THE FIRST NORTHWEST, FRI 26SEPT2014

Loc: 26^th Street

Crew: Randy and Klaude

Time: 0700-1015

Conditions: 3-4 FT+, light onshore, north current, fast.

     Four boards . . . I bring four boards to go surfing: Motorboat Too, 6’10 Becker, Zippi, and Randy’s Tokoro. We walk to the strand for a surf check, and it’s definitely a little bit bigger, but the shape is questionable. The onshore wind knocks the waves down. The shoulders section off and closeout fast. I don’t know what board to ride, all I know is that I don’t want another day of sitting in the lineup with the wrong board not catching shit. We head back to the wagon. Motorboat Too and Becker. I grab them both.

     Pitching the MB Too into the sand, I paddle out on the Becker. Bri’s already out. She catches a closeout right. The inside is consistent, but I make it out unscathed. The current’s already sucked me south, but I have so much board that holding position is easy.

     My first wave is a right. With a quad setup to get down the line, I’m going too fast to set up for a turn and accidentally kick out. Fuck. Meanwhile, Bri catches another right. A guy sitting next to me rubbernecks it as he watches her go down the line. She dismounts in the impact zone but still confident and smiling without a worry. And why would she worry?

     I paddle into a right but don’t realize I’m too deep. I get into the wave late and purl hard, flinging my body forward. 6’10 is a lot of board to be sucked under with. Resurfacing, I take another one on the head. I struggle to get back onto my board and paddle out. The next wave rips the board from my grip. Fuck.

     Winded, I make it back out to the safe zone. Bri paddles up to me, talking, but I can’t quite understand. She’s saying something about having front row seats, probably to “The Eating Shit Show,” starring Donny Duckbutter.

     Again, Bri paddles into waves with ease. She’s almost smirking, but I can’t tell because she’s not looking right at me. It’s not until later that I realize that she looks that way because she’s surfing better than I am . . . and she knows it.

     She goes to work, and Klaude paddles out, immediately replacing her. He’s trunking it, no rashguard.

     “Going for it,” I say. 

     “I forgot my towel,” he says. “I’m gonna have to change later. Haven’t figured that one out yet.” He hoots at the next set on the horizon, four foot plus. The first wave’s walled. He goes on the second one.

     I catch a small left, pulling off two floaters and taking advantage of its stability. On the next wave, I get two backhand snaps. They feel good, a little sluggish but good.

     “That board’s too big for you,” says Klaude, as he paddles past.

     Fuckin’ A. As the tide fills in, the onshore wind dies out, and the peaks become a little cleaner. I head back in and swap out boards.

     Randy’s all over the place, first paddling south, then north, and then south again when he gets invaded by groms.

     Klaude leaves. I chance a set-wave right. Kurt, old local vet, hoots me into it. I get hung up on the top and drop in late. Some ripper kid who looks like a John John Florence knockoff is on the inside. I stick the landing, but the open face has left me behind. Ron Ron Florence gives me a look like, What are you doing? He’s right. I’m surfing like shit.

     The good thing is that my MB Too is so easy to duckdive. Even in the impact zone, I’m punching through waves with ease. I catch another right and get two sloppy backhand hacks. The waves go a little softer with the tide, but there’s still size. Decent conditions for my board. I try to set myself up for some power carves on my frontside, but I don’t stick any of them.

     On a right, I manage to bottom turn and get a late hack under the lip. “Late,” as in my timing was behind and the turn was forced, but it was a turn nonetheless. My wave of the day is a backhand hack that I get a 180 rotation on but kick out purposely because the wave is closing, kind of like a suicide hack where you can just go for it since there’s nowhere to go. I guess the next level of my surfing would be to actually follow through on those and land them.

     By 1000, the tide gets too high. I wave Randy in like I had done yesterday. It’s time to go.

     He says he was frustrated from the crowd following him everywhere he went. “But it was fun,” he says. “How’d you do on your Becker?”

     I downplay it a little. Truth is, I probably should have been on my Motorboat Too from the get go. My Mini Driver’s damaged. That would’ve been the perfect board at first light. “Better than yesterday,” I say. It’s a content ride home.