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| Are you curious as to why Klaude's so hungry? Read and find out! |
Next
One
Loc:
Churches to Middle Trestles
Time:
0730-1030
Conditions:
2-3FT, overcast, empty.
Pre Blog:
Klaude had told me that he really wanted to
surf Trestles. I pleaded with him on how the shape there hasn’t been “classic,”
and that there isn’t much swell on tap for the weekend anyway. Bad call was
what I was thinking. And then he said, “I’m going there no matter what, even if
I gotta make the hike from Cristianitos.” And then I got to thinking, When’s
the last time I surfed down south with Klaude? He’s missed a lot of camping
trips because of work, traveling, and eye surgery. Going south would be a
gamble, but maybe Klaude’s stoke and luck might bring forth some decent waves.
And it’s not like we’d be camping. We’d only be going for the day.
With the
Flow:
It’s 0530, and my wagon is packed with me
and Bri’s surf gear. I had told Klaude that I wanted to be on the road, wheels
rolling, at exactly 0530. I text him. No response. I call him, and his voice is
so creaky from the other side of the phone that I know that I had just woke his
ass up. “I’ll see you when you get here,” I say.
I’m anal, and anal people don’t like being
behind schedule. My normal impulse would have me pretty upset to start the
morning, but I remember that the surf isn’t supposed to be that good today.
What are we rushing for?
Bri and I watch a surf flick until he
arrives.
Exiting Basilone Road, we see that Middles
looks like a lake. There is a small crowd at Lowers, all sitting stagnant,
waiting for waves. Churches looks dismal, too. It’s overcast, the tide is low,
only a few heads are out, and the waves are barely two feet.
“Small kine,” says Klaude.
I’m not too disappointed. My expectations
were low heading here. If anything, the purpose of the day is to hang with
Klaude, finally get him down south, dead or alive. While watching the water, a
right sprouts up and peels at the main point. A couple more follow. They are
barely three feet, but the shape is there. It looks fun. Plus, Christina had
loaned me her Zippifish yesterday before moving to Australia. I got the right
equipment.
Unfortunately, the screw to Klaude’s
board’s center fin is stripped. He can’t get it out, can’t put in a fin, and he
also doesn’t have his quad setup with him, which means that we’ll have to share
the fish if any of us want some decent rides.
At first we paddle out at North Churches. I
get waves right away on the blue Zippi, Big Blue. I don’t know how thick it is,
but it’s a 6’0” and extremely buoyant. Of course, Bri’s fine on her NSP, but
Klaude’s not looking so hot on my Motorboat Too that he’s borrowing. It’s just
not big enough for the surf, but we end up swapping boards.
From here, I can only go straight on my
board, but I’m stoked to see Bri and Klaude get so many waves. The surf isn’t
that great. The waves aren’t all lining up, as there are some closeouts, but we
have this place practically to ourselves.
Halfway through the session, I suggest we
paddle to Middles.
“Looks like the same shit over there,” says
Klaude. He’s not going. And then Bri heads over to him, says she’s gonna paddle
to Middles, and then they both begin paddling.
The paddle to Battle Positions, or the
“Battle Paddle,” isn’t too bad. As we get closer, we see that some of the
rights there are actually holding up. And if Churches had a minimum crowd, then
this spot is damn near barren.
We get mostly rights with occasional lefts
for the rest of the session. The sun finally burns through the overcast, but
half of the horizon leading out to sea is still covered with dark clouds. It’s
summer time behind us and winter out in front. The wind dies, turning the
reflection off of the ocean into a dull grey. We can barely see the waves until
they are close.
I can’t recall a memorable ride for this
first session. All I can say is that we all got waves and surfed until
exhaustion. Even with Klaude and me sharing a fish between us, we still got our
fair share.
“Last one,” I say to Klaude.
“You mean ‘next one.’ There’s never a last
one. Always a next one.”
He catches his next one in on the fish, but
then he comes back out, unstraps the leash, and slings the Zippi my way to make
sure that I end it with a good ride, too.
#
Loc:
Churches
Time: 1500-1830
Conditions:
2-3FT, overcast, empty.
Brunch:
Denny’s. I order two different breakfast
entrees off of the four-dollar value meal. Too easy. Too cheap. Too delicious.
This is surf-budget dining at its finest. Klaude orders sandwiches with fries,
oatmeal, and . . . a fricken milk shake. Why are we so hungry?
The place is packed. We make friends with
the older couple sitting next to us. The guy keeps spewing off about fascism. Not
sure what the whole deal is.
“Here, take a slice of my sandwich,” says
Klaude. “And some fries.”
I’m so happy. How’d he know that I was
still hungry?
Magic Hour:
We’re parked in front of Churches, waiting
for the tide to top out before we go back for seconds. Luckily, I still have a
deck of cards in the car from the last camp trip.
