No Thanks

Struck with food poisoning from sushi on Friday. No more surfing to be had this weekend. First and hopefully last time I'll have food poisoning. Ugh.

Mental note: On a week where everybody's thinking turkey, do NOT eat raw fish that might have been hanging around lonely.

Thanks

I had a crap-tacular Wednesday and I carried over my moody baggage into Thursday, a holiday, Thanksgiving. All I knew was I was going to surf my brains out to try to shake off the bad mood. Good mood starter #1: I was greeted by waves I could see from the parking lot. Good mood starter #2: There was actually some shape to play around in.

Since I've gone exclusively back to the Cooperfish because my other boards are dinged, the callous on the top of my head where I carry the board has reformed. Walking with the board is a piece of cake now. And turning the heavy monstrosity on waves has pretty much come back to me. Lots of good lefts, a few okay rights which closed out too quickly for my liking, and I had pretty much shaken off my bad mood.

Unfortunately, as soon as my bad mood left, my body decided to get tired. Since I'm not the obsessive surfer that I once was, my lungs have decided that just paddling out makes me winded. After two and a half hours, I was done. The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak.

I gave thanks, though, for some decent-sized waves.

Today, knee-to-waist mush. Any other time this year and I would have said "no thanks" but I was committed to surfing as much as I can this long holiday weekend before heading back to my bad mood on Monday. I was out early (because I had to pick up my parents from the airport at 10am) and the air was nippy. So nippy that the hat made its first appearance this season.

It could be like the groundhog spotting its shadow in February. If you spot the hat on my head, winter's coming three weeks early this year.

Just go!

I know, I know. I missed a couple of days of really good surf. Crazy barrels on Tuesday... yeah yeah yeah I heard. Stop telling me how amazing it was, okay?!

I just couldn't bring myself to wake up when then alarm rang in the dark this whole week. The job has me at work at 9am now, so it's dawn patrol or nothin' for me. And lately, I've lost the dawn patrol mojo.

So, this morning, it was just a triumph for me to get out of the house by 6:30am.

But I arrived at home break to find knee-high mush. One guy on a shortboard imitating a buoy. This wasn't very appealing and I was about to leave when Bob (the Bob formerly known as Sponge) gave me the hard sell: Corner there! Tide drops! Longboard!

Okay okay. And he was right. It wasn't even close to a stellar day, but the sky was blue and the water wasn't freezing and I got some fun little waves on my big blue Coop. It was small enough for me to confidently go leashless and subsequently lose the board almost every wave. I'm getting the turning thing down, but now I'm finding a different issue: I'm not sure what to do with the wave that lays out in front of me. My timing with this board is off. I see the wave. The shoulder even starts moving in slow motion for me, but I don't know whether to come down and lose speed or stay high and get pitched when the bottom falls out. This happened on almost every single left I took. I know, I know. It's just a matter of dialing into this board again. Practice practice practice.

Big Blue Coop

Oh, r-i-i-ght. THAT'S why I loved my Big Blue Cooperfish so much. Saturday, I kept thinking how much more fun I'd be having if I'd brought Weirdo (who's on the rack while I figure out what to do about the dings opening up and glass issues). I traded boards with Riab who looked miserable on my board, but her Chris Slick board was fun for me! Makes me remember why I like performance longboards. Back on my Cooperfish, I couldn't turn it and bunked some decent shoulders. I knew what I had to do... step back on the tail (way back), pivot, walk... I just couldn't get my body to do it.

Today, my body and Coop started remembering how to work together again. I started finding that sweet spot where I could turn the board without effort. I'm pretty sure I look like an idiot on take-off with my arms flailing and my hips jutting to catch up to the board, but it sure was FUN remembering how tenuous a thing balance can be when you stand on different parts of the board.

I came home and finally took the wax off the two halves of Doc. I have some idea about taking it to Aquatech and getting it fixed as a beater board for visitors, but I'm slightly afraid Ken et. al. are going to start laughing the second I take one half of it out of the car. As I rubbed the remaining film of wax off the board with citrus oil, I couldn't help but think that THIS was exactly the performance longboard I've been idly looking for since I broke it a few months ago. I love the big rocker. I love the shape of the nose (pulled in a little so it doesn't look like a giant gangplank). I love love LOVE the transition of the rails from the middle to the tail.

I don't know. After all the idle distractions and considerations of other boards over the past few months, I might be making a visit to Huntington to have Doc III made.

