Loc: Middles
Time: 0700-1100
Conditions:
3-4 FT+, sunny, offshore
I’m awoken from my car shaking. It’s still
dark as night out. My knees are flexed from tossing and turning. Something’s
hitting my car and causes it to shake again. I’m still half asleep, so I close
my eyes, thinking that I’m imagining this, but it happens again. I sit up and
see a truck parked next to me. I crawl to the rear passenger door and look out
the window. I see some guy’s bare, white ass as he’s changing into his wetsuit.
He’s holding onto his door for balance, and it’s hitting my passenger side mirror.
I open the door, expecting that this guy will be caught by surprise, and say, “Hey,
man. You wanna watch your door?”
He glances back, not surprised, but as if
in a trance. “What?” he says.
“Your door, man. Watch your door.”
He pulls his door away from my car and goes
back to his business. Is he half asleep too? I can’t make out his face from
under his hood. Even I’m not sure if my perspective is off from being so tired.
About a half an hour later, and it’s 0600.
I get up and brush my teeth and take down my wetsuit I had left hanging on the
tree. Putting on a soaking wet wetsuit in the cold morning air is paralyzing.
Once the sun is up, I inspect the passenger side mirror and check for
scratches. Of course, there’s a small one. Even though the scratch is tiny, I
can’t help but feel disappointed in humanity.
I paddle out at Churches. The tide’s a
little high, which makes the surf inconsistent. Impatient, I work my way north,
all the way to Mons Pubis. Still. Nothing. This trip isn’t producing the
results I had hoped for, and I give up on sitting where it’s less crowded and
decide to gamble on Lowers. When I get to Middles, in front of a pile of rocks
that I had named Battle Positions, there are some surfers sitting on it. I plan
on paddling around them, but some waves start to break. I paddle more towards
the main peak, right in front of the cliffs where the tower overlooking the
ocean is.
On:
I haven’t caught Middles good in a long
time, maybe almost a year. Seeing Middles during my past trips here have always
given me a nostalgic effect, where I’ve said, “Yup, I remember when this place
used to break.” But today it’s “classic Middles.” Big, walled-up peaks form on
the outside, but the rights taper down just a bit, letting anyone who is
familiar with this wave know that they’ll line up for some long rides.
In comparison to yesterday evening, when I was
frustrated and had to sit on the shoulder while everyone else fought over the
peak, I feel at home at Middles. For some reason, no one wants to sit on the
outside where I am, everyone else is further south. When the big outsiders come
that swing wide, everyone scatters for them, but I just maneuver from the peak
to the shoulder and slide down the face, uncontested, and with priority.
My wave of the day is one of these big rights
that come in. I’m even taking off late with the lip already crumbling. Steep
with speed, I fly down the face and see everyone else watching. They disappear
as I get to a deep bottom turn. I’ve ditched the quads and went back to a
thruster set up, so I climb back up and get a solid snap. There’s that sound
behind me as I reenter the wave, the spackle of water-on-water violence, the
spray broken off the lip and splattered onto the surface behind it. It’s that sound
that I’ve missed so much, like the validation of a good turn. I connect a
second turn instead of drawing a highline to go further, and another kid drops
in and takes the rest of the wave. And honestly . . . I don’t even care. I get
enough waves to place me in a state beyond contention. The surf isn’t epic, but
I’m satisfied. I even practice some good etiquette, sharing my wealth with a
kid behind me who’s about to back out on the shoulder. I yell, “Go, go, go!” I
actually feel guilty claiming those waves for myself, so I sit back in front of
the BP for about twenty minutes and then return to carry on with my campaign.
Bri had taken my watch for her vacation, so
I have no idea what time it is. All I know is that the sun’s gotten higher and
the wind has picked up. Once I get back to my car, I see that it’s 1130. Holy
shit. I’ve surfed for about four hours.
Grub:
I explore San Clemente and find a place
called Mr. Pete’s Burgers. Yelp has this offer, that if you “check in” you get
a burger combo for five bucks. I order it and add some bacon. It’s delicious. I
now have a go-to burger spot in San Clemente.
