Sharkcifica (Linda Mar)

Posted on September 3rd, 2010 in California, Half Moon Bay, Surf Sessions.Darren was already in the water south of Taco Bell with just a few others when I arrived, and I saw him get a nice shoulder-high left. When I said I was regretting that I'd left my gloves in the car, he assured me (correctly) that my hands would numb up in a few minutes. After a short chat, I excused myself and paddled to the kiddie-pool end of the beach at Boat Docks; I needed smaller waves to knock the kook out of my shortboarding. There was no one else around initially, and I couldn't help thinking about the shark attack on a sea lion a few days ago, just outside the lineup right there in Pacifica. Nearby surfers had seen a lot of thrashing with bloody water thrown into the air, reportedly an 18-25 foot great white shark violently taking her lunch. (Yes, 18-25 feet! Several news organizations reported this statement completely uncritically, while my fast Wiki search revealed that if true, this was one of the largest sharks ever. Doesn't the media do even the most basic fact-checking anymore?!)

As I paddled alone across opaque waters still darkish in the new day, fingertips brushing seaweed, my shark-riddled thoughts turned to a dream I had last night, of coming to Linda Mar to surf but finding it infested with dozens of sharks, jumping and roiling the water, and hurling themselves out of the ocean to snap at people on the beach. When I sprinted away from the snapping jaws of an 18-25 footer, I woke up and looked at the alarm clock: almost time to get up to drive to Linda Mar for dawn patrol. On actual arrival, I saw no sharks, and took this as proof that there were none (as I must or I would have to stay on the beach). Fortunately, it seems many of the usual hordes haven't put the death of the sea lion behind them; the crowds stayed light as the sun rose in the sky.


Interestingly, Surfline's best board for today looks rather like the one I took out. I've been riding my 8'3" Magic hybrid longboard almost exclusively since I got it last December, and it's quite a switch dropping straight to my 5'8" Xanadu Rocky hybrid shortboard. My experience this morning was almost like starting over on the shortboard, but with an accelerated learning curve. At first I was a bit tippy just sitting in the lineup, my duck-dives were ineffectual, and my pop-ups were horrible, sloppy and too far back on the board. But soon I was catching whitewater and standing for milliseconds, then getting into the wave closer to the peak and riding a little longer. By the end, I managed a decent short ride. Yes!
With nothing on offer this weekend but more short-period windswell, I'm planning to concentrate on getting up to speed with the shortboard to be ready for winter. I think Magic has honed my surfing skills, but it's time to get back to driving a sports car. Zoom, zoom!

Surfline: 2-3 ft+ with fair conditions. Clean, peaky lines with some scattered, workable corners. Occasional slightly larger sets. Patchy coastal fog with light winds. Buoy 46012: (Wave) SWELL: 6.6 ft at 9.1 s NW / WIND WAVE: 1.3 ft at 3.8 s WNW / WVHT: 6.9 ft / APD: 6.9 s / MWD: 315° / 07:00a PDT; (Met) WSPD: 8 kts / GST: 10 kts / WDIR: 310.0° / ATMP: 52.7° F / WTMP: 55.4° F / PRES: 1010.5 hPa / PTDY: +0.8 hPa / 06:50a PDT.

Gray Drizzly Dawn (Cowells)

Posted on August 28th, 2010 in California, Half Moon Bay, Surf Sessions. I figured Cowells would be decent on the low tide early this morning. Trouble is, a whole lot of other people figured the same thing. When I drove past in the dim pre-dawn light, I could already see a small clot of surfers in the water. By the time I'd suited up and paddled out, they numbered two dozen, and within half an hour the pack had swollen to more than 40. Why so many folks came out in the chilly misty dawn is a mystery. There were more waves to go around yesterday afternoon at 38th Ave, and it was warm and sunny.
I sat on the inside and took scraps discarded by the crowd, mostly rights with a few lefts, a lot of them gutless waves that couldn't hold up to the beach. I partook of one better party wave with five others, riding in sync behind the rightmost surfer, and congratulated the guy next to me when he managed to stay up on it longer than the rest of us (and just a bit farther than me).
Surfline: Knee to waist high, poor to fair conditions. Mostly clean, workable little lines for the small wave gear. SSW-S (180-200) swell fades through the day as some small NW windswell energy mixes in. Better breaks are good for knee-waist-chest high surf, as top exposures are in the shoulder-head high+ zone, with some occasional sets running slightly overhead. Conditions are mostly clean with light winds early and a low incoming tide. Buoy 46012:  (Wave) SWELL: 4.6 ft at 14.8 s S / WIND WAVE: 8.5 ft at 9.1 s NW / WVHT: 9.5 ft / APD: 6.7 s / MWD: 320° / (Met) WSPD: 19 kts / GST: 23 kts / WDIR: 310.0° / ATMP: 56.1° F / WTMP: 56.8° F.

