A Quickie

Session: 10
Date: Wednesday, 4/19/05
Place: HMB Jetty
Time: After work ‘til dark
Waves: Can hardly remember, really small
Stokemeter: 3? At least there weren’t any raging maniacs

Not too much to report here. Selin came along for this one, she’s a surfer now too! The waves weren’t very good though, and I was on the Poko, and those two things don’t go together very well. I surfed by the rocks a bit, then went over to where Nic and Selin were and tried to get some closeouts on the head but didn’t have much luck. It was fun to have Selin out there though, she caught a few and I think she had fun. I ended up leaving a bit early and driving up to Montara to check it out, but it was outta control and that was that.

4-Mile Madness

Session: 9
Date: Saturday, 4/16/05
Place: 4-Mile (Santa Cruz)
Time: 5:15 to 7:40
Waves: Varying sizes up to head high, 1 overhead wave that I blew
Stokemeter: 6 for waves, -10 for awful people

This was a crazy session. Mike, Nic, and I went to Santa Cruz and headed straight up to 4-mile. There weren’t many people out, good deal. Waves looked smallish so I was happy that I had brought Nic’s longboard (the Rotella is still wounded; the Poko is too much work). We paddled out, past 3 or 4 shortboarders surfing the inside. Sat outside and started catching lots of waves. The longboard glided into ‘em so smooth. At first I thought I was gonna be pearling but it was actually easy not too. Nic has a nice high performance Vernor 8’6” longboard that is fairly narrow with a swallow tail. It’s very responsive and fairly fast for a longboard, and definitely smooth. So I caught a bunch of waves right off the bat and had fun rides, trying to turn a longboard was great fun – I haven’t done it in so long. I did a few nice ones where I stepped way back and really raised it up and whipped it around as much as I could, good stuff. Longboarding is fun. So we were out further than the shorties inside and we were getting waves but then we paddled out a bit further where one lone surfer was sitting. Nic and Mike paddled past the lone surfer and it turned out to be a girl, wearing a hoodie. Mike went by first, and when Nic followed he saw a look of disgust on her face. Being a nice guy Nic said “hi how’s it goin” but she ignored him. So whatever, they went past her. I then followed a bit behind but didn’t notice the girl really at all. So then being the awesome surfers we are we started catching waves galore. I didn’t think we were doing anything wrong but the girl thought otherwise and was apparently getting pretty fed up with us being in the same ocean as she was. So, I was deeper and further out than she was (not because I just snaked her or anything) and a good lookin’ wave came through so I went for it, but she had other ideas. I took a couple strokes, lined it up, and hopped up and was on my way when she decided she wanted to kill me. So she started paddling RIGHT AT ME, moving from the far shoulder of the wave towards the curl, where I was. Now, keep in mind that until this point I didn’t think we had done anything wrong and I really wasn’t aware of her festering anger, so I thought what the heck surely she’s gonna pull out of the way soon, but no, she kept paddling (no intent of getting up it seemed) straight towards me. I yelled “Hey!” to make sure she knew I was there (although it was impossible she didn’t see me) but she ignored me. At this point she was about 2 feet away from me, a little higher on the wave, pointing her board directly at my chest. I had to actually stick out my hand and HOLD BACK the nose of her board to stop her from spearing me. It was crazy. I have never had anyone so blatantly just try to ride right over me. Anyway I fought her off (literally) and I just pulled right out of the wave. She kept going, but I couldn’t see if she ended up standing or not. So I thought, whoa, what the heck, but I’ve surfed in crowded spots before and have certainly been dropped in on before (although not that bad) so I just more or less shrugged it off, figuring I’d ask her what’s up when she paddled back out. So when she got out again I asked, with what I thought was a friendly tone –

