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.