Me

I just got around to getting some digital photos off the boy's camera.

For giggles, I thought I'd share my portrait at the anti-war rally this past spring:



I still think this would have been funnier if I'd found a Barbara Bush mask. She's much more recognizable than the current first lady.

Pretty things

Sensei J called me up asking, "How much money do you have?" Then he made me go over to Cooperfish's website. Looks like Gene has some custom jobs for sale:

"Round Labels"

Sensei J bought #110, and I probably shouldn't be advertising this because I kinda hope #104 remains available through December. Anybody want to buy me a present?

Weirdo

This weekend, I started becoming quite fond of this board. (Pictures below were taken from Ebay where I bought the board two years ago.) I am growing a little concerned, however, that a 30-year-old board is more fragile than I think and I should not be surfing this thing. I'm starting to have dings open up. The glass underneath is kind of the consistency of the center of a Butterfinger bar. I might have to do some fixing before it goes out again. Any insight from the shapers and glassers out there?

Surfing as character development

Pet peeve warning:

I hate it when a television show has characters who are supposed to be surfers. I don't mind if they throw it in as dialogue or whatever, but when they actually set a scene in the water and the actors look like they've been air-lifted onto the board and balanced there, it's really distracting.

Last night, I was watching Veronica Mars (which is a really great show, don't laugh!) and the brooding bad-ass rich kid Logan seemed a lot less brooding and whole lot less bad-ass when he was chatting with his friend while floating in the water in a shiny new wetsuit on a cheap-looking longboard. They were both sitting in the middle of the board so it was flat on the water. They looked like they would tip over if they had to try to raise the nose of the board out of the water to turn around should it occur to them to paddle for a wave.

It's like when you watch people who don't know how to play guitar, play guitar in the movies... takes you right out of the scene.

Good surfing scene on TV? Simon Baker in the premiere of "Smith" (which is cancelled, but that setting was GREAT). Baker, tanned, in boardshorts, cutting up a wave on a shortboard. (It helps that he can actually surf.) He trots to shore smiling and full of aloha spirit. He greets a couple hard-edge locals who give him a hard time. He backs off, but then kills them with single shots to the head from his sniper rifle. Every surfer's fantasy for dealing with aggro meat-heads.

What's that on the plate you're handing to me?

Oh! My ass! Why thank you!

Surf Sis and I met in the dark this morning to drive north for some shape. The first spot we checked was an unfamiliar break for both of us and between the fog, the unknown paddle-out, and the lack of surfers on the head-high waves breaking onto rocks, we quite rightly chickened out.

So we drove further north and checked out every goofy-foot's favorite point break. At first glance from above, all you could see was fog. You could kind of make out the white water as the wave broke, and sometimes you could see a little dark spidery thing cutting up and down the wave. It was easier to see when we paddled out, but there was still insufficient warning time for me when I was sitting inside hoping to pick off one of the more manageable and shapely waves. When I heard someone yell "outside," I looked out to see this wave looming toward me. I ducked one and I turtled another on the Weirdo board, but both times, I found myself doing cartwheels with my board as the push of water decided not to let me through. (I try not to let go of the board if I can help it. I always feel safer when I know my board is in my hands and not whipping around somewhere.)

By the time I came up for air, I was almost at shore, so I decided instead of trying to duck the next one, I would catch my breath on the beach then paddle out when the lull came. Bad choice. Resting on shore, I sufficiently psyched myself out enough not to go back out. It wasn't fear exactly. It was more a sense that I wouldn't catch anything with Weirdo (which I'm not quite used to yet) and an almost certain knowledge that to take the punishment of the paddle out wasn't going to be worth it. Instead, I decided to watch the show from shore.

It was definitely a tough day with the fog, the high tide, and the shore break. The same five guys were getting the majority of the waves. Every so often someone wouldn't kick out soon enough and the would completely go over the falls on the shore break. Ouch!

This is the first time I've psyched myself out in a couple of years. It ended up being a good thing really. I haven't sat down on the beach just to watch surfers since I started learning and it was nice to see some different styles out there.

Surf Sis, though, she rocked! She totally zoomed out to the line-up on the paddle-out and I could see her flipping her almost-locked hair when the fog lifted a little. She took off on a couple of waves, and they didn't really turn out like she wanted, but still... she took off!