N.W.A. plays on my stereo. Bri shuffles the
cards. Pusoy Dos it is. Klaude whips us the first two guys, holding onto his
most lethal five-car arrangements until the very end, when Bri and I are forced
to pass on every hand. It’s not until the third and last game that I catch onto
his evil ways, thus defeating him in the process. It’s time.
Klaude decides to ride his Neckbeard with a
quad setup but doing so with my normal-size Futures fins as the trailers. He’s
even willing to ride it as a twin, but I suggest that he doesn’t.
With more volume, we hope that his board
does well in the sub-three-foot surf.
It’s back to North Churches again, and this
time there’s a little pack there, but I know how this crowd usually does it.
Churches is famous for its long rights. Lately, more people have been sitting a
little west, past the main peak, to get the rights that sometimes line up and
peel down the whole break. What I like to do is sit much wider, even more west,
to pick off the lefts, and sometimes a right will even come through.
So we paddle out and sit. Bri takes off on
a wave, thus starting her campaign of nonstop surfing. Literally, from here on
out she only ceases her paddling when she’s on a wave.
The wind’s a little more onshore. The
clouds are darker and thicker, shutting out the sun for the remainder of the
day. Rain drops ripple the water’s surface, not hard but visible enough.
Klaude catches waves on his Neckbeard, but
the waves are still a little too small for his board. It’s hard to get any
turns and do anything else but go down the line. I trick him into making him
think that I want to sample his board, when I really just want to make sure
that he gets to ride the Zippi.
The second session starts off a little more
inconsistent than the morning, and even though Bri’s on a rampage, she paddles
all the way out to Middles solo to see if it’s better.
Now Klaude and I are on our own. I see him
get one of his best waves of the day, a frontside right on the Zippi. He flies
down the line, drawing a wide scraping arch on the face of the wave, throwing
some mist out the back. As the tide lowers, the surf picks up in size a little
bit more. I actually catch a left on the Neckbeard, getting two good pumps before
bogging out on the turn. After a few more waves, I realize that this fin setup
isn’t working too well for the board. I can’t explain it, but the turns just
feel too loose and not tight enough for agile power.
When Bri paddles back, she’s exhausted and
elects to head back to the car to change, so I trade boards with her.
Now I’m on the NSP and Klaude’s on the
fish. We both have the right equipment. Out west over the horizon, the sky
below the overcast is pink, as if the sky were wearing a baby T-shirt, exposing
its pink belly. Also, the surf turns more consistent with the tide going even
lower. The weather scares off any possibility of an evening surf invasion.
Klaude looks at me and says, “It’s that
magic hour.” From here, I get the best surf that I’ve gotten in a while. Back
to back waves on the NSP. It’s only a 6’8 funboard, but you can ride it like a
longboard. I walk the nose and throw in a little gangster lean. I can’t cross
step for shit, and I probably look ugly how I use the length of the board, but
it feels right. I’m having so much fun. I can’t quite hang 5, but I get so
close several times, just inches away. Immediately off popping up, I just walk
to the nose and hold a high line, each wave just as fun as the one before.
We switch boards again, and the NSP looks
like an awful lot for Klaude to lug around. It’s not that he can’t surf that
board, but it’s probably been a while since he’s ridden something that big.
It’s already 1800 by the time we switch
boards again. Klaude’s eyes are bloodshot red. “Either I’m getting lazy or I’m
getting tired,” he says. He has this glazed look over his face with his mouth
hanging open. Both sessions we’ve surfed, never overheating or too cold, just
perfect overcast conditions to make a surf marathon out of it.
“I’m exhausted,” says Klaude. “Next one?”
But it’s too early for next-one time. There
are still waves. They are even getting better. No one’s out. “Next one” turns
into three more waves. When we’re finally out of the water, I feel the
tightness in my neck and shoulders for the first time. As much as we’d all love
to surf until sun down, it’s time for us to go.
Post Surf:
It’s a silent drive to HB, vibing out to
some Pandora on the way. We get some 50% chicken pho for dinner. For Bri and me,
I only pay $7.54 with a two-buck tip. God, I love Vietnamese food.
From there, it’s Dough Boy’s Donuts in El
Segundo for an ice cream dessert and a donut. Only $5.54 for all three of us.
We can only talk about how perfect the
whole day was. Klaude showing up late still worked out fine. The surf forecast
was accurate, but it was probably more on the “fair” side than “poor.” The lack
of crowd due to the funky weather ensured we got the best waves. And the
overcast? I don’t think I’ve ever had an all day overcast surf trip that went
so well. It was actually nice not having the burning sun on my face all day. No
neck tan! The boards. Without the right boards, we wouldn’t have had such good
sessions. Gotta thank Christina for that.
It was only a poor-to-fair day, but from
the way that we feel and the amount of waves that we had all caught, it might
as well have been an epic one. Oh, and Klaude was right after all. If it wasn’t
for his “do or die” attitude to go to Trestles, Bri and I never would have even
gone. We would have had no idea. Instead, we would have pictured small, shitty,
onshore surf in our minds. Clueless. No idea at all.
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