Loc:
Middles
Crew: Bri
Conditions:
2-3 FT, offshore, warm, sunny.
This past week, Bri and I have dawn patrolled
Porto nearly every morning to be met with disappointment. Even though Surfline
had given the South Bay a fair rating, most of the peaks were too lined up—long
lines closing out with rare corners to work with. On Friday morning, I told Bri
that on Saturday we’d be driving south. Even though the swell would be smaller
at south-facing breaks, at least there would be some cobblestones providing
decent shape.
Prep:
So Bri and I are trying to get into new
habits before going on these surf trips. I pack the whole wagon up the night
before. Even her longboard is mounted on top of the wagon, just not strapped
tight ‘til morning. Boards, wetsuits, everything is thrown in the ride, save
for the hot water bottles.
We’re on the road by 0600. The tide doesn’t
top out for another hour, so there’s no rush.
Selling It:
Old Mans is empty. Too much tide. We
continue our drive from San Onofre to Churches. The sun on the sand is giving
it a bright beige color. With a cloudless background, everything casts a shadow
with a hard slant, indicating the sun’s first glimpse over the mountains from
the west. Even the small ripples in the water cast a shadow, and in the water are
only four surfers.
Since the tide is high, the waves are
breaking closer to shore, but there is potential in this swell. Despite the
tide, some clean rights begin to break and peel. The four surfers have a photog
guy snapping away. These guys are good, walking their longboards all the way to
the nose then walking back all the way to the tail, redirecting their
ocean-liner boards into the crumbling white wash and back down the line again.
One of them gets out and swaps his longboard for a shortboard from the van
parked next to us.
We’d like to paddle out right next to them
to get on those peaks too, but they got a photo shoot going, and they’re really
the ones who are soul surfers who paddled out even though the conditions are
swampy. They deserve their spot.
Bri and I change. I whip out the old Becker
Board. It’s a 6’10 shortboard-shape with a quad setup. I had bought the board
initially as a medium board during my progression towards a shortboard. I’ve
been waiting for the right conditions to ride it in, and finally today I’ll get
my chance to see if I’ll be able to turn this beast. After locking up the car,
we head towards north Churches.
Right
Decision?:
The tide . . . we’re waiting for the tide
to go down so we can get some waves. A left comes. I paddle into it with ease.
The shoulder is peeling for a long ride to shore. I pump to make the section.
On my second pump, my rail is so set that I go over the wave on accident.
Wasted. After that a lull sets in, and it’s hard for me to get into the waves,
even with the Becker.
Meanwhile, Bri’s doing okay. On her
longboard, she can get into almost everything. The days have passed when she
used to be the one sitting around while I was going back and forth after each
ride. Now I’m the one sitting here, turning around to see if she’s made the
drop, waving back at her to let her know she’s doing a good job, and then
looking out towards the horizon wondering when my turn’s gonna be.
But the lulls get so long that we’re both
sitting here. Only a few other guys have paddled out. I wonder if we’ve made
the right decision coming here. I picture Porto. Perhaps today is the morning
that the lined-up peaks have tented up into A-frames. I imagine the local vets:
Kadowaki, Roy, Ross, all going for it and hooting each other on. The locals who
surf the same spot day in and day out, knowing that if the surf sucks one
morning, they’ll be there the next to be the first ones to score when the shape
changes.
Towards Middles we see some rights rolling
in. It looks better over there, but it always looks better “over there.” So Bri
and I abandon north Churches, Mons Pubis, and paddle all the way to Middles.
When Old
Spots Work:
There’s a rock formation at Middles that
looks like a bunker, so I had named this spot Battle Position years ago. It
rarely works. Nowadays it’s a spot I skip, either staying at Churches or
sitting on the south side of Lowers, Little Lowers. But on this morning, no one
is here at Battle Positions. The locals might be waiting for the right window.
Maybe they know. Regardless, as the tide drops down, some wide A-frames start
rolling in. Only three feet but it’s a solid Trestles three feet—rippable.
Maybe I should’ve unleashed my Lost Mini
Driver because they waves are beginning to stand up more. The Becker has so
much volume and thickness to it that it really requires some strategic foot
placement and weight-sinking pivoting of the hips. On a left, I try to do a
frontside snap, but it comes off sluggish and more like a check turn. But my
wave of the morning comes in the form of a right. I pump down the line, shift
my hips and my head back towards the spilling section behind me, do a cutback,
and rebound cleanly onto the white wash and into the face of the wave again. It’s
one of the cleanest cutbacks that I’ve ever pulled off on my backhand, and I’ve
done it on one of my old boards, a 6’10.
Bri and I trade off waves for about
forty-five minutes before some guys start setting up shop on shore. They watch
us for about ten minutes before paddling out. Down at Churches, I see more
heads in the lineup. The window’s open, and now everyone is rushing through it.
Crowds:
We had it . . . we had it to ourselves for
almost an hour, so it’s okay that there are five old guys sitting at the top of
the wave on their longboards. It’s okay that there are more guys on our inside,
fully surrounding us. It’s not Porto crowded, but since these waves peel for so
long, all it takes is one guy taking off at the top of the wave to cancel
everyone else out. So Bri and I share. We still get some rides. I get a few
sluggish snaps on my backhand. But it’s almost noon, and we’ve been out for
about three hours. There’s water waiting for us in the car. Cookies and
tangerines too. More lulls start to set in, so we let the second-shift surfers
have the spot. The crowd’s arrived, but Bri and I scored the best window.
#
Loc: North
Churches
Time:
1500-1700
Recharge:
I got the fourth season of The Walking Dead
on my laptop, so we snack in the backseat of my car and watch two episodes. The
wagon’s facing the ocean, so over the laptop screen I see solid four-foot set
waves peel past. Guys are ripping it, getting long rides. The water’s still
glassy. It’s gonna be offshore all day.
Round Two:
We packed extra wetsuits, and it’s so damn
nice to put on a bone-dry wetsuit versus one that’s still soaked from the first
session. But the tide is so low that we can tell that the wave size has dropped
with it too. The surf needs more water, but it will be too dark by the time
that happens. Church’s main peak is working, but everyone’s sitting there.
Middles doesn’t look as good as it did in the morning, so Bri and I go back to
Mons Pubis.
This time I have the wrong board. I’m on my
6’0 Mini Driver, and I could use the extra volume from the Becker, but I stay
committed to my call.
The surf is lookin’ like two feet with
occasional three. I get a few waves here and there, but nothing of great
significance. It’s still offshore. The sun’s low and beaming into our faces.
Everyone in the lineup holds up his hands, filtering the light with a screen of
fingers, searching for the bump on the horizon. It’s been offshore all day.
Small but clean. Crowded but not annoyingly crowded. Bri and I know that we
exceeded our expectations for stoke today. And maybe local was good back in the
South Bay. Maybe our friends did score this morning. And if they did then that’s
okay because we scored too.
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