“Hey, did you see me on that last wave?”
She answered, without looking at me and with a dirty look on her face “No.”
“Wow, you should open your eyes then because you tried to ride right over me.”
Her reply, sarcastically - “Ok…yeah, I did see you. Sorry.”
Figuring I’d settle for that, I said “Alright, thanks, that’s all I’m asking for, just try to keep your eyes open, there’s plenty of waves for all of us.”
Her reply; “Why do you have to be out here anyway!”
“What? Because it’s where the waves are.”
“Why! Why are you following me everywhere? There’s waves over there! Go over there!”
“Whaaaat! What are you talking about? You don’t own the ocean.”
“Nobody owns the ocean, but I was here first!”
“But you just said nobody owns the ocean.”
“Yeah, but I was here first, all on my own, and then you guys showed up, and I’m not very good, and it makes me nervous, and I’m surfing here, you guys should go over there,” pointing to the inside smaller waves.
“You just said that nobody owns the ocean, now you’re telling us we can’t surf here? You make no sense.”
“Well I was here first, you keep on following me everywhere!”
“I’m just going where the waves are!!”
“I was here first, you are ruining it.”
“What? You’re ruining it for yourself and for everyone else. Please, just keep your mouth shut.”

Then I paddled away. Then Nic started talking to her. Same effect. What a crazy lady. But whatever, we kept surfing there, and she caught her waves and we caught ours and it didn’t seem to be that big of a deal. So then she went in about an hour later, and it was pretty much just Mike, Nic, and me out surfing the outside and about 6 guys inside surfing shortboards. Then all of a sudden, a guys yelling voice booms out over the water,

“Go back to Los Angeles you asshole!!!”

Everyone looks up. There is a guy standing on top of a large rock inside and to the left, fishing, and now yelling at the top of his lungs.

“GET OUT OF HERE! GO HOME!! YOU SUCK!! YEAH, YOU!! GO BACK TO LOS ANGELES HASSELHOFF!!!”

The surfers all look at each other, surprised by this loud barking dog of a human.

I look at the guy. I see a girl in a wetsuit, with a hoodie, standing beside him, a little to the back.

“YOU! YOU SUCK! YOU ASSHOLE! FUCK YOU! GET OUTTA HERE! THE 1 IS RIGHT THERE! GET ON IT, GET OUTTA HERE YOU SHITHEAD! FUCK YOU!!!!”
I am totally blown away. What the hell? Apparently this girl went in and told her boyfriend or whatever what assholes Mike, me, and Nic are, and now he’s screaming at us as loud as he can.

But what can he do? All he can do is yell. Everyone keeps surfing, keeps catching waves. The people in the water are surprised, I don’t think they’ve encountered this before. I’m a little worried, what if these guys inside are the screamer’s friends? I catch a decent wave, ride it past the inside group, and paddle back out. The guy is still yelling, more or less the same stuff over and over. I ask the group, “Do you know that guy?” and they answer, “No, we have no idea who he is, he’s like a barking dog.” That makes me feel better, at least he doesn’t have allies in the water.

So he keeps it up, calling me (I think he must have been talking to me, I was the only longboarder) “Hasselhoff” and telling me to go back to LA. He didn’t stop yelling for a good solid 15 minutes. Even though we were still catching waves and the surf was decent, it sucked to me. I don’t like being repeatedly yelled at. How could someone be that angry? How could someone teach their girlfriend that kind of idea about how surfing works? It was ridiculous, but he did a good job of making my session worse. Why? I don’t know. But – he finally tired out, seeing it wasn’t doing anything at all, and stopped, and it was quiet again. Just like they knew his negative energy was going away, the waves started to really pick up, and Nic’s longboard is a nice ride, so I was catching lots of good waves and the session was showing promise. By that time we had been out a long while though, and Mike caught one and took it all the way in, and then Nic about 10 minutes later, and I was still out waiting for a good one…but it wasn’t coming and it was getting late so I caught the next one and called it good. I got out of the water, not sure if I was gonna have to fight some raging maniac or not, so I got the leash off and tried to be ready to put the board down and get it outta the way, but it all amounted to nothing. The guy never showed his face, never left his spot a couple hundred yards away (I think he was still over there), and Mike came down fully dressed and boardless and ready to brawl (thanks Mike!), and we all just walked back up to the car. Nic and I changed, loaded up, and we were gone. No slashed tires, no broken windows, no fights on the sand. Ultimately, it was just lots of waves for everyone, unfortunately accompanied by the screaming of one enraged lunatic and a very sadly distorted conception of the ways of the water by one beginning female surfer.