APOCALYPSE:
Loc: Lowers
Time:
1645-dark
Conditions:
2-4 FT+, howling onshore wind, cold, scattered, unorganized, choppy
It’s 1500, and the surf still looks fun
despite a little onshore wind. If I wait it out, the tide will be lower, and
the wind will be calmer.
At 1645 I paddle out at Churches. I had
seen some waves breaking here earlier. I might not even have to go to Lowers,
but end up sitting for a while at Churches, passing up some wonky, wind-blown
walls. Every time I paddle further north, the choppy water splashes against my
board, and the wind keeps blowing water into my face. The wind picks up even
stronger. I was wrong. Magic Seaweed was wrong. It’s howling.
Long ass peaks are rolling in. They’d be
fine without the wind, but the onshore is causing them to break early, making
the shoulders prematurely spill, closing out the waves. I’ve gambled on dusting
off my Motorboat Too. I catch a right, but it’s so racy and choppy that all I
can do is draw a line for distance. I sit at Churches for forty-five minutes
before getting out and walking to Lowers.
End of the World:
The sun is so low that it gives a strong
glare off of the horizon, making it hard to see if anyone’s sitting at Lowers.
There are two guys at Middles, but everything is walled. The typical sight of
bikes and boards on the beach isn’t present. Lowers can’t be that crowded.
The wind hasn’t let up at all. It feels
like it’s late, like the sun should’ve been down a while ago, but the wind is
keeping it up. The howling wind in my ear is violent, and the choppiness and
water splashing against me is unwelcoming. My face is cold and wet, and the
late evening light is dark orange, almost red. Lowers isn’t classic today. The
crowd here is spread out, not sitting in one clump. Peaks sprout up, scattered
and warbley. There’s a north current, and some guys are being pulled into
Middles. I do a headcount. There are only twelve of us.
You rarely catch Lowers like this. Usually
guys don’t drift, and they jockey for good position, but there’s no sitting
still this evening.
The surf is unpredictable. Waves on the
outside jack up and unexpectedly break early. The wind makes the whitewash
ferocious, hard to punch through on the duckdives. Everything around me
resembles an apocalyptic scene from a movie. The conditions are so shitty; who
the fuck would want to surf this? It’s as if the world was about to end, and a
few people said “fuck it” and chose to surf instead of run for safety, good
conditions or not.
I scramble for the lefts, and it breaks so
oddly like dropping into a steep, jagged cliff, but the drops are fun. I see
multiple angles etched into the wave faces. I ride the highline and set myself
up for a turn, but I fall on the carve.
I catch a similar left again, and I eat
shit again on the same section. Fuck! I’m so frustrated, but I can’t blame the
wave. I haven’t surfed Lowers’ lefts in a while, and maybe I was wrong for
blaming the quad fins yesterday.
When it’s dark, there are only four of us
out, but I catch a right to get to shore. It’s dark when I get back to my car,
and it’s time for dinner.
Grub:
Time flies on these surf staycations. After
pulling long sessions, cleaning up, and eating, it’s already time to paddle out
again. Right now it’s time for dinner. When I’m done eating it’ll be time for
bed. I’m tired of burgers, tired of bad Chinese food, and tired of Mexican. I
go on Yelp and discover a pho place in San Clemente. I take a look in my car
mirror before going in, and I look like a bum. My hair is stale as a bale of
hay; my eyes are red, and face is a reddish brown with stubborn smudges of
Vertra. I hope I don’t scare the customers.
I take a seat inside and look at the menu.
Holy shit. $7.95 for an extra large pho? This being the only pho spot in the
community means that they commit murder like this. I’m so used to Gardena and
Garden Grove, pho well under five bucks. I want to leave and just go to Carl's
Jr. (I got coupons), but the thought of some hot broth in my cold tummy is too
appealing. I pay for the luxury of eating pho while on a car-camp trip, and it
tastes so good. I take my time slurping the broth with the noodles. I chew on
each piece of meat slowly, dipping it into some hoisin sauce from a small
saucer. I order extra noodles, and it’s like ordering another bowl of pho.
After being in my car for over a day, eating something this good lifts my
spirits, like I’ve been saved, a nice contrast after a surf session that looked
like the end of the world.
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