In the meantime, Weirdo report: My pop-up's getting better on Weirdo, but not enough to make overhead close-outs today. Yesterday at the beach break was wally, but smaller so I had some waves to play on. Weirdo really holds when the wave gets a little hollow. Kinda fun. Me likey.

Nurse Surf

I've been out of the water for almost two weeks and I think I'm starting to grow tree trunks for legs. Between my paranoia about rain runoff last week and being on call for the boyfriend after his surgery this week, I've become a landlubber.

This week, though, looks promising. The last two times I went out (lo, those many aeons ago), I surfed my Weirdo board and had a blast. My pop-up is a fraction of a second slow because Weirdo's two-feet shorter than what I'm used to riding, but when I actually get that Weirdo single-fin winged diamond tail to lock in, I'm in heaven! Hopefully, I won't chicken out of some of the hollower surf that's here because of the Santa Anas. I just need to get my pop-up up to speed and I'll be fine.

San O

Two turns later, I fell off because my balance was all screwy and I couldn't hold on, but hey, with creative cropping, a person can dream...



Thanks to Birthday Boy for sending along the picture.

Hurts So Good

Do you know how far it is to paddle out to Old Man's at San O?
1,216 kilometers. No joke.
I got this measuring tape in Europe and it only gives the metric system.

Holy crap am I out of shape. Besides the long paddle-out, which wasn't so bad really, I was paddling with futile desperation for waves that wouldn't break. A combination of regularly surfing beach breaks and being on a board I haven't used much in a year completely psyched me out on San O's rolling waves. Surf Sister and I took a trek down for a friend's birthday session and found ourselves laughing at how many waves rolled under us as we paddled furiously. When we finally got into the groove, I looked up only to see an outside set wave coming in. Turtled. And another, and another... I must have turtled 15 waves in a row. By the time I made it outside again you could stick a fork in me. I was done.

Nice skies, beautiful waves. Good day. But I knew I was going to pay for it in the morning.

And if that wasn't enough to knock me on my ass this weekend, I saw these old fogies later on in the evening. Rock on, Whiffleboy! Seriously, I don't know how you can sustain that level of energy on stage. It was impressive and infectious. I look forward to the band's 20 year reunion.

Sunday morning came and I was in pain, but I was deluded into thinking that moving around would help dissipate the soreness. I probably should have taken it as a sign when I couldn't lift the heavy Cooperfish into the car, but instead, I opted for the weirdo board. Glad I did, because it was totally fun at my pitching beach break.

I learned, though, that moving through the pain really doesn't help.

Malibu - it was a dark and stormy night...

5:30am is DARK.

6:00am is still dark, but you can kind of see enough to understand why a couple people were driving up, looking, and pulling away.

Weird onshores were blowing out Malibu. Oh. Goodie. I'd only surfed Malibu once before -- a sunset session at second point when it was overhead. Last night, I'd decided that I wanted to surf SOMETHING of this south swell and since it was closing out my beach breaks and I'd already lost my performance longboard. If I wanted to surf, I'd either have to crack out the weirdo board (which I haven't surfed in a year) and go to Porto or lug out the Cooperfish and try to do some walking at a point.

Malibu was the choice. The junky conditions de-crowded the break, so I was only surfing with a dozen other people who were all quite nice. Mellow. It's a nice introduction for me because I have such psychological hang-ups when I get to a point break that I find myself choking because of all the mental pressure to prove that I can surf... and I should probably take the note that nobody REALLY cares how well you can surf.

Still, though, I don't understand the point break wave. I understand how the wave curls around the back of the board to hold you in when you're walking to the nose... It just doesn't happen to me. I'm just not very adept at getting the board in that trim position all the time. I feel like I need two solid hours with no one around to just mess up and be a goof and figure it out.

And then there were three...

9'7" Cooperfish Hornet - heavy volan glass with fin patch (I am the second owner)

9'0" Surf Prescriptions aka "Doc II" - performance board with 2+1 fin set-up which I have converted to a thruster on big days, round pintail with a bump (First owner, custom made for me)

7'0" Small Faces aka "Weirdo" - 30-year-old beak nose single-wing diamond-tail singlefin (I don't know its history)

7'0" Guy Okazaki aka "Dragon" - alien shape thruster (I am the second owner)

Doc II
RIP
March, 2004 - September 19, 2006
Ocean Park, Santa Monica, California

REMINDER: next board

This is just a reminder for me:

http://surfysurfy.blogspot.com/2006/09/true-blue.html

http://surfysurfy.blogspot.com/2006/09/big-blue-beauty.html

When I feel like I've gotten to a good place with my Cooperfish and when I feel like I deserve a new art-piece type board, I'm going to get a real flat pointbreak board like this.

