FIRST TIME CARLSBAD, TUE 21OCT2014

Loc: South Carlsbad State Beach

Crew: Klaude

Time: 0900-1130

Conditions: 4-5 FT, consistent, warm, walled.

     Klaude works his ass off. I guess that’s the life of an accountant. Since Rich Man’s Tax Season is over, his boss gives him a day off. We had the option to surf anywhere. Since I’m an unemployed piece of shit who can surf at a moment’s notice, it’s only fair to give Klaude the call for this rare day trip. His friend Pat has friends at a campsite in Carlsbad. So the journey begins.

     I’m up at 0515 on the dot. I hesitate for a moment but sit up on my futon immediately. Time to brush my teeth and get up, especially if I want to take my time with breakfast and getting my gear in order. Cereal, coffee, and my wagon’s packed. I get the Vox from Klaude at 0557. He’s on his way.

     So we have a late start from the original 0600 plan. I share the AA preaching that my best friend gave me about going with the flow and not rushing things. I’m easy. No fuss, no muss.

     We’ve never surfed Carlsbad before, so we don’t really know what to expect. We pass our beloved Church Beach on the 5. Klaude leans towards the window and recons the surf there. It’s a lake.

     Upon entering the campsite, I take a wrong turn and have to bust a bitch, which puts us back at the State Entrance Booth. There’s already a long line of people waiting to pay their fees, but the woman at the booth as to address us first since we’re in a car.

     “It’s $15 if you’re staying for the day,” she says.

     “Fuck,” says Klaude. “We should’ve kept going.”

     We tell her that we’re just here to check the surf, so she lets us pass.

     We find Pat at campsite 60. His friend Chad has a mansion on wheels there. The site is on a cliff overlooking the beach, and down below us are glassy, scattered, clean, consistent peaks. Fuck. We need to be out there, pronto, but Pat tells us that we need to pay for the day pass.

     Klaude spots the $15 at the booth. Just as we’re leaving, the guy whose next says, in a thick Euro accent, “Can I r-r-ide back with you? Your site is close to me.” I can tell that he’s German.

     His name is Yantz, and as we drive back to the campsite, he explains how German vacations work. They get like a month for vacation or something like that.

     “I need to work in Germany,” says Klaude.

     “Yah, but we do not get the ridiculous holidays like you do,” says Yantz. He hops out of the wagon, thanking us for the ride.

     Klaude and I meet the other guys at the campsite, firefighters, and listening to their conversation it turns out that they’re a bunch of dirty men, just how I like it.

     The surf down below is still going off, clean and open. I think about bringing my Lost Mini Driver that’s just been repaired. Pat grabs his Average Joe, a small-wave board. I ask Klaude what he thinks. He says it looks soft. So does Chad. I grab the Kainalu Fish instead.

     Changing is a bitch. I keep forgetting shit in the wagon every time I lock it. I put my wetsuit jacket on backwards. Klaude laughs his ass off and tells me to take my time.

     We see Yantz’s RV. There are women inside. We wave at them as we pass. There are stairs to get down to the break, and it looks much bigger than it had from up top. I really don’t know what to compare it to. I can tell that the sandbars here are good because the waves are coming in long lines with shoulders at the end of them. Despite the swell size and high tide, it’s handling this swell well.

     Pat’s homey Pete is going frontside right, cranking out some carves. Pat goes next. I scratch out on two waves in a row. I’m super anxious. So many waves and I haven’t caught one yet.

     An outsider rolls in. I’m too deep, but Pat calls me into the wave. I turn the fish, paddle hard, and pop up just as it’s breaking. I’m so worried that I’m gonna blow this wave in front of everyone, but I hold on and drop in with speed. I cutback into the pocket. The fish has a lot of foam, so it throws out a little bit of spray without even trying. I pump past a couple of sections and kick out before it closes out.

     I’m stoked. Not bad for a first ride. More sets come in, and the surf is slowly getting bigger. Fuck. I should have used my shortboard. There’s a lot of power behind the waves, and punching through them is a bitch on every duckdive. Sitting next to Klaude, I turn and go on an inside left. I haven’t ridden this board in a while, so my turns are awkward, but I catch the wave all the way to shore. Paddling back out is a bitch, so I catch one more and head back up the stairs to swap boards.

     Now I have my Lost Mini Driver in tow. I haven’t ridden this thing since me and my brother’s first surf session when he had visited back in September. Since I lost a side fin, I’m using the quad setup from my Becker board.

     I run into Yantz while heading back. “You gonna go for a swim?” I ask.

     “No. We go to do some shopping and then we come back for a swim.” He has his whole family in tow in his RV. I tell him I’ll catch him later.

     “You got the magic board?” says Pat, as I’m making my way back out to the lineup.

     “We’ll see,” I say. The surf is still clean, but now a lot of walls are coming in. I paddle. We all paddle and move around. There’s a crowd in front of the stairs, but I don’t want to battle it out there.

