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Sunday, June 9, 2013

6.7.13 Missed-It-Mike Rallies, Appears for a Session at Turtles

After ninety-nine days of not surfing with him, M-I-M bucked his nature and his moniker by meeting me at Grandview.  After suffering years of ribbing due to his minor tardiness, I was pleased to see he'd taken my constructive criticism to heart and taken the initiative of showing up early.

Mike's a smart guy.  He knows I have plenty of surf bro options from which to choose.  He has made some life changes for the better including appearing to have fixed his aforementioned chronic lateness issue as well as not bitching about his feet hurting nearly as much.  Should his progress and discipline continue, I have little doubt he will make the podium at the Surf Bro Olympics.  If only he could convince his wife to let him go to Indo...

Grandview was no good.  I made Mike make the call and he said Pipes.  I instantly rolled my eyes, picturing the massive crowds you can see from atop the 101.  I mentioned this and Mike responded there were several peaks from which to choose.

The parking gods allowed us parking only at the very south end of the Pipes strip, pretty close to Cardiff Kook.

We checked it and were pleased with what we saw. Out thar!

The paddle-out was nasty.  We made it through the shorebreak and middle waves without issue, but we got pounded the rest of the way.  When I finally perched, I breathed a sigh of relief.  It was kind of crowded out, possibly fifteen heads total.

The waves were pretty good.  Nice and bowly on the sets, if you could snag one of these waves and navigate a steep drop you would be rewarded with a workable wall with lots of power.

I caught a left that was on the smaller side and pumped away at it, but still could not catch up.  My last glimpse of it before I aborted was what appeared to be a fattening section, so I wasn't too bummed.

I heard someone call my name and it turned out Aaron was out there too.  I didn't get a chance to talk to him the whole sesh though, as he was on the hunt for rights.

About ten minutes later, I had a look at a bigger wave.  The drop was nice and steep, but it sectioned off almost immediately, I bottom turned up, hoping to make it around the foam, then drop down in time to make it around the sure-to-be-cascading-by-then second section.  I clipped the foam ever so slightly, which robbed me of my speed and my fins' hold in the water.  I was bummed about this one, as the next part of the wave looked steep, workable, and lined up.

It was at about this point at time I had to say goodbye to Mike.  He had just caught a wave and was voicing his disappointment in the amount of wax on his board.  He was scratching at it furiously with his nails, trying to rough it up to achieve some semblance of traction.  A macker set came, and I sprint-paddled while Mike was a little delayed by his distraction.

I barely made it under the wave, while Mike got smacked by it.  I didn't see him again for about a half-hour, though I did catch glimpses of him looking like he was paddling but not moving WAY on the inside.  His posture indicated he was bummed.

My last wave was a right.  I compressed well into a roundhouse cutty and smacked it, but couldn't bring it around...

Mike gave me the "one more" finger and we went in at our next opportunity.

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