Bright Sunshiny Day (38th Ave)

Posted on August 27th, 2010 in California, Half Moon Bay, Surf Sessions. Crowded and sectiony but I got some fun ones. Plus it was so warm that I left my gloves on the beach.
And now to sleep, perchance to dream of waves, and to be ready for dawn patrol!

Pleasure at Pleasure Point Surfline: SSW-S swell slowly starts to eases this afternoon as small NW windswell mix continues. Most breaks stay down in the knee-waist high+ zone for the most part, as top exposures are in the shoulder-head high+ zone. Building Westerly winds are putting some slight bump/texture to the surface as the tide drops. Buoy 46012 (now more chatty!): (Wave) SWELL: 3.9 ft at 14.8 s S / WIND WAVE: 3.3 ft at 7.1 s WNW / WVHT: 5.2 ft / APD: 6.3 s / MWD: 188° / (Met) WSPD: 17 kts / GST: 19 kts / WDIR: 310.0° / WTMP: 58.1° F.

Stoked Giggles (38th Ave)

Posted on August 23rd, 2010 in California, Half Moon Bay, Surf Sessions. What a difference a day makes. On Saturday the south swell filled in, lighting up the Jetty with head-high+ waves and giving Luke his 3rd barrel (woot!), with the swell holding into today. While I'd love some more overhead waves, I'm not keen to seek out the big pitching ones. So I drove to Santa Cruz in the pre-dawn darkness to find gentler waves before the crowd and tide rose, and it was well worth getting up at 4 am.
There were only a handful of cars in the parking lot when I arrived, and a similar number of surfers in the lineup when I paddled out. I got one nice long right before the pack grew too thick, then moved to the inside left edge of the lineup in front of Jack O'Neill's house to pick off the mostly unwanted lefts. Surfline called it wrong again (at least they're consistent); the waves were shoulder- to head-high on the sets. The left was working very well and I rode a lot of good waves nearly to the beach, working through reforms and playing on the face. At the end of one ride, my stoked smile escalated into giggles, I was having so much fun! I got a couple waves that were at least head high, carving down the drop and back up onto the face, with another surfer hooting in appreciation. When I paddled back to the lineup, he congratulated me on a great ride. I don't think a stranger's ever sincerely complimented me like that before. Maybe I'm getting a little good at this surfing thing after all.

Surfline: Inconsistent ankle to waist high, clean, glassy lines looking fun for the bigger boards. New SSW (180-200) groundswell peaks as old SW (200-220) energy fades. Average areas go waist-shoulder-head high, while the better spots see inconsistent overhead sets. Clean conditions early thanks to light wind. Expect the building tide to eventually swamp things out later this morning. Buoy 46012: SSW 4.3 ft @ 16 sec.

Summer? What Summer? (HMB Jetty)

Posted on August 21st, 2010 in California, Half Moon Bay, Surf Sessions. When I reached the beach it was barely dawn, 53 degrees and drizzling under gray skies. Summer's nearly over, and it seems like we're still waiting for it. This has been one of the coolest summers ever, or so it seems, and the south groundswells have been as scarce as the warm sunshine. But there was a little south swell in the water, underneath a NW windswell, giving some hope for the Jetty after a pretty flat week. It didn't look like much from the road, but neither Darren nor I had time before work to drive around on a wave quest, so we paddled out anyway. The water too was colder than it should be in August.
Darren got the wave of the day as soon as he got in position - it was more than waist-high! I pulled off my requisite three decent rides, plus a few rather fun wipeouts from getting too close to the lip of a closeout wave on (attempted) takeoff. Luke and John turned up after a bit, and then it was just the four of us sharing the break. Manabu stopped by to video his surf report just as I rode my last left in. The bottoms of my feet were icy clods. I shivered as I changed, and cranked up the seat heater in the MINI as soon as I started driving - aahhh.
The waves may have been small and inconsistent, but there's no better way to start the day than a surf with just my buddies.