The Return of Poko

Session: 8
Date: Wednesday, 4/13/05
Place: HMB Jetty (and in the beachbreak about 400 yards south)
Time: 5:15 to 7:00 or so
Waves: Mostly shoulder to head high close-outs
Stokemeter: 4

You might look at the session summary above and see a stokemeter of 4 and think well that must have been a worthless surf and this must be a worthless posting. 4 out of 10 is an F grade, after all. But the thing is, even a session with a miserable rating of 1 on the stokemeter can still be worthwhile. The reason is that there are so many variables in surfing - the weather, the conditions, the board, the fins, the crowd, the tide (just to name a few) – that in order to make sense of them all you simply have to immerse yourself and learn from experience. In order to become a truly skilled surfer, one has to develop a strong understanding of all these variables, on the stokemeter 4 days as well as those oh so rare days of stokemeter 10 bliss. And that, my friends, is what makes EVERY session so valuable.

As for Wednesday, it was with my brother and a beginning surfer from Google, Dan. I had stayed in SF on Tuesday night, so I didn’t have my board or wetsuit with me, so Nic brought ‘em up and met me at my jobsite. Then all 3 of us drove over to HMB in the yuppie-mobile. Anyway, as mentioned in my Santa Cruz post, I did some major damage to the Rotella over the weekend and haven’t fixed it yet, so I had to break out the potato-chip board – yep, the infamous Poko. The Poko-chip was kinda nervous about meeting the frigid waters of Nor-Cal for the first time, so nervous in fact that she tried to avoid it by playing a nasty trick on me. Here’s how it went down.

When Nic got to my jobsite he said that when he left his place he had looked for the Poko fins at his place but couldn’t find ‘em. I said that’s ok because I got them in my car (which is where I normally keep them). But, of course, when I looked for them this time they were not there. Knowing that she was about to get cold, Poko-chip had made me take my fins into Nic’s a couple days ago and then while I was sleeping had hidden them inside a backpack. So there I was in San Mateo with a fin-less board. But I wasn’t about to let the Poko get out that easy – I decided to stop at a surf-shop on the way and buy a new set.

So we went to the shop and unfortunately fins are a fortune (63 bucks for a set) and I didn’t want to do that. So we all talked to the guy a bit and he said oh, well we do have these used ones, and he pulled out a secret box from below the counter. It was full of a bunch of used FCS fins, so I selected some G-3 side fins but there was no center G-3, so I found the only center fin in the box and it was a little different but I figured why not experiment (I currently know nothing about fins) so I got it. They were 8 bucks each, so that ended up being no too bad. We were then back on our way, and the Poko knew she was about to get cold.

We got to the Jetty and it didn’t look bad. There weren’t many people out, and the waves looked decent, so we went right out. For some reason, it was INCREDIBLY cold. Probably the coldest water I have ever been in. I don’t know what made it so cold but seriously it was almost frozen. So I could instantly barely move my hands and got ice-cream headaches on my duckdives, but after some hard paddling (and a little bit of pee) I warmed up a tad and was still cold, but not frozen. It has been a long time since I rode the Poko so I was a little unsure of how I would do. I was expecting a lot of goofy looking wipeouts when I tried to stand up, but I caught one wave right away and it was easy. I felt well balanced and getting up was smooth. I did notice that I felt really slow though. I’m not sure if it’s the fin setup or if it’s because I’m simply too heavy for the board and I’m burying it underwater. I think it’s more the latter and there’s not too much I can do to change that. But it was still fun to be out on a new board, even though when I sit on it I’m underwater about to my neck. Initially I went over to the spot closer to the rocks and Nic and his Google buddy stayed in the beachbreak stuff. I caught a few waves, but I couldn’t seem to make it past the first closing section and wasn’t getting very good rides. Nic came over too then and he caught some good ones (for him). We both then went over and kept the other guy company and rode some closeouts. I caught one that held up for a decent time and that was a fun ride, although I couldn’t do anything because I couldn’t get any speed. To sum it up – It was fun riding the Poko again but it’s still probably too small, the water was freeeeeezing, it was quite windy, and the waves were mostly closeouts.

On the way back home we ate pizza at Straw Hat, and just like when I ate there with Mike a few weeks ago it provided plenty of entertainment. Suffice it to say that the cashier was a little confused and had some amusing comments. The pizza was good though and we had a feast, with a pitcher of beer to wash it all down. That reminds me, I also drank 2 beers in Nic’s car on the way to HMB, so I was a bit buzzed for the session. When the waves aren’t big, that can make things more fun.