I smell like Paris Hilton

We just got a package from the CEO who distributes Paris Hilton's fragrances. And for all the sea-water and bacteria screwing with my olfactory system, I don't think it smells half bad. The women's scent on my left wrist is starting to smell like cotton candy -- which is starting to make me crave funnel cakes. I actually like the men's fragrance on my right wrist better.

Kick-out

A triathalon in Venice denied any northbound ideas I had, so I ended up at Porto. Crowded. Mostly guys. Greeeeeaat. I had wanted to try to up my game at better breaks with more aggressive peers, so I guess there's no time like the present. Infrequent chest-shoulder-high set waves. Waist high tweeners during the lulls. Slow-going at first for me, but then I got into the rhythm and had my share of decent shoulders.

I finished most of my frontside waves today with kick-outs. The only one I bunked was a wave that closed out immediately. Still grabbing my rail out of the backsides, though.

I had a super kick-out on my last wave -- which I didn't think was going to be my last wave which is why I kicked out in the first place... Just as I directed the board up and over, I saw a bigger set wave breaking almost on top of me. Nothing quite like kicking out of a wave only to see your wave's big brother looming, ready to pummel you. I turtled that one only to see another. I quickly decided that I didn't have enough money left on the meter to make it worth suffering through battling out the set waves, so I took the whitewash in.

I've noticed that since I've started concentrating on kicking out frontside, I've magically begun to do frontside top turns. What a RUSH!

Happy Anniversary, Me!

Labor Day marks the four-year anniversary of me and surfing in California. I remember that first Labor Day after I'd scoured the Internets for How-tos and Rules and traveled up and down PCH looking for a used board. (Even then I knew what I wanted, although I didn't have the vocabulary to say what it was.) After going up to Malibu and hopping into stores and came back to be more gas efficient about finding a board by calling down the phone book listings looking for an 8-foot longboard in the $200 range, I decided to take a walk in my neighborhood to get some smokes (oh, those days). I decided to check out the mod-looking Board Gallery (which moved to Lincoln Blvd. this year).

I'd walked by the shop maybe a hundred times before, and after a day of unsuccessfully finding a board, 20 miles away, I found the perfect thing right across the street. They showed me the back room where stacks of used boards hung out. I didn't know it then, but I was looking at some classic boards that cost five times what I was looking to spend. He showed me an 8'6" longboard that had just come in on consignment for a little over $200... it had a neon orange nose and an art deco blue fade through the middle to a white round pintail and three fins. (A pintail with a slight bump at the rails with glassed-on thruster set-up, I was later to find out.) There was a big Rx logo and Ray told me the board was about 10 years old, signed at the stringer by the shaper... Jeff "Doc" Lausch.

Yup. That was my first Doc. I took him up to County Line (which I didn't know was called County Line) on Labor Day. I stayed out of the other surfers way like I'd read in the How Tos and Rules, and I died.

For the next month or so, I'd die on the weekends at Venice, walking my board to the beach, and again at County. Then I started dying on the weekdays, too. On one driving excursion, I rolled into what is now known as the "home break." I think what made me stay there is what makes a lot of people start there... the convenience. Parking and easy walk-out. Three days a week turned to every morning. Sometime, between paddling the distance of six lifeguard towers and back and just turtling through some hairy autumn close-outs, I stopped dying and started catching waves.

Lordy, I loved that board. RIP at overhead Topanga and Doc Lausch made me a 9'0" version with slightly down rails, hard at the tail with the bump and round pin. Lordy, I love this board! And I do believe I'm getting verklempt about how we had a great anniversary today with peaky shoulder-high stuff and all the family under the sun.

Dialogue

To the anonymouses (anonymai?) who commented on my last post... yes, I always give waves up to people who have priority - no matter new or experienced. (In fact, one of the surfers this weekend commented how I was pretty good at giving up waves in crowded situations... and I've found that I get a good number of priority take-offs in return.) That's not my point. My point in the last post was actually about me overcoming my non-conflict nature and giving suggestions to people who can actually take off on waves, but don't understand how beautiful a skill controlling your board can be.

