Weekend Update

I tend to be too slow with these posts. For that, I apologize, my adoring fans. I will try to keep more current in the future.

Session 6
Pleasure Point, Santa Cruz

I wasnt really planning on surfing today...but it turned out to be a great day for it and I'm glad I made the drive. Was hanging out at home doing nothing much really and 3 o clock rolled around, sun was out, decided what the hey why not go surf! so I went for a little solo session which are always fun every now and then (used to be all I ever did! -- i'm glad to have brother dole and Mike in town so I can have some surf buddies again). But it is fun to just get in the car, get a good CD, make the drive and paddle on out and just be in the water on your own.

Anyways, drove to Santa Cruz, 17 is a fun drive when there's not much traffic, which was the case this time. If only there werent those pesky police lurking around every corner waiting to take away my license. Once I got to SC i headed south on 1 and took the Soquel exit to do some exploring, don't really know my way around SC that well so wound up backtracking all the way to the boardwalk...but then drove down east cliff doing a little scouting but can't really see anything from that road so just kept going til I got down to pleasure point. Parked there and it looked pretty fun! were some good sized waves out furthest by the point, which were dominated by shortboards. saw lots of lines further in also (closer to 38th and the hook) so I decided those looked like more my type of wave and so that's where I went. parked at the hook parking lot, wetsuit, and started walking. I decided to put in at the first staircase I saw, which was a mistake, should've stayed on dry land until the next staircase but at least i know for next time. Wound up having to make a pretty long paddle out to get to where I wanted to be, which was right in the middle. there were basically 3 lineups--one farthest out closest to the point which had the biggest and best looking waves, and almost all shortboarders. Then middle, which had also some good waves and maybe a 60/40 split longboards to shortboards, and then inside which was almost all longboards. So I hung in the middle and had some fun there.

There were good waves, some head highs and shoulder height, but with good face to work with and pretty consistent and clean. Problem is with the 60% longboarders, was tough to find a wave w/o somebody already on it, although I did get a few and botched my fair share also. On bigger waves, such as what I had today, I'm still working on gaining my footing and balance when coming down the wave and not just wobbling and toppling over in a variety of different styles (forward, backward, side to side)...which is what I did a few times, on waves that could have turned into long, fun rides. One of them came through and I had it, perfect position, caught it, stood up, but after standing never really had my balance and just fell down. I wish I could see that on camera, would be good for a few laughs and would maybe help me see what I'm doing so that I can not do it in the future. A few things I definitely need to do are picking my line, so that when I catch the wave and am standing up, instead of looking at the board look in front of me at where i'm going to go. I've read that helps out, so that was something I tried to do, and also, as always, simply standing up earlier.

But one thing is for sure, I have fun every time I go. I love just being in the water. I think I always have and always will. When we were growing up, we used to go on river trips, and I loved the water then. Then in highschool we used to make day trips to go play around in little rapids in this river over by Sweet Home, and I loved that too, playing in the (freezing) water, exploring the river, jumping in and stuff, so much fun. Then I came down to bay area for college, and there's not much in terms of rivers here, so for a while didn't have that, and I can remember wishing I could go to a river somewhere but couldn't so instead would mountain bike and just play a lot of basketball, but there were times I really wanted to just go swimming outside somewhere not in a pool but in nature. I wish I would've taken up surfing then--had all the time in the world but no money...now I have the latter but never have enough time! so it goes...but anyways...I really enjoy just going out and being in the ocean and in the water and enjoying the sunshine and the outdoors and having a good day.

Aloha!