That’s all, sayonara.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Santa Cruz

Session: 7
Date: Sunday, 4/10/05
Place: Steamer’s Lane
Time: 3:30 to 6:30
Waves: Very Good (for 1.5 hrs of the 3), good for the rest
Stokemeter: 8.5

Santa Cruz, what a funky little town. Yeah, there is a bit of a strange vibe to the place, and sure, some parts of town are full of drugged out dudes “fuckin’ sippin’ fuckin’ cold ones, bro”, but on the whole I think it’s a town that I would enjoy living in. It seems to have an interesting mix of people – the previously mentioned surferdude punks, the 420 stoners (lots), the starving artists, the college students, the old hippy longboarder who now owns a coffee-shop, the volleyball players and the girls on the beaches…Santa Cruz has variety and flavor – and a lot seems to be lurking below the surface waiting to be discovered. To be honest, I’m not sure if those discoveries would be good or bad – but based on my initial impression of the place, I’m interested (unlike my initial impression of Salinas, for example).

Another note about Santa Cruz – what’s the deal with the surf gangs? While I have not yet had a bad encounter, I have heard that it is heavily localized. When Mike bought his wetsuit from FSC, we were talking to the girl helping him about surf spots, and when we started talking about the breaks north of town she said “yeah, those spots are neutral territory – nobody has claimed them yet so you shouldn’t get hassled.” Ok then. I’ll never understand the idea of owning a break. Sure, there are spots where I have surfed a lot and I feel like I know like the back of my hand, but that doesn’t mean I get mad at someone else for being there. It’s their ocean too – I’m glad that they are out enjoying it. It is a little bit frightening to think about how crowded some spots might be in 10 years with the explosion in popularity that surfing is going through right now – but that’s for another time. For right now, why can’t we just share? It’s always nice when you are out and people are smiling and sharing and happy – that makes even a bad wave session something truly enjoyable. So take note all you hostile surf gang members – You are not cool.