I cannot wax any more superlative on the subject of a kick-out. It's such a gorgeous way to finish a wave. There are a couple really great surfers at my home break who can surf shortboards and longboards, but it's when they kick-out on a board longer than 9 feet that I have palpitations. In the chaos of a beach break wave that's closing out, they always finesse that board up and over the wave in a perfectly timed and effortless kick-out. About half the time, I can kick-out frontside, most of these are little baby kick-outs and nothing like the powerful arcs of these other surfers. Once in a while, I'll actually kick-out like they do and that's when I feel like a giant. On the backside kick-out, I'm still useless. I rely too much on kneeling, grabbing the rail, and pulling into the wave, sometimes in a cover-up, but mostly to punch out the other side.

But at least I'm not letting my board go.

I know I'm not at any kind of advanced level of surfing, but I do know I'm at a transition point right now. I'm not sure surfing is a kind of sport that you actually "master" because there always seems to be something else you can work on. Right now, I'm obviously working on the physical skill of kicking out (a failed attempt on Sunday resulted in a floater I was really proud of!). But more than that, surfing has always had that mental and emotional metaphor for me. And after being rather fearless and reckless (with regards to my own body, never with regards to others around me) and reaching some level of confidence with myself, I'm looking for a new metaphor. And I think it's going to have to be with how I interact with others.

In life and in surfing, I've always considered the feelings of others before my own. I've always recognized a need to be more assertive (in surfing and in life), but my non-conflict nature makes me walk (or paddle) away instead of confronting an issue. I'm not saying I'm going to go out there and pick fights and be an asshole. That's not me. Anybody who surfs near me can tell you that I'm always whooping for other people's waves. What I'm saying is that I would like to be better able to have a dialogue when something irks me instead of letting it simmer and twist up inside of me.

After reflecting on my inner dialogue on Saturday's incident, I actually talked to the girl on Sunday. She brought it up, actually, and apologized again for running into me. I took the opportunity to ask her if I could give her a couple suggestions that were given to me a few years ago. My insides got less twisted up and I hope the shared knowledge will improve her surfing.

And I'd REALLY like for this practice of being more assertive in dialogue to transition to my "real" life, too.

Home Break

aka Crappy Santa Monica beach break
aka Surf Spot of the Decade

Where did they all come from, these surfers? A refrain from last weekend and this weekend I heard from my buddies in the water, "F**k, if you looked at all the surfers in the water, you'd think this was a surf spot!" Granted, today was kinda fun, but the ol' grump inside of me started rearing its head when a kid started taking off on a wave that I was already riding. Gave him some stink-eye and he backed off. The kid on the soft top was an okay surfer, but there's no excuse for not knowing etiquette. I missed the ol' police presence in the water today. You know the guys. Those slightly scary guys who can surf circles around you and will put people in their place for any breach of etiquette. One's got an injury, one told me he'd be at work today, and I'm not quite sure what the other two guys were doing loitering around the parking lot.

I'm also never sure what to do when some of the newer people who I'm friendly with don't know how to control their boards. I was inside and I watched a girl I know take off on a wave drawing a line directly for me. She was looking ahead of her board and not right at her feet, but she was only looking about 3 inches ahead of the nose of her board. If I had been in her place I would have A) considered not going on the wave because there were two many people inside, B) gone on the wave knowing that I should trim more tightly on the shoulder, C) been looking WAY beyond where my board ended and where the water began, and, in the unlikely case that I would have come too close to someone inside, D) fell on the board and held on to stop it instead of falling backwards and letting go.

But I wasn't in her place, so I kinda saw what was going to happen. I decided that the safest thing for me to do in this case was to reach out and hold on to the nose of her board that was coming towards me. No, that's not right. The safest thing for me to do was to duck under the water, but that was not the safest thing for my surfboard.

I don't know. I guess I should have offered her my thoughts in that situation, but instead, the low-conflict kind of gal I am, I just said I was okay and that I had reached out and blocked her board with my hand. No worries.

No worries?

I come from a long line of worriers all the time. My bone structure and my worrying I've genetically inherited from my father.

I just don't understand why people can't see how ugly it is when they just fall off a board without making some effort to keep it under control and close to them? I don't understand why people don't see the classic beauty in a kick-out. Surfing's not just about speeding down the biggest baddest wave you can get. It's about taking control in an inherently chaotic environment.

And I guess I have to do that with people.

All that aside, I did have a great day of surf.