Running down Rica - the Philosophical

This will be short, and when I have more time in the next few days, I'll write more specifically about the breaks I surfed in Costa Rica before I forget. (And, SurfSis, I rode both the 7'0" I brought but by Wednesday, I decided I was on vacation and didn't want to work for my waves so I borrowed a 9'2" epoxy from the surf camp AND a 10'2" epoxy which totally rocked!!! -- more on that later.)

The Epiphany

I once had a surf buddy who said, "Surfing is my life."

I kinda thought he was an idiot anyway, so my initial pause and raise of my eyebrow was not so abnormal a reaction. But I had a feeling that the statement was sort of weird and pathetic even if it were out of the mouth of someone less moronic.

Last week, probably about two days into being carted around to different sites and chasing surf all day to get skunked with windblown chop, I was surfed out. Never mind the 80-degree air and 75-degree water, forget the sparsely populated shoreline and surfing in boardshorts. I wanted no more. I realized my inner curmudgeon liked routine. I like to get my surfing in the morning and be done with it. I don't like spending an hour looking for the perfect spot because by mid-morning every break has a high probability of sucking anyway: sucking by wind, sucking by tide, sucking by crowds.

I discovered that surfing is NOT my life and I was relieved. Surfing is just one part of my life. It's definitely a part of my life that defines certain choices I will make in the future: choosing where I live, choosing my morning alarm settings, choosing my vacation spots... But surfing is not all of my life and I am glad to recognize that I need balance.

Pura Vida

So the water is warm and the cerveza is cold, but I'm not used to surfing mid-morning or afternoon which is what we've been doing. Mostly skunked with the onshore winds at Marbella and the howling offshores sending spray into your face at Avellanas. There was not enough swell to make the long-ass boat ride to Witch's Rock and Ollie's point more than interesting for the experience. I liked Ollie's but that was more because I learned how to pee in the water there. This winter I know how I'm keeping myself warm during dawn patrol!

Today was the first good day of surfing but that was mostly because we demanded a dawn patrol tour of Playa Langosta. We had gone there in the afternoon two days before and saw head high waves and 50 guys sitting on the limited take-off point. I saw an L.A. surf buddy who was there with his wife. Small world. I watched all the amazing surfers angle for the inconsistent waves and when I finally got my wave, I took off and never looked back. Outta there. Dawn patrol this morning was EXCELLENT. Chest-high and just me and N for twenty minutes until two other surfers came out to play. Enough waves until 7am when the peak quickly filled up to 15 people. Time for me to say goodbye. I got my long carving rides and left while I was still feeling good.

***

Went on to swellmagnet.com to read Uncle Grant's report about the crazy waves hitting Venice. Wish I were there to see it! (Nah, not really. I was actually hot in my rashguard this morning at 6:30.)

I'm sad to miss this show...

From wetsand.com:

Wednesday the 21st, the shortest day of the year, will be seeing some big surf hit the coast. As we mentioned in yesterday’s report, this is from a significant WNW system traveling at low latitudes towards our region. Today, models have kicked this system up a notch; actually make that about three or four notches. This powerful system is now posted in NWS warnings, which considering their conservative nature on swell prediction is impressive. The NWS is warning of high surf and coastal flooding potential. The WAM model runs today are showing this system now building into an astonishing large system with 18+ second periods, and surf that could reach 20+ feet on the faces at direct west facing breaks. Now, bear in mind that we’re still dealing with some 48h+ models, and we’ll need to confirm this in the next couple of days. Nevertheless, significant swell is imminent; we just need to see if this system builds to a 10-15 foot swell-maker, or, as some models suggest today, a 20-25 foot surf pounder. To err on the side of conservative predictions, our call could be for 12-14 foot face heights at west facing breaks. To err on the side of caution, we’d call for bigger, more hazardous surf. We’ll have more details by Sunday morning, and keep you posted as models converge on this system over the next 36 hours.

I look forward to reading your blogs to see if this swell actually came in.

See ya!

One last blast of cold water at the Pier this morning to prepare me for the grueling 70-degree water and 85-degree air in Costa Rica. Red eye flight tonight, and this time tomorrow I'll be in board shorts and a rashguard (if it isn't too warm).

Rough life. I know.

Breakfast burrito?

I'm having a waffle.

