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Thursday, August 9, 2012

8.7.12 Wisconsin Street Solo Mish

I didn't think the waves would be great  on this day.  I almost didn't drive out to check, but eventually made up my mind to do so.

My first view of pier showed me some swell in the water, which got my hopes up.  I cruised down past Tyson, then parked to check Wisconsin.  There were some peaks out there wave-ing towards me.  I suited up and walked, on accident, with two other surfers.  They headed north of Wisconsin so I decided to go south.  No need for a guarantee of a crowd right off the bat...

My first wave was a left on which, while paddling for, I knew I had to zoom.  It was one of those crossed up swell waves where the wave isn't a straight line.  Picture two closed parentheses right just askew from one another.  I'll see if I can do a very anti-climactic ASCII reenactment below:

(   target, throwing out lip
 (  middle section, foaming over and hard to get speed from
(   take-off

The bottom open-parenthesis is where I took off.  I had to pump like a madman to get around the middle ( in order to hit the highest open parenthesis.  I was successful in doing all of this.  However, in my balls-to-the-wall speed calculations, I'd neglected to account for the velocity with which I would be approaching my target.  I hit the approaching lip awkwardly and not vertically enough which resulted in my being dumped on my ass.

A minute later, I caught a quick right which did what most rights do on steep south swells in Oside: fizzle.

Seven minutes later, I was in position, though pretty late, for a hollow left that was not going to give me much time.  I didn't paddle for it right away, as I didn't want to start my ride with a nowhere floater.  Once the wave was closer, I paddled about six times in order to catch it.  After about my second furious paddle, I heard a guy between the beach and me trying to get my attention.  I was distracted a bit, but never stopped paddling.  There was no chance I was going to run into him as he was too far away.  I caught the wave, quickly popped into my switch crab grab stance and got maybe a second and change of tunnel vision.  As I was getting thrashed by the remaining energy of this three-footer (I told you it was a strong swell!), I realized I'd kept really calm in the barrel.  I had a good mindset in the barrel too, I remember thinking, "I can make this!", and was mentally patting myself on the back for it.

I came up and the guy who had distracted me was hooting me and was pretty excited about my ride.  I would post the vid, but it just shows me paddling and tucking.  The lip hit the camera and readjusted it, catching footage only of my board's stringer in the barrel.

The hooter was joined by his buddy not long thereafter.  I'd never heard a guy laugh so much in his life.  He had a real joie de vivre or he was on something.  Either way, I was a little jealous.  They were both super amped on being out there.

Four minutes later, I caught a small left on which I got some speed, then turned really hard off the top.  I didn't realize I was so inside, as my leading arm hit the sand as I was falling off my board.  This is probably the sickest turn I've tried on this small a wave.  Once I start pulling these with regularity, I will be AMPED!

The waves changed a bit and were beginning to remind me of the last session I had on a SSE swell we got from Fabio.  They were fast and pretty racy, to the point of closing out.  Since I wasn't going to be catching up to any of these, I focused on improving my catch-pop-drag-barrel sequence.  After my second wave, I was able to do it pretty well.  

On my last wave of the day, I went left and realized I was headed towards a boomer of a close-out.  I stuffed my hands and face into the wave and pulled through.

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