Double Overhead On Your Dome

Session: 16
Date: Thursday, 5/19/05
Place: Linda Mar, North End
Time: 6PM to 8:15PM
Waves: Mondo-sized, mostly close-outs
Stokemeter: 7 (Big Drops, Big Close-outs on the Head!)

There is one heck of a late May swell happening right now, and the wind has let up too so it’s on. I’m flyin’ solo on this session, so I took a look at some SF spots. First – I went to the north end of Ocean Beach. It was nuts. The waves break EVERYWHERE and they are really big and getting out would be near impossible. Then, once outside, you’d still have to deal with the shifty peaks and you’d never know when a monster set is right behind that wave about to break on your head and you’re gonna be reeeeealllly screwed. Needless to say I didn’t go out surfing at the North end of OB, and neither did anybody else.

Next I drove south along the great highway to Sloat Avenue. I watched it for 10 minutes and it seemed more promising. Getting out was still going to be a battle, but it looked possible. The outside waves seemed to be breaking in the same spot more or less – but it’s hard to judge that when you’re standing on the shore and your eyes pick up every breaking wave anywhere in the general vicinity of where you plan to be sitting. Nobody was out. But I said screw it it’s time to try OB so I suited up and went out and stood for about 7 minutes up to my knees in the water trying to see if there was ever a chance to get out a ways without having to duck dive about 20 waves – well, there wasn’t. So I just finally decided now was as good as any and started paddling on out. It was a challenge, but I was fresh and I made it without too much difficulty…or at least I thought I had made it. I sat where I thought was gonna be safe – but right when I got comfortable along comes a clean-up set ready to take me back inside. I duck dove the first one and barely made it through. I duck dove the 2nd one and got turned around sideways. The 3rd one broke way outside and I’d had enough, I got way back on the board, let the whitewater swallow me up, and then got tossed back towards the shore. The wave was big enough that even the whitewater had a face to work with so I went ahead and stood up and promptly fell over. I climbed back on my board just in time to get engulfed by the next whitewater wave, and I hopped up again and managed to ride this one all the way in. Some dudes sitting in the parking lot had watched my whole “session” and I walked past them on the way back to my car but they didn’t have anything to say – at least I had balls to go out and try it – their pansy asses just sat there and watched.

So my first attempt to surf OB would have to be considered a failure. I came, I went, and I got sent back to where I came from by an ocean that didn’t seem to want me out there. But I tried, and by paddling out by myself on a big day, I think I’m much more prepared now than I was before to try OB on some of those nice smaller summer days.

Having been denied at Ocean Beach but still craving some waves I kept heading south. I drove down to Pacifica and saw some monsters going off by the pier, still with nobody out and also with some howling onshore winds. Not going out there. Kept driving south. Rockaway – closing out the whole bay. Not gonna work. More driving south. Linda Mar, normally the smallest spot in the area, a beginner break. I pulled into the parking lot, got out, looked around. No wind. 40 people in the middle part of the break. 20 to the South. 1 to the North. I bet you can guess where I was going…Yeah, North side. The reason for only 1 guy being out there I soon saw – the waves were double overhead and comin’ with the Juice. But I watched, and it seemed like if they came from the right angle, they held up and were producing some pretty good fast rights. So I went on out. Getting out wasn’t too hard – had to duck dive quite a few but it wasn’t anything like OB. Sat out there and a set came in right away and I went ahead and took the 2nd wave…Made a monster drop, flew along the face for 2 seconds, then had it close out so I just straightened out and rode it on in. Paddled back out, 1 minute later another set, caught another monster, walled up right in front of me – formed a suicide tube and I just went ahead and jumped into the face of the wave before I got absolutely clobbered. I haven’t perfected that move yet because I ended up getting tossed and went through the spin cycle. Paddled back out and another set came in. Caught the 3rd wave of the set and it held up for a while longer than the others. Got a nice right outta the deal…but ultimately it still closed out on me. Anyway I kept on paddling back out and sets kept on coming and I caught some lefts and some rights and made numerous big drops and had my adrenaline kicking in pretty good. The punishment that the Linda Mar wave dished out wasn’t very big compared to the size of the wave face – so I was perfectly happy with that. The 1 guy out with me was a cool guy so we worked off eachother and were both happy to have the other guy out there. Surfed until it was almost dark and then was gonna get one more but a non-stop set came though as I was trying to get back out, and after 25 duck dives I turned around and rode the whitewater to the shore and called it good. It was fun to get some size today – I’ve been surfing pretty much small stuff for a long while now and this was a good challenge – and I’m happy to say my skills seemed to be just fine.

The swell is still around – but unfortunately so is lots of wind. But maybe soon I’ll get another big day in to go with all these small sessions…we shall see.

Mike – get up here and join me for some of this big stuff. Time for you to start charging again.