hair, less muscle mass,
and a little gut that I grew from eating that Army chow in Wisconsin. So much
has happened since those days: Iraq, Yaris to the Outback, failed relationships,
surfing friends lost to marriages, Bali, four different moves, Java, the
masters program, and a garage filled with a whole new quiver. But yet here I
am, back in this same spot.
It’s only supposed to be one-to-two feet
today, but the sets are coming in clean and walled, closer to three feet plus.
I paddle out on my Lost board with only a few heads for traffic. Getting into
these waves is easy, typical dump rider waves, but another foot would make
these conditions a little more difficult. I catch a couple closeouts, trying my
best to hit the lip before the rides are over. Bri amazes me every time. Even
in these dumpy conditions, she’s making the critical drops with all of that
extra board in front of her. Down the line she goes. It’s hard to imagine that
she only used to be able to go straight back then. In a year she’s progressed
dramatically.
Wave of the
week:
Some of these walls have shoulders at the
end of them, manageable ones, and the waves this morning have been so random
that one must be in the right spot to get a decent ride. One of those long
three-foot walls comes my way. As I’m popping up, I see the section beginning
to peel away. I pump, bottom turn, and do a gouging, frontside carve. Ahhhhh,
I’ve waited so long for this feeling, with my left shoulder thrown forward and
all my weight transferred on the tail; it’s almost better than taking a shit!
Keeping up with the section, the wave seems to slow down. I get a second turn
and a little floater to end it. Paddling back to the lineup, Bri notices my
grin. “I want another one,” I say. Of course, who wouldn’t? Well . . . I don’t
get another wave like it. I don’t know if it’s the tide, but the surf becomes
inconsistent with even crappier shape.
#
Back at the car, I have a series of texts
waiting for me from Rick. You should have came, is what he wrote. Attached is a
pic of a hollow, left hand barrel. At the house, Klaude calls me to ask how
Porto was. He says that MB was really fun. Well . . . I didn’t surf with Klaude
or Rick today. They had fun. Even though I didn’t have a wave buffet or a
barrel, that one wave I got in uncrowded surf was fun for me too.
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