Alright. Time to get to the session – finally. This Sunday session was with Mike and my bro. We were going to go kind of early (Mike was on it) but Nic and I went out gallivanting on Saturday night so we were rather slow to wake up. So despite Mike’s phone calls every 15 minutes I still managed to lay on my dining room mattress until 11. Then at 11 I asked Selin to make me some pancakes and quite to my surprise, she did. That was fantastic. And not just any plain old pancakes – perfectly flipped fluffy golden brown pancakes (apparently Selin has taught classes on pancake making), with fresh strawberries on top, and real maple syrup. And sausage on the side. And mango slices even. All topped off with a big glass of orange juice. If you don’t have a good day after a breakfast like that, then I’m sorry, but something is wrong with you. (Plus it was free – thanks bro). So after that culinary experience we loaded up Mike’s Ocean Blue Explorer and were off. I did some board repair in the backseat while we were on our way (excellent time management) and managed to get the car all fumy (I was using the resin+hardener mix, no Solar-rez for me) but we made it anyway, without getting too goofy. Based on Nic’s report from his session yesterday, we decided to go first to Pleasure Point, south of town. So we rolled on over there and checked it out – but it wasn’t working. Whether that was due to the tide being very high at the time or whether it was because of the spot, I’m not sure. I think it was more likely the tide. Anyway, after watching the water for a few minutes and listening to some punk surfer dude speak (see 1st paragraph), we took off in search of bluer water (greener pastures?). Note: The punk surfer dudes seem to be much stupider and more annoying on the “east” side than on the “west” side. We decided this must be because the west side seems much richer and therefore the west-side surfer dudes are more likely to be educated and well-mannered. So guess where we headed, yep, the “west” side. Note 2: While locals seem to refer to the sides as “east” and “west”, it seems to make more sense to us outsiders to refer to them as “north” and “south”. However, it might be possible that upon further review of a map, the curve of the bay might lead to a sorta east and sorta west side. Either way, just remember that “east” is “south”, and “west” is “north.” Confused? Anyway, we ended up at Natural Bridges. We drove in and the wind was blowing at what seemed about 40 mph so that spot wasn’t working. We then drove down West Cliff Road (even the road namers think east and west) and checked out the spots along the cliffs, but none of them were working either. So Steamer’s it was. Mike hates it there for some reason, so he was a little whiny about it, but he went so good for him. We pulled into a primo parking spot, got out, and went to check it out. Nothing. There were about 10 people out, but the waves were puny. It was about 2:30 or so though, so it was still pretty high tide and we figured it’d get better. So we considered walking down to the closest surf shop and renting some monster longboards to enjoy the small and slow waves. We walked down the road a few minutes and came to the first shop and checked it out. They had boards, but it was 20 bucks and we’d have to get ‘em back by 5:30, so it wasn’t worth the hassle. But it did make me want to get a longboard soon – sometimes it is fun to just glide along and paddle so easily on a big longboard. I’m also interested in getting a skim board, one of those would be fun to mess around with, so I did a little research at the shop but didn’t make a purchase. We then sauntered over to the volleyball area and did some people watching. Mainly we were watching a couple volleyball games, there were some guys playing on one court who were pretty good and competitive so it was fun to watch. There were also some guys skimboarding down on the water, and given my new interest in purchasing one I watched them for a minute, but they sucked. Anyway, by this time it was getting later and we figured the tide would be down so we walked back up to the break and it was looking a lot better. We grabbed our gear and headed on out. Getting out was easy, and the crowds weren’t too bad. We first went out and sat kind of in the biggest pack of people, who were a ways off the cliff and catching the waves that occasionally came by. The pack was mostly longboards and hybrids and the skill level was average. I watched closer to the cliff for a bit, and saw that it seemed to me to be breaking better and more often, plus it wasn’t crowded at all. Pretty much nobody. There was one guy who was good who was going way out and catching the wave beyond the cliff, then riding it in. He was picking off the best waves, but there were still plenty that weren’t jacked up where he was that ended up forming nicely close to the cliff, so that’s where I went. Since it’s a right, Mike didn’t want to go for it, so I went on my own. It was only about 75 yards or so away from where Mike and Nic were sitting though, so they were able to see if I got any good ones…which I did! 2 waves in particular were very excellent, providing really long rides with a wall that kept on bowling up and making for good turns and stuff. If I was good, they were the kind of waves that just set you up perfect for big airs and 360’s and the like…but since I’m not at that level I settled for a little carving and some rather weak attempts at hitting the lip. But still, I felt like I was surfing better than normal, so I was feelin’ really good and having a great time. It was funny too, because about midway through the session about 7 or 8 little kids showed up and hit the spot, and it was like there were 100 of ‘em out there! They were good little grom rippers, who have probably been surfing since they could walk, and they knew the spot and went for everything (although like most groms they seemed to stay more to the inside and get the smaller stuff). One of them, who was probably the best (he pulled some 360’s – those are crazy looking maneuvers) cut me off so bad on one wave that I had a very ugly looking wipeout because he was right where I needed to go. He then paddled back out and I said “that was a nice drop-in you had” and he said “uh…thanks?” seeming a little confused and then I said “did you even see me going for that” and he said “oh…yeah, I didn’t think you were gonna make it” and then I said “well I was gonna make it but then you were right in the way” and he said “oh, oops, sorry, take this wave” and he gave me the next wave and after that he was a nice little kid. Clearly he was from the “west” side – he was nice and he didn’t say the f-word even one time. Anyway, the groms were swarming all over for about an hour, but then they left and it was fairly empty again. It was also interesting how some surfers chose to enter the lineup. There is maybe a 20 foot cliff at the side of Steamer’s, and it’s right above where the waves break. So some lazy yet brave surfers choose to climb down this cliff (which is damn-near vertical) clinging to the rock with one hand and their board with the other, and then wait for a wave to rise up below them, then they jump – having to get far enough away from the rocks to get into the water without hitting their board or body on any of the very hard, sharp, and mean rocks they were just clinging to. All this to save maybe 2 or 3 minutes of paddling. Anyway, it looked pretty difficult and one guy who jumped didn’t seem to get his board away from the rocks and when it hit it made a very bad sounding “crunch” noise. Not good. But he just paddled out like nothing happened…maybe he was too embarrassed to look for dings. Another interesting thing was that there were 2 Irish guys out in the more advanced part of the lineup – but it was rather clear they were not advanced in their surfing skills. They were flailing around and beating the water with every passing ripple, but not catching anything. Plus, they were talking a lot to eachother – but nobody else could understand anything they were saying. They sounded like the gypsies from the movie “Snatch”. I don’t really know too many true Irish people or any gypsies, so I’m not sure if these accents are similar or not, but that’s just what it seemed like to me – indecipherable. Anyway, along with the two Irishmen, there were also 2 other guys out there who didn’t belong. One of them was really charging. I give him credit for that, but honestly his charging was the type you watch and just wait for a serious accident. At one point, I was sitting next to one good shortboarder and we were watching the outside (very close to the cliff) where all these guys were, and the kamikaze went for a wave waaaaay too late, tried to get up, went plummeting headfirst and backwards over the falls, with the cliff wall about 4 feet in front of him. The guy I was sitting with said “time to call 911” and that about summed it up. Anyway, the guy was miraculously ok and apparently not afraid because he went ahead and did the same thing on the next wave. And the one after that. I never saw him actually make a wave – but he was certainly charging – give him credit for that. Ha.

