I'd failed to remind the hotel's go-to guy I'd need the gate opened. I wasn't too bummed when I woke up to find it locked, because it was a Saturday and Punta Roca would have probably twice as many people on it.
I watched La Bocana for a while, intent on surfing La Bocanita if it seduced me with some decent curves. I was in danger of giving myself tennis spectator neck, my attention being called from west (La Bocanita's weaker lumps) to east (La Bocana's shiftier bigger waves which I recognized would be hard to catch).
Neither spot had anyone on them about an hour after first light. On a Saturday. In California, the crowd would be at least twenty-five heads in the water in these conditions.
Less than five seconds after I'd made my decision to surf La Bocana, I spotted two dudes walking down the beach towards the previously unpopulated peaks.
I paddled a long time, perhaps seven or eight minutes, first out, then east so as to not deal with the nasty rocks on La Bocana's inside on the low tide.
It took me about a half-hour to catch my first wave. It was so shifty that I had a hard time knowing where to be when the next wave broke. Compound this with the crowd swelling into dozen-o-dudes territory and my hopes for an amazing session were dwindling.
A guy who I was getting non-verbal vibes from (I think I was the only glaringly white guy in the water) caught a right. A second set came less than a minute after his wave and I caught the first of the set. Non-verbal vibe dude was paddling out and for whatever reason, decided he would not try to paddle and/or duckdive so as not to be in my way. I had to take the drop almost straight down. His was an a-hole move, no question, but it did force me to take a more vertical trajectory into my lip snap. I descended again and went for a roundhouse cutty. I hit the wash well, but my fins and I disagreed on which direction we wanted to go and I bailed.
When I paddled back out, I duckdived a couple of waves and surfaced to realize non-verbal vibe dude staring through me. I paddled and stared back at him for more than five seconds until he looked away. I'm not sure if he's still in the localism training school and hasn't progressed past the stink-eye chapter, but man I'm getting fed up with it. People don't put up with this at Punta Roca. If you talk shit there, there are enforcers who will in most cases humiliate you with catcalls or puteadas (hard verbal reamings) and in very rare cases they will take it to a physical level.
La Bocana is where the wanna-be locals go to be tough guys. I've never had a problem with the actual locals, the ones who live within walking distance to the break. The only issues I've had are with the little pussies who come down from San Salvador in the cars and with the gas their daddies most likely bought for them, fitting a surf in before their daddies need them at the family business in the capital (in all fairness, I'm generalizing a wee bit, it could very well be their step-daddies, given Salvadoran oligarchs' penchant for divorce).
The crowd swelled into the mid-teens and I wasn't getting any good looks at waves. The wave gods were firing off peaks sporadically and haphazardly. One here, one there, none where I was.
Finally, after about fifteen more minutes, I was in a tough spot on a left a guy had kicked out on. I was extremely late. When I pushed off from my board it felt as though I was doing a downward push-up (where your toes are above your head at finishing position). I somehow made the drop, then swooped around the foam to a fat section into an unsatisfying carve. The drop was one of the most exhilarating I've had in a long time but that feeling was quickly tempered by the one turn I had on the wave.
I caught a wave more on the Medios side, on which I would have pulled back had there not been a dude paddling out watching me. I was late and it was a closeout but I went. I stomped it, then turned to the left a bit to reduce my chances of ending up in the submerged rocks. I went for a couple of seconds, keeping an eye out for the weird, skinny, vertical rock on the inside. I kicked out when I felt I was close.
Over it! I went in after maybe an hour in the water. I was tempted to see what La Bocanita was up to but it wasn't happening. I went in to prepare my itinerary for our move to the San Salvador hotel in which Guillermo's wedding reception would be held.
No comments:
Post a Comment