Loc: 26th
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.
