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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

9.3.12 WHOA! Critical Mass at S. Jetty

On my literally littoral drive, I saw signs of surf, but nothing that called out to me.  On my drive over the bridge.  I saw a big close-out detonate.  Oof.

At the stop sign facing the jetty, I saw a sick A-frame fold over, barrels in both directions.  Time to park!

I walked WAY south, past the condos, and paddled out without issue.  I did see two guys get successful barrels and I began lusting for some cylinders to call my own.

The crowd wasn't too bad, but there were enough people that it was difficult to catch waves.  Couple this with the waves being shifty and mostly on the verge of closing out and it was going to be a challenging session.  The S swell express (longshore current) was in full effect and many people north of me were paddling toward me, further concentrating the crowd.

My first wave finally arrived about twenty minutes of perching.  It was a big 'un.  There was A LOT of water on this beast of a wave and I paddled my ass off to get into it.  I made it down about halfway before deciding getting barreled would be a one-way trip to being gobbled up by a big close-out and a speedy descent to the sand.  I pumped up just as the lip detonated just inside of my board, making it catapult me backwards onto my back. I SKIPPED off the water, that's how fast I was moving, before hitting the water again and having the wave smash me.  I was underwater just under twelve seconds and came up gasping.  BAIL OF THE MONTH FRONTRUNNER!

I hopped onto my board and noticed my wetsuit leg had been rolled up halfway up my calf.  This is a rare occurrence and requires the right impact angle combined with quite a bit of aqua-trauma to occur.

My underwater escapade had made me lag in the prime current zone for too long and I noticed quite the change in latitude upon my first glance toward shore.

I spent the next ten minutes fighting the current and paddling for some waves to get away from the jetty before succumbing  to my fate and paddling past the jetty for only my second time ever. 

My next wave was a much less threatening left that had hardly any juice to it.  I got two pumps in before realizing any turn in my arsenal would be unsuccessful due to lack of push from the wave.

I went in and walked more than halfway to the pier to give it another shot.  There were barrels to be had, and dagnabbit, I wanted one.

OOOOOHHHHH! I had a good look at one and as I was about to snap-stall for an attempt a tube, a guy in a multi-colored rash guard decided he was too good to duckdive out of my way and blew my chance at glory.  What a dick!

On my last wave, I pumped up and down a few times before bailing through the wave.

Over the course of this session, I heard THREE separate guys complain independently of one another of how uncrowded it'd been a half-hour ago.









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