So we spent 3 hours in the water and I enjoyed every minute of it. The conditions were good, the wind was blocked by the cliff, and the crowd was entertaining. Plus, I always do enjoy surfing where there is a bit of a gallery (which Steamer’s always has) – it makes it more exciting and you feel kind of like you have a fan club wanting you to do something cool. I know that I can’t provide as much entertainment as a 10 year old kid pulling 360’s, but I do try to surf smooth and with a little bit of style. I think that while of course it is pretty incredible to watch someone just tear a wave apart, there is also something nice about a surfer who is relaxed and working with the wave – getting long rides and gliding along, making nice silky turns and linking together sections. Someday I want to have somebody take a camera and get some video of me and Mike and Nic and whoever else on some waves – I think that would be fun to watch – and then I would know how bad I really look! (But at least I know I would look way better than Nic!).

So, we finally were famished and went in – and here comes the only bad part of the day. As I was going in, I rode whitewater a bit too long and my right rear fin nailed a rock. I heard the terrible noise and knew right away that it was a bad one. I turned the board over and lo and behold it ripped the fin out of the front plug and dug it into the back. It was bad enough even that the top end of the rear plug was just barely poking out of the top of the board. Damn. This has happened to that fin before and I fixed it once – it’s not easy. Now I have to do it again. But, on the bright side, at least it was the fin that was already repaired once, not either of the other good fins. Plus, it has given me an idea. I think that San Jose needs a ding repair shop. There has to be lots of surfers in the area, and to my knowledge (and Google’s knowledge) there are no repair shops in San Jose. I gotta work out all the details still (can I fix boards on the rooftop of Nic’s apartment, and can I store them in the dining room?) but the idea has been planted and it might be worth a try. We will see how it works out. Nic will set me up with a google ad-words account he said, so my advertising would be set at least. I would be able to leave my job at 3:30, go to San Jose, and be fixing boards by 4:15 or so…that might be hard but we’ll see. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it happen, but we’ll just have to find out.

Alright, this is a HUGE posting (I’m writing it on Word right now and it’s a full 4 pages) so I’m gonna go ahead and post it. Until next time, keep blazing that surf trail, I gotta do some work!

Badly Belated Blogging

Sessions: 3, 4, 5, 6
Dates: April 1, 2, 3, 5
Places: HMB Jetty, HMB Jetty, Santa Cruz (multiple spots), HMB Jetty
Times: Various
Waves: HMB nothing special, Santa Cruz some good ones
Stokemeter: Average of all 4 sessions - 5.5

So it's been awhile since I posted. I'm just doing some passive marketing for my blog - give people a taste and then hold off, make 'em want more, make 'em ask for more (notice 7 responses to my 1st blog) - and then deliver. So here you all go, 4 sessions at once. Brace yourselves!