And now for a shark joke, courtesy of Luke:

A boat capsizes in the ocean and sinks. The survivors are floating around on the surface when two great white sharks spot them, a daddy great white and his son. The daddy says to his son, "Let's circle around them a few times with just one fin out of the water," and they do. Then the daddy great white says to his son "Good job! Now let's do it again, this time with all our fins showing," and they do. Then the daddy great white shark says "Good job son! Now let's go feast," and they do. After they have gorged themselves, the son asks, "Daddy, how come we circled them so many times instead of just going at them right away?" The daddy great white answers, "Because they taste better without the shit in them."

Surfline: Mix of holding SW groundswell, some minor NW windswell, and slow building long-period forerunners of a new SSW groundswell. Good SW exposed breaks offered 2-3' occasional 4' surf. Beachbreaks exposed to the SW/NW combo are peaky. Buoy 46012: NW 4.3 ft @ 7.7 sec.

Tri-County Surf Weekend (Bolinas)

Posted on August 9th, 2010 in California, Half Moon Bay, Surf Sessions.

Angie

Beth

If the original surf posse had held, I was going to title this post "Five Surfer Girls...and Luke." But Tracey brought her buddy Andrew, and Beth, Angie, Emily and I were also joined by Deepak and his friend Evan, so Luke wasn't the only guy. Then I thought I might go with "Bloody in Bolinas" after I bashed my lip on my board. A woman surfing right on the shoulder inexplicably turned into the whitewater I was trying to catch left, and I had to pull my board back hard to avoid being run over, with sadly predictable results. Although I was then bleeding slightly while surfing in notoriously sharky* waters, that title seemed overly dramatic for such a tiny lip wound. So I chose the one above, since I've surfed three counties in three days: Santa Cruz, San Mateo and now Marin.

Tracey

Luke on his new board

It's been a couple of years since I surfed Bolinas, which isn't that much farther than Santa Cruz in miles but takes much longer to get to. First there's the slow slog in surface street traffic through San Francisco, which has declined to let a freeway run through it like any normal city. And then there's the narrow and curvy but beautifully scenic trek down Highway 1, traversing the coast near the top of a ridge with the expanse of the Pacific Coast laid out a long way below. Our four-car caravan linked up in Mill Valley at the start of the winding highway, but alas, the magnificent view was mostly obscured by misting clouds and fog.
The light drizzle and overcast continued when we reached Bolinas but allowed us to park near the beach. Unfortunately, the waves were meh, not really worth the drive. The tide was high and I had trouble getting into the mushy waves; I needed to wait for the bigger ones, and then be right where they were breaking. I got a smattering of decent rides and a couple of good waves, one near the Groin with a nice fast drop, and another long one I worked through reforms into the beach on the east side of the lagoon channel. The current was rushing fast into the Bolinas Lagoon, and I very nearly got sucked in with it. In waist-deep water, it was hard to even walk perpendicular to get out of the strong pull. That inrushing current had me paddling extra strokes even far from the lagoon mouth until I figured it out. After 3 straight days of surfing, my paddling muscles are sore!

Deepak and Evan

It was fun surfing with friends even in so-so conditions, and the unscary mushy waves were good for the newbies in the group. Half of us decamped post-surf to the Coast Cafe, which actually has vegan soup, but I was way more than soup-hungry so went for another ALT sandwich. I was hoping for sunshine and a clear view of the coast on the drive back, but high fog shrouded Marin and obscured the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, not lifting to sunshine until I was nearly home, tired and happy.

*There was a shark sighting here the day before, I learned later, and my buddy Mike reported one a few months ago. Thankfully, Luke didn't mention that he'd been bumped by something in the water until we were out of it.

