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Wednesday, November 21, 2018

11.20.18 Ripping? at the Beachbreak

I decided to take advantage of our eldest daughter's week off from school and thereby my week off from shuttling her there in the morning.  I left our carport at 5:41 and shut the trunk, surfboard in hand at 6:30, nineteen miles and some iffy road construction later.

The point, as it's wont to do when it's small, was underperforming.  There was one guy out who was trying and got a wave in my three minutes of checking it.  It was a waist-high one with nice shape, but just too small considering I could probably get some shoulder-high waves if I walked ten minutes to the west.

As I did so this aguacatero ran up to me; a scruffy mutt with lively muted green eyes.  I petted it and rubbed its head.  I could tell someone was caring for it as its fur was not matted or mangy.  It was loving the affection and was really leaning into it.  After about a half-minute it wanted to play and tried to snag my dangling leash in its maw.  I retracted the leash upwards in time and I ran after it.  It stopped to look at me and then ran around as I squatted and jumped toward it.  I hit the rocky area and it started barking at me (it felt as though there was a tinge of sorrow in its barks but it might just have been my imagination).

About five minutes later it ran towards me from the opposite direction! The dog had taken the road and then come to the beach to meet me, this time with two other dogs I'd seen before in tow.  The novelty must have worn off quickly for he/she/it, as I began gaining on the pack.

The tide was pretty low, which can sometimes be a good thing for beachbreaks but usually it means closeouts are on tap.  I paddled out close to my ex-stepdad's beach house to try my luck there.  There were two dudes out at the shipwreck and the waves looked ok there; a critical-ish takeoff but a too-mellow face as a payoff for having stuck the landing.

I caught a couple of close-outs and then backdoored one.  I was thankfully a bit early and was underwhelmed by my timing on a pump.  I gained some speed but not as much as I could've.  I swooped up, tucked in and was ensconced in a swirling frothy barrel for maybe a beat and a half.  I sensed doom and was able to doggy-door it was the lip j u s t tapped me on the head.  This is the first barrel I've ever made at this beach and I was amping.

The morning's sun angle was wreaking havoc on my visibility on the rights, but I did catch one about ten minutes after my barrel.  I wound up on the bottom turn and smashed the lip.  I got hung up and exhaled quickly through my mouth as I leaned back so as not to pearl.  Another, less critical, turn followed and I kicked out as the wave fattened over a deep spot.

Another right towards the end of my session led to another nice wind-up.  But this time I lost sense of where on the wave I was when I turned, as when I did so my legs fully extended as too much of the board went over the lip.  As I surfaced I admired the foam trail my spray had wrought.

The waves turned off and I went in, no sign of the dog on the way back.

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