     I finally paddle into a left, but the wave just sections out. I pull in, and the wave just closes out right on me.

     “I saw that,” says Klaude. “That was weird. It was like your fins didn’t catch.”

     The onshore wind starts to pick up. With the tide dropping, the wave buffet that we had all initially witnessed is now a closeout fest. One by one, our party leaves. Klaude’s the last one to leave before I do.

     In frustration, I paddle to duke it out with the pack. Some of the rights look decent, but guys at the top get them first. I catch a left, but my board feels so slow. I pump and bog out like I have no drive. On a right, I try to pull off a backhand snap, and my board feels too loose, like there’s no power behind the turn. My last wave is another lackluster snap. These fins suck. I can’t believe I’ve been using them on the Becker this whole time.

     Back at the campsite, everyone’s already drinking and in daycation mode. Klaude hands me some FCS SA-2 fins, and I slap those onto my board. I pull a turkey sandwich out the cooler and watch the surf beneath us, hoping that conditions will improve later.

#

SECOND SESH

     It’s almost two o’clock when we can’t take it anymore. We’ve been watching guys get some manageable rights. The surf looks doable. We all change and head back down the hill.

     “It’s Trunktober!” yells Pat in the empty lineup. He and Klaude go on about how odd it is for the water to be this warm in late October. Pat and Pete get a couple of rights as soon as we get out, but the surf . . . man. It’s still kind of walled. Amazing how things always look smaller and cleaner from a higher vantage point. Within the first twenty minutes, Pat and Chad are gone. Up the stairs and back to camp. Closeout after closeout, we paddle back out and have to deal with the duckdives. I’m on the fish. Seemed like a good idea earlier, but it’s a bad call. Pete’s gone. Klaude’s waiting for me on shore. I catch a closer in, almost purling.

     Walking back up the stairs, we see a couple in the water, playing in thigh deep water. The dude has banana hammocks on, and that’s when I realize that it’s Yantz. Only a Euro would be wearing that gay shit. He waves. We wave back. He starts making his way towards us, but he’s far away.

     “Fuck,” I say. “I really don’t want to talk to him. Not with that thing on.” I look at him with my periphery. Yantz is packing some serious bratwurst.

     “You’re the one who talked to him,” says Klaude.

     “Hurry,” I say, walking faster to the stairs. I look down when we’re halfway up. Yantz throws us a shaka, shaking his hands and wiggling his fingers in the process.

#

THIRD SESSION

     Firemen. I think they’re just as perverted as cops if not worse, but that’s why I feel in my element. I’m a filthy pirate myself, so it’s all good.

     They have a set of binos, and they whip them out to look at the young teenage ass running on the sand below. That’s when we find out that Yantz is swimming with his daughter, not his wife.

     “The trick is to NOT look away when they catch you watching them with the binos,” says one of the guys. “They’ll eventually look away, thinking that you must be watching something else.”

     The conditions aren’t improving, and we have to resolve with the fact that this place is not holding the swell anymore. None the less, we’re all having a good time. I’m stoked to be here with Klaude. Pat’s homies are just as cool as he is.

     Klaude and I watch noobs get worked, trying to paddle out. Two surfers meet on the shore and high five. The guys yell out, “KISSSSSS! KISSSSS!” The kids look up. Laughter erupts.

     It’s about five o’clock. I grab my Lost Mini Driver and paddle out with zero expectations. At this point, it’s just about getting wet.

     Pat, Klaude, and I do what we can, but . . . it’s still closing out. Pat though, he gets a floater on his Average Joe. Later, he tosses water out the back on right. I don’t know how he’s doing it. All my waves are closeouts. It looks like there’s shape, but it walls up.

     Klaude and Pat keep catching rights. With the added current, they end up drifting further south.

     There’s a crowd in front of the stairs just like this morning. I go there. The shape is just a hair better, good enough to get down the line on.

     I scratch out on about three waves until I finally get a left. It barely lets me in, and once I’m on it, I can’t fucking believe it. The whole time I’m thinking, please don’t blow it. I pump hard and make it past a section, check turn, slide back down the face, and pump again to keep up with the wave. I straighten out before it closes out and point my nose to shore. Fuck it. No legit turns, but it had shape. It counts. Best wave since this morning. Session complete.

     Up top, Klaude and Pat aren’t there yet. I begin to pack. When they get back it’s almost dark. Chad starts the bonfire, and we say our goodbyes just as the fire’s crackling.

     Being honest, the surf only had a small window when it was good, but today wasn’t about catching waves. Klaude barely gets days off. We could have gone to somewhere that was holding shape, but we got to hang with Pat and his pervert firefighter buddies. We also got to experience a new surf spot.

     We stop at Duke’s for Taco Tuesdays and fill ourselves up while watching the first half of the Laker game. We listen to it on the radio the whole ride back to El Segundo, not even noticing the distance that we’ve covered.