Surfline: 4-6 ft [not!], light and variable southwest winds with smooth seas. Small long period swell from the southwest. Buoy 46012: NW 6.2 ft @ 7.7 sec. 2 Mile Surf Shop: Coastal cloudiness and overcast conditions start the morning again, broken record, right? Temps are mild but the wind is lightly onshore causing some ocean texture. There is a still a bit of south swell pulse in the water sometimes mixing with the NW windswell. Sets at The Patch were knee high currently. The Channel still has the most surfers out and has waves in the 1-2'+ range and a little bigger.

South Swell, South Wind & Sunshine (Linda Mar)

Posted on August 8th, 2010 in California, Half Moon Bay, Surf Sessions. This morning I planned to attend Luke's Coastside Surfers Meetup, but I got to the Jetty an hour early and it looked pretty junky with an onshore breeze. Once again, I was blown north by the south wind. There were a lot of surfers in the water at Montara, which looked cleaner but more than head-high, with lots of windswell whitewater to slog through to the outside.

Feral agapanthus at Montara

Look closely: there's a dude trying to make that closeout.

I knew the Kahuna Kupuna contest was on at Linda Mar, but thought I'd check it out anyway since it's a good place to go when the south winds blow. Parking was pretty full but I found a spot and paddled out on the south end, well away from the contest. There were a handful of surfers in the lineup, including a female wave hog (would that be a wave sow?). I was happy to surf in sunshine again, since the weather has been gloomy and drizzly like Seattle most mornings of late. It had been three weeks since I'd surfed under sunny skies.
The waves were moundy and the offshore was strong, and for a while I was getting nada on Magic, but then I realized I was stupidly following the herd. Instead of sitting with the pack, I needed to use my surf sense to figure out where I needed to be in those conditions on that board. I moved to a smaller inner break I'd seen from the beach, where the waves were jacking up a bit, and put myself at the peak. Then I started catching waves, but at first the wind prevented me from riding them, blowing me off the back as soon as I popped up. This is one situation where it's a bit of a handicap to have the extra rocker in Magic's nose, which shaper Bob Pearson wanted to design out, since it catches the wind. It took some iterating and a few pearls, but I worked out how to weight the front of my board enough to push it down the face and get into the wave. One thing that helped was placing my hands farther forward on the board during the pop-up. I got a lot of great rides, including one left that I linked through not just one but two reforms, all the way to the beach.

Heron on the beach path

During the session, I'd exchanged smiles and banalities with a couple of women sitting outside of me. One remarked that she hadn't caught a single wave, and I suggested they sit farther inside. But it was time for them to go, and as she paddled passed me, she said "Do good for us out here!" Linda Mar has given me an unfortunate number of such waveless days when I was a beginner or equipped with the wrong board, and I felt bad for her. Just then I saw a wave approaching and urged them to paddle for it, but it mushed out. Then another came and I called "Paddle! Paddle!" She dug deep, popped up and rode for just a couple seconds until the wind pushed her off the back. She turned around with her arms raised in victory and a big stoked smile, which I returned, knowing those two seconds had turned her inner frown upside down. 

Afterwards I drove back south to El Granada and met up with some of the Coastside Surfers crew to swap surf stories over lunch at Cafe Classique and plan Sunday's expedition to Bolinas. I scarfed down a BLTA, hold the B, but I was still a bit hungry after the surf workout at Lindy. And a lot stoked!

Surfline: Waist to shoulder high, poor to fair conditions. Bumpy, sectiony walls with SW wind blowing around 5-10kts. A mix of NW windswell and building SW (200-215) energy provides 3-4' surf at average breaks this morning, while top spots occasionally hit head high. Onshore flow out of the SW keeps surface conditions textured/crumbly overall. Look for a building tide to swamp out most areas around mid-morning. Buoy 46012: NW 6.9 ft @ 9.1 sec.

The Grass is Always Greener… (Hook, 38th, Pleasure Point)

Posted on August 1st, 2010 in California, Half Moon Bay, Surf Sessions. ...and the waves are always better at the next break. This morning I started at the Hook, and got a few fun rights.
When Nikki arrived at about low tide, we paddled west to 38th Ave, where it was looking more consistently fun - and turned out to be so in fact. There were plenty of waves to be had, both rights and short lefts. I got my best wave of the day, an outside right that I worked through a sluggish section to an inside reform for a long ride.

