12.27.2011 Crappy 15th Street with Forrest EVENING SESH | First Sesh with the Go Pro Surf Hero Camera

Forrest and I headed down I-5 hoping to catch what Surfline said was 3-4' w/ occasional 6' (LOL) at Del Mar. I should know better than to trust SurfLIE but the stoke gets the better of me sometimes.

I was very excited to try out my Xmas present, the Go Pro HD Surf Hero 2. I'd stuck it on last night and tried to go out this morning, only to be turned away by closeouts or crowds everywhere I checked.

Forrest and I parked south of 15th Street and took the shortcut down.

A couple of notes about seeing yourself surf on film:

I'm not as hot as I thought I was. I figured myself for a 9.8 out of ten but now I've revised my number to a 9.65, possibly a 9.7 with excellent lighting.

I get deeper in my duckdives than I thought I did. Having a thin board, of course, helps that quite a bit.

I caught the first wave of the session relatively quickly. I was able to get four pumps out of it, hoping to connect with the oncoming section but it faded relatively quickly. Here is some footy from that wave, followed by a quick duckdive shot:




Not too long after that, I caught a meaty left. I wasn't able to get around the section and it detonated on my board. I feared the worst, thinking that the camera was dead, but no, it survived. It's kind of interesting thinking that this little camera is worth twice as much as the board! Here's some footy:



About ten minutes after paddling back out from the thick left, I caught a quick little nug and I was able to hit it. It's hard to tell from the video, but it was a decent bash. Here's the footy:



On my way back out from the lip bash, I saw a nice (relatively speaking) right forming to the north. I paddled over there, just missed some tweeners and sat. I caught this wave and had a good look at it. Unfortunately, my back foot was too far back and I blew it. It would've been a sick bash, maybe bash to floater. Footy is:



The waves slowed WAY down. I sat there watching the beautiful orange sunset's side effects on the cloud, about to decode the meaning of life when another right eventually came and snapped me back to something more important. I did a little mini-cutty and faded off the back. Here's video evidence:



Then we sat until after the sun was long-gone and we were the last two in the water.

11.29.2011 Del Mar Sesh with Missed-it Mike, Trevor and that same Other Guy

The waves on this day didn't look great. They were ok in size, but they were closing out all too often. I elected Missed-it Mike as session captain because he can be indecisive and I thought it'd be funny. After much prodding, he meekly suggested he wasn't interested in surfing there. We drove from 20th St down to N. Torrey and though we saw a sick left from the road, we were faced with the same scenario there, just smaller.

We hoofed it back to 20th. Missed-it Mike made it clear he wasn't interested in surfing, but we were able to strong-arm him into it. Thanks to my years of feedback, as well as this blog, MiM has become more self-aware about his complaining. His new game is to complain and keep us guessing as to if he's seriously uncomfortable or if he is just trying to be cute.

I suited up into my 4/3, straining to remember if my wetsuit was this stiff before Panama or if I was just being a pansy, coddled by the tropical waters of yesterweek.

Gauging by the wind's chill, I decided to go ahead and RUBBER UP! Booties came on, and I slipped into my virgin 4mm gloves I picked up months ago at the Rip Cur Outlet northwest of Lowers in San Clemente.

MiM was giving me grief over the Panama pictures, saying that the crab-grab was wack. While I can't say I disagree, EVERYONE* in the water agreed that he was just jealous he hadn't invented a new barrel-riding technique.

He briefed Trevor on my tendency to crab-grab and they were cheering me on to my first wave, a sick right that was quick to develop (unlike the author). Hearing calls for crab-grabs, I tucked into my old familiar stance and got barreled. The wave dumped over and I zoomed through the barrel fast, tucking my leading (stalling) arm behind me and went quite a ways through the spinning hydro-tunnel.

I had quite the thrill going quite that far. When I pull in to a closeout, I have a certain expectation as to how far/how long I expect to go. For every half-second I go beyond that expectation, the euphoria increases exponentially.

I surfaced and let out a hoot.

On the next wave, I pulled a proper pig-dog and did my damnedest to stall hard. A stranger paddling about 20 feet inside of me who had just snagged a good one gave me a long hoot as the lip finally cascaded over me. I don't remember what happened, but I didn't make it (I'm pretty sure I over-corrected into the wall).

I caught a very similar right, tried it again, and in my burning desire to get barreled with a proper pig-dog stance while NOT going into the wall, had the lip drive my throat into my knee. OUCH! Painful and a little scary, but no long-term damage. Swallowing left me sore for a few hours afterward.

I later caught a left and, upon first pump, I was reacquainted with my glorious DHD board and the speed its rail generates. Though I kept pumping, the beautiful curves of my foam masterpiece were not enough as I slowly lost the race to the speeding lip.

The waves' consistency slowed down and the likelihood of closeouts increased. MiM, having an eight-hour day ahead of him bailed. I waited about ten minutes before a belly-boardable wave came (!) and hit the sand.

*not really.