There's a good kind of racy and a bad kind of racy when it comes to waves. The good kind is when the waves force you to stomp down and surf as efficiently as possible, swing it around the section with tons of speed and THWACK! over and over again.
The bad kind is when you can't ever hope to catch up to the wave. This is when only Mick Fanning on a WaveJet might be able to make it around some sections.
Today was the latter.
I sat on the sand in front of the beach club for about a half-hour because it looked bad when I first walked out. It was onshore/sideshore but I saw there were storm clouds approaching. In El Salvador, this almost always means offshore winds and seeing as to how that's the prevailing wind pattern here, I figured it was almost a certainty.
Sure enough, the wind swung around and I was soon being rained on. The tide was still rising and a bit too low. I waited a bit longer and had decided to paddle out right in front, where there was no one. Then three Brazilians paddled out and I figured I'd get snaked so I averted course for northern peaks.
The water is cold, but still not San Diego in the summer cold. The first duckdive felt especially refreshing.
A squall came down on us. It was hitting pretty hard, making one have to squint to see well. A rainbow appeared, ending on the pristine beach south of where I sat. The rain went away and I got my wave count up pretty fast.
I made no sections. I saw one of the Brazilians luck into a corner where he was able to get two turns in on his slower wave. I saw a logger get a nice ride, but every other ride was an impossible race against the ocean.
After I caught an ill-advised "right", I got caught in a cleanup set, but made it out again. Even on close to head-high and low-ish tide on these I haven't gotten a really good clobbering yet.
I went in after the crowd count continued to rise and the waves were still doing their thing. The scenery was excellent and it felt good to be out there but these waves are too damn fast!
The bad kind is when you can't ever hope to catch up to the wave. This is when only Mick Fanning on a WaveJet might be able to make it around some sections.
Today was the latter.
I sat on the sand in front of the beach club for about a half-hour because it looked bad when I first walked out. It was onshore/sideshore but I saw there were storm clouds approaching. In El Salvador, this almost always means offshore winds and seeing as to how that's the prevailing wind pattern here, I figured it was almost a certainty.
Sure enough, the wind swung around and I was soon being rained on. The tide was still rising and a bit too low. I waited a bit longer and had decided to paddle out right in front, where there was no one. Then three Brazilians paddled out and I figured I'd get snaked so I averted course for northern peaks.
The water is cold, but still not San Diego in the summer cold. The first duckdive felt especially refreshing.
A squall came down on us. It was hitting pretty hard, making one have to squint to see well. A rainbow appeared, ending on the pristine beach south of where I sat. The rain went away and I got my wave count up pretty fast.
I made no sections. I saw one of the Brazilians luck into a corner where he was able to get two turns in on his slower wave. I saw a logger get a nice ride, but every other ride was an impossible race against the ocean.
After I caught an ill-advised "right", I got caught in a cleanup set, but made it out again. Even on close to head-high and low-ish tide on these I haven't gotten a really good clobbering yet.
I went in after the crowd count continued to rise and the waves were still doing their thing. The scenery was excellent and it felt good to be out there but these waves are too damn fast!
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