By the time Nikki left, 38th was crowded and Pleasure Point was beckoning with unridden waves, so westward ho! Some head-high sneakers were coming through at 1st Peak. Although I pulled off a quick ride with a decent drop, the peak was shifty with a short takeoff zone and greedy shortboarders.
I paddled back to 2nd Peak, where I got a few more waves, cursing the thick kelp that cut the rides short by stopping my fins. Wave by wave, I worked my way east toward the 38th Ave stairs, where I caught an inside right to the beach. Stoked!

Surfline: Glassy, inconsistent little lines. Clean but weak overall. Small SSW (185-200) energy fades as new SSW (195-205) Southern Hemi swell slowly builds through the day. Things start off pretty slow with generally waist high and below surf. Top southerly exposures see a rare +. Look for a bit more size/consistency as we move into the afternoon. Clean conditions early thanks to light/variable morning wind. Buoy 46012: NW 6.2 ft @ 9.1 sec.

Just Me & My Crew (Rachel’s Point)

Posted on July 26th, 2010 in California, Half Moon Bay, Surf Sessions.This morning Luke, Manabu, Steve and I had "Rachel's Point" all to ourselves, which made the session even more fun. The waves were inconsistent and again shifty but less scary-powerful than the last time, so today I tried to position myself in the short takeoff zone.

For a little while I was kooking it up. As I took a drop, I got distracted by a rock boil in the shallow water under my board's nose. So what did I do? I fell on it! Then I did a split on a cock-eyed landing, fortunately without injurious results. And Luke almost ran me over once (guess the red helmet isn't attention-getting enough). But then I got dialed in and things turned fun. I rode several fast lefts with fun drops, one head-high and another half a foot over my head (by Luke's estimate).

Luke's wife Beth took some video from the beach early on, and didn't get my best rides (it seems those are never recorded, except in memory).
I almost got a three-fer video with all of the guys riding in succession: Luke on a wave, then Manabu on the next... but Steve didn't catch the third one.
Surfline: New SSW (180-200) energy fills in today, mixing with old SSW (190-205) swell and minor NW windswell. Expect inconsistent surf in the knee-chest high range early on, with bigger sets showing later today. Generally light wind on tap right now. Buoy 46012: SSW 3.6 ft @ 13.8 sec.

Putting the Dawn in Dawn Patrol

Posted on July 15th, 2010 in California, Half Moon Bay, Surf Sessions.My plan for this morning was to be up at 4 and in the water in SC by 5:45. I was running a few minutes behind, but caught the first wave of many at 6 am.

Cowells was in fine form nearing a negative low tide, with regular waist- to chest-high waves and no wind. The Lane looked to be working nicely too, but I wasn't in the mood to compete for waves with hotshot shortboarders. And Cowells turned out to be mega-fun, with plenty of waves to go around. The crowd filled in as dawn became morning, and I sat inside of the outer peak to get more of the smaller waves all to myself. (Selfish, I know, but I only enjoy party waves when they're shared with friends.) I've noticed I'm not turning enough onto the face on my backside, so I decided to challenge myself to see how far I could stay on each wave, as measured by distance traveled along the shore. A few times I extended the ride quite a ways toward the wharf by linking to a inside reform.


When the crowd thickened to a heavy peppering of black wetsuits on the main peaks, I moved to a break closer to the beach with only two guys on it. My arms were getting tired by then anyway; it's a long paddle back to the lineup after a long ride, and I had a lot of long rides. The waves were a little steeper there, making for some fun drops and more face time. Stoked!

Surfline: Knee to chest high, fair conditions. Clean, peaky lines with some slow but open and workable shoulders under hazy, overcast skies with light winds. Mix of modest SW groundswell and NW wind/groundswell wrap is providing fun zone surf in the knee-waist-chest zone range at the better breaks through town today. Top exposed spots are even pulling in some shoulder high sets. Winds are light and the surf should only improve a little on the morning tide push. Buoy 46012: NW 6.2 ft @ 12.9 sec.