Dolphins, Cold Water, High Tide and Green Grass...small surf...Ice Fishing

I surfed 11/11-11/17 (today).The tides have been really high in the morning and the swell not so big, so the result is not much surf. I drove by 17th street in the morning and didn't see Travis, so I made a u-turn and went up to the cliffs. The cliffs tend to break a little better than other breaks when the tide is rediculously high. It turned out that Travis was not too far behind me and saw me driving back to the cliffs. The water has been getting colder and Monday was dramatically so. Tuesday at the cliffs I saw dolphins surfing.



email to Travis 11/23/04



I hope you slept in today. I made the trek to 17th street and was greeted by a very high tide and crappy waves that were basically breaking on the sand. The air was cold and the water wasn’t much better, it is definitely time to get some booties. Since I hadn’t surfed since Saturday, the water in my trunk was really, really cold. I basically went three and out. Plus, there was no-one out there and it was really sharky.



12/1/04

Didn't surf 11/24 to 11/30. Was at Parents house for Thanksgiving. Back in the water today 12/1/04. When I went out to my car this morning it was covered in ice. The internet said the outside temperature was 39 degrees. I wore jeans and a T-shirt and flip flops. It was cold. I got to the cliffs to meet Travis and sat in my car for a few minutes to enjoy the heater. I changed into my wetsuit, grabbed by longboard and hoofed it down to the beach. By the time I got to the water, my feet were really really really cold. The water (59 degrees) was warm by comparison. I paddled out to meet Travis and was soon followed by what seemed like a hundred groms from the Marina High School surf team/class/whateveritis. I managed to keep my hair dry for a few waves, then finally went under. When my wet head hit the cold air, I was reminded what cold really was. The heat getting sucked out of my head felt like a vice clamping my ears together. Things numbed and were good for a while. I heard a splash behind me. Travis had gone underwater to warm up. Surf was small, weak and crowded due to the high schoolers. I caught one good wave, but flubbed the takeoff and ended up in the water. Finally the time came to go. I caught a weak wave to shore and emerged from the water. I ran most of the way back to my car to minimize the time my feet spent on the cold ground, but by the time I got there, by hands were numb and my feet felt like clubs. There was still ice on the grass by my car. I dumped my jug of warm water on my head and hurriedly got dressed before I froze again. Thankfully this is about as cold as it ever gets in So Cal and it won't stay this way for long.

It's Raining Again

It rained yesterday while we were in the water. It continued to rain off and on during the day and it rained last night. According to www.weather.com we have had more than .2" in the last 24 hours so I have to assume the water is polluted. If it doesn't rain anymore that means I will be back in the water on Thursday, 11/11. Having not surfed today, I have surfed 107/137 days since June 25. I have been noticing further improvements to my surfing after what was a plateau for a couple months. I have gotten a lot better at working up and down the face of the wave. Previously, my efforts to this end were limited by keeping the board parallel to shore. Recently I have gotten much better at bottom turns, allowing me to drive back up the face of the wave, and top turns, where I actually fall back around to drop back into the wave. I have been getting a lot of rights lately with the storm centers moving from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere, so I can actually work the top turns better going right than left. I still get better control going left and can maintain speed better. Yesterday, I took off on a left and thought it was going to close on me, but I worked the face and built up enough speed to get back in front of the wave, back in the curl. I am understanding why it is difficult to learn to surf. In order to surf well, you have to react to the wave. In order to react to the wave, you need to have been on enough waves, in a similar situation, to be able to predict what is going to happen. This means that it is a slow, incremental learning process. The steps to learning to surf are:

1. Get a feel for standing up. Do this in the whitewater.

2. Learn to time a wave as it comes in. This can be done on a surfboard or bodyboard, or bodysurfing.

3. Put 1 and 2 together and just go straight.

4. Add a bottom turn.

5. Learn to control your speed with turns and the face of the wave.

6. Top turns.

7. Aerials (anyone can get air once you can do a good bottom turn. Being able to land it is the trick).

8. Tow in Surfing.

More Collisions

Up until Tuesday, the only person that I had done bodily or property damage to while surfing was Travis. That changed Tuesday. I took off on a little left and was having a good ride. I saw the guy in the water and figured I could get past him. I probably could have made it except the wave closed on me. I tried to bail, but was too late. I took a chunk out of the nose of my board and really pissed off the other guy.

Winter Surfing

Sunday was what I consider to be the first day of winter surfing. Daylight savings time switched off on Sunday morning at 2:00, the air has a chill although the water is still not cold. I started wearing my fullsuit. I surfed last Sunday, 10/24 and then not again, due to darkness and rain, until yesterday, 10/31. I was supposed to meet Travis down south for a trip to Swami's, but an alarmclock SNAFU thwarted my plans and I ended up at 17th. There was an extreme north swell in the water and the waves were breaking at a distinct angle to the shoreline. The setwaves were head high, but really slow. Despite the angle, they were breaking both ways. Today was similar, but with some south in the water to really mix things up. Not as peaky, with more close out sections. Need to buy booties, not for the water, but for the walk across the sand. With daylight savings time done with, there is plenty of light in the mornings, so we are back at 17th street on a regular basis.