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| Ports Mc'Gorts |
Crew: Fransauce & Khang
Time: 0830-1030
Conditions: High tide, offshore, 5 ft, walled with some shoulders, inconsistent.
I’ve been lying around here all day feeling like shit. Here we go. . . .
My relationship with my girlfriend is now in its final stages. Still, I wake up to Rick’s call. He’s at the Manhattan Beach Starbucks, telling me that he’s going to check out Hermosa with Gary. He says that the swell at Porto is still macking and that it’s walled.
By the time I load up the car, Rick gives me another call. He’s at Knob Hill. “It’s only chest high he says. Go and check out Porto.” I’m perched by the rocks on the bike path at 45th. The lots only a quarter full, and there are only a few heads in the lineup. Everyone popping-up is forced to kick-out or go straight; it’s just a little too walled. The shoulders only form when the wave is already half way to shore.
At 26th I’m looking at the surf with local old-timer and Vietnam Vet Mike. It’s about a foot smaller, still a little walled, but it looks more manageable. I call Rick and tell him I’m gonna paddle out here. Khang pulls up just as Francis calls. I also send a courtesy text to Shan to let him know where we’re surfing.
I’m on the DMS board. I’m trying to adjust to this smaller board; it’s time. I’ve had a lot of time riding the JS since my brother bought it for me last Christmas. It’s a beginner shortboard, 6’3, narrow as hell, but with a little meat on it. The DMS is a 6’1 and much thinner.
Don and his league of extraordinary rippers own the main peak, so Khang and I sit just to their north. One of them gets a little cover-up, going left, riding the highline. I have to kick out on my first couple rides. I’m still getting my board wired, as I fail to adjust going backside, accidentally going over and out the back from the speed. I do get a decent left. It’s a really long ride, but it’s all pumping, fading out, keeping momentum, and taking it to shore. On the inside, I watch Khang get two turns, ending his left with a little wrap-around cutback. I acknowledge his ride, but he dismisses it; he wants a better one.
Francis is easy to spot, but he sits just north of 33rd. For the whole session, we never get in reach of Frans; we just wave our arms to him the whole time. I do see him on some waves, so I understand that he doesn’t want to move.
Wave of the Day:
Khang and I have been watching Don’s marauders score nice lefts all morning. There’s that guy with the orange and white wetsuit. He’s a little older, but he throws-out heavy buckets on every one of his turns. Khang says, “Dude, those four guys are the ones that rip the most . . . and Randy.”
“Yeah, that’ll be us one day.” I say this jokingly because there’s no guarantee that we’ll ever fill those shoes.
“For sure.”
Even though we’re not in prime position, a wall forms in the distance. Khang’s a little too deep, but I can make it to the shoulder. A surfer on my outside is positioning for it, watching, and hoping I don’t get in.
One good thing about the DMS is its length. Those couple inches make a difference. I don’t pop-up too far in front, and I find my back foot right on the tail where it needs to be.
I make my way to the open face, and the wave begins to stand up. It almost looks like there’s potential for some cover-up, but I’m already carve-committed. There’s a bit of a breakthrough here. Usually my forehand top-turns are flat, resulting in lost momentum. For the first time, I rebound off the lip with speed and find myself being projected back down the face. I pull it off again a second and a third time. I don’t really count the fourth turn because it was at the end of the ride and not as good as the last three, but I’m beyond stoked. I know this is a special moment. I yell out to myself with only the oncoming whitewash as my audience. It’s the best wave I’ve had at 26th in a long, long time.
It felt like I only had that inside, rear, rail section in the face of the wave, like I was surfing with less of the board. Maybe that was the key? I didn’t put emphasis on pushing the tail through the lip to generate spray, but these were my fasted, frontside turns ever.
Khang gives me a thumbs-up in the distance. I return a smile, approvingly nodding my head with my eyebrows raised. “Dude, that was a good wave,” he says. “You got like four turns.” We both catch a couple more waves. He gets his wave of the day, but I miss it. Paddling back towards the outside, we see a 26th St. phenomenon. A huge wave rolls through the main break; it’s peaky. When it hits the sandbar, it turns hollow, and the lip starts throwing out. In the ten o’clock sun, we see sunlight refracting off the building shoulder, the transparency of the sun through the lip, and the illumination inside the hollow tube. It’s one of the cleanest barrels I’ve seen in the South Bay. Khang says, “That is hands-down the best wave I’ve ever seen here.” I don’t know what happened to Don and his band of thieves, but this wave goes unridden.
Khang says he’s going for one more, and Francis is still in the distance, most likely scoring. I get a decent carve on another wave. It’s walled, and I only get one turn on it, but it’s a wide, C-like arc. I have another first time experience, actually feeling the fins on this turn. It’s hard to describe, but at the bottom of the carve, it feels like the fins skip underwater, like there is some kind of drag or they get caught. Time to look into fin technology perhaps?
Khang gets his wave. I struggle to get another good one, so I catch a closeout and do the funky chicken for the locals on the strand. I catch Khang at the showers. Frans is still in the water. “We’re definitely getting better,” says Khang.
Back at the house, the day takes another turn. Lauren and I have a serious talk, discussing any possibilities to save our relationship. In the end, I’m not happy, but she is determined to move-out. March twenty-first would have made three years. She was the first woman I ever shared a home with, and it’s been heart wrenching to see our relationship disintegrate before my eyes. This little, one-bedroom apartment was once a happy home. I can imagine how hard it will be when her stuff is gone. To think I complained about her piles of disorganized clothes when I’d do anything to keep that pile here in this house. We had a nice life here in El Segundo, and what now? It’s back to the old me, I guess. I used to live in a shit hole, a studio no larger than my living room. It will probably be that all over again. I’ll move to a bad neighborhood where the rent is nice and cheap. I’ll put most of my shit in storage, only taking the bare necessities. I’ll probably be sleeping on my couch which will double as my bed. I’ll spend more time sleeping in my car overnight at different surf spots to escape from myself. I’ll be plagued with those dreams, dreams of us being together again, only to wake-up lonely as ever within my tight confines, while her fragrance still remains on my pillows. I’ll visit friends, seek consolation, hear the usual, “You’ll be all right; all you need is time.” I’ll say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know,” but then I’ll come home to a lonely cell. . . . It’s gonna be a rough journey ahead. I hope surfing can save my life.