Session 1 was a Friday pau-hana surf, which are always better than the other weekdays (you all know why I'm sure - no work tomorrow!) My bro joined me today and that always makes it better too. I can't recall too much else about the surf today, so it must have been pretty average. I vaguely recall Nic doing ok today, I think he's getting better, just needs to get more wave awareness. The only way to do that is to spend time in the water, at different spots and in varying conditions. There is no shortcut for experience. With time, he'll get it. I don't remember any notable rides from today. I need to start trying to take my surfing to the next level, especially on these small days, by trying harder cutbacks, floaters, more turns, etcetera. I will work on more moves in my upcoming sessions - even if it means more wipeouts.

Session 2 was Saturday. I watched some basketball at Nic's in the morning, then we decided to go to the jetty for a little watertime. We got up there and again I don't remember much about the waves, I don't think they were very big. From reading my bro's blog it seems there weren't that many waves to catch. But I do remember going to eat afterwards at the authentic Mexican place down the road a ways. It was pretty good - I got quite a bit of food. It didn't sit too well in my stomach later...but I enjoyed it at first!

Session 3 was on Sunday, with Mike. Since we didn't have baby Nic with us, all breaks were open for our use (Nic can't surf the bigger spots, ha!). So we figured Santa Cruz would be the best. We started by checking out Natural Bridges area. It wasn't looking too good. We drove all the way down the road almost to Steamer's, and saw some ok spots. The best spot was a really small take-off area and it was already packed with 5 or 6 rippers, so we avoided it. We ultimately decided to go North. On the way we decided to check out some spots, so we pulled over at Wilder Ranch and hiked forever to get to this spot where it doesn't really look like you are allowed to go down to the beach to get into the water, since it's a private wildlife reserve or something like that. The waves didn't look that great though, so we didn't harm any salamander habitat in an attempt to get out to it. Then we arrived at 4-mile and figured we'd just hit it no matter what, so we put on the suits and got the boards and walked on down. It looked ok, and there were a fair amount of people out surfing the right, so Mike and I decided to take advantage of some beach-break that was working in the middle of the beach. It was a close-out left that if you caught far enough inside (or if it came from the right direction) would hold up long enough to ride for a few seconds. So we were doing that for an hour or so, maybe a bit more. I was beat after that hour (this was my 5th day in a row, afterall!), so I went and sat on the beach and watched Mike get a few. Then we took off, I refueled with some beef jerky I swiped from my bro, and went back to Natural Bridges. It was even worse now, but we figured why not, and we went out at this one spot that I don't know the name of. Well, it ended up being terrible, and it had a reeeealllly spooky vibe to it, so we got the hell outta there and went to Steamers. The lane was actually working pretty well, but as usual it was pretty crowded too. There was one bomb I wanted to go for, but when I looked down in front of me there were about 8 people wide-eyed just sitting in the way. Too bad. It's pretty hard to take-off on a wave that you might wipe out on when there are that many people in the danger zone. But I did manage to get 2 pretty good sized waves in about 40 minutes or so. Also got one on the inside that was a really fun ride, for the last one of the day. Then it started pouring right as I got outta the water (Mike had already been in for about 15 minutes and had already gotten all warm, the wuss) and I had to take care of all the damn wetsuit shit in the rain. That made me miss Hawaii's 80 degree sunshine everyday just a little bit.

After 5 days in a row, I was beat, so on Monday I rested.

Tuesday my bro picked me up at work. I got to show him my jobsite, including my dirty trailer and my gross porta-pottie. He wasn't too impressed. But he did like the view of hills and flowers and grass out my back window. Anway, we drove together to HMB and went out at the Jetty again. It was really weak today. We screwed around a bit, then I wanted something better and thought maybe Montara would be working so we got out and went up there but of course it wasn't. So we drove back to the Jetty and got in there again, and it was quite a bit better. Seems to always do that. I need to just drive by without even looking the first time, then come back an hour later and it'll be overhead barrels with 2 guys out - no, make that overhead barrels with one person out, a hot chick somehow surfing in a bikini. Aaaah yeah. Anyway, got a couple ok rides and then it got dark. My bro surfed 'til about 8:15 PM, and I had to wait for him for a while at the car, but no problem because he needs the practice.So, that was 4 sessions. Now it's the weekend and I'm looking forward to getting in at least one more session...I'll shoot for two, hopefully I can make that happen. Thanks again for checking the blog and I'll be back soon.