I've been out of the water for nearly three weeks (reasons: lack of waves, landlocked for the Thanksgiving holiday, a week-long cold that made me lose my voice and sound like a Canadian goose). Yesterday I went back in only because I started having fear about going to Costa Rica and not having surfed for a month. So I took Doc to the beach and decided to go out no matter what. The waves at the home break were maybe waist-high-plus and mostly dumpy. One surprising wave loomed up and I actually made three nice turns on an actual shoulder. I'm still reliving that wave today because it was so shockingly good in such poor pickings.

ANYWAY.

This wave got me to thinking about me and surfing and how I love longboarding. These thoughts co-mingled with the hassle of finding a travel board bag, packing the board, and hauling the board across continents made me wonder why the hell I was bringing a short(er)board to Costa Rica? I'm having a waffle.

I mean, yeah, it would be nice to have my own board down there, especially if my snobby self hates the crappy rental longboards... but I *love*love*lurve* longboarding so that surfing the crappy epoxy plastic bubbling delaminated rentals in France last year was fun. Do I even like surfing the 7'0" enough to deal with the hassle of getting it down there?

Waffle.

Lost: Timing

Last seen about 3 weeks ago, before cold virus and laryngitis took it away. Looking for timing before going to a surf trip to Costa Rica. If found, please return to Grace.

Tag me, I got my shots

Little Miss N, with whom I'm going to Costa Rica, said I don't need these vaccines:

Tetanus/Diptheria
Hep A
Typhoid Fever
Malaria

"It's Costa Rica!" she said, as if it was supposed to invoke an image of a sort of paradise.

I'm sure it was paradise, before Adam and Eve came. I envision the same sorts of problems that a high concentration of human poop in the L.A. river basin causes. Honestly, I probably shoulda gotten the Hep A shot long before this upcoming trip.

Anyway, my arm is killing me. The right arm, shot up with Hep A, is just a tiny bit sore. The left arm, with the tetanus/diptheria shot feels like it's been hammered with a brick fifty times. I had planned on surfing this morning, too.

Flatness

I was actually on true dawn patrol this morning. Full moon out over the Santa Monica mountains, gorgeous colors of sky meeting water in a haze of a horizon... and no one in the water. No one was in the water because it was flat. Flat on the one day I try to get back to my old DP schedule. I turned on my heel, got in my car, and drove away.

Spicy surf

Saturday: short(er)board, decent-sized waves, crowded as all get out

Sunday: Doc 9'0", waist-high waves, remembering that I knew how to turn a longboard

So, Saturday night I went to have spicy Korean stew. And I mean SPICY. Like bacteria disintegrating spicy. The first time my Korean friends took me to this place, tears came rushing out of my eyes and gushing out of my nose as I had a naso-vascular reaction to the heat. Sweat poured off my brow. IT WAS GREAT! (Feeling it on the other end the next morning was not... too much information?)

Since then, though, I developed a red tide allergy this year which pretty much wiped out my sense of taste and smell. Not all taste, but the stuff I like best -- salty, savory, smoky. Recently, this has expanded to include my inability to taste some spicy food. I recently tried Killer Shrimp and their moderately spicy broth... absolutely nothin'. After telling my friend this info, Saturday night's excursion to K-town was thought-up in part as an experiment to see what would happen to me. Happy to say my nose was running and I was sweating. I don't think it was actually as spicy as the first time, but I'm glad to know I haven't completely lost the spicy buds.

Wine, however, has completely gone out of the picture. I opened a bottle on Friday and couldn't smell a thing. It just tasted like warm water with tannins. I had no idea if it was a good bottle or a bad bottle of wine. My guy came over and he took a glass. Immediately he said, "This is GOOD." Yeah, whatever, buddy. Drink up.

I'm not completely sure what to do. I like surfing and I like eating. Hard for me to give up one for the other. Right now, I'm being all Vulcan and being fascinated by what I can and can't taste... brunch at Joe's on Abbot Kinney last week was a really bad call on my part because I couldn't taste much of the pretty food on my plate. I fed the boy my food in addition to his own brunch and made him tell me what he was tasting in order to live vicariously. After one particularly loud moan of pleasure on his part, I warned him not to fake it.

In that meal, though, I could taste the fresh tomatoes smothered in a shrimp sauce. The acidity and sweetness of the tomatoes were actually bright on my tongue. I'm intrigued by this whole mechanism of what I can and can't taste and how foods might taste different to me, but this is gonna get old pretty quickly.

What's a foodie surfer to do?

Need more yoga

I was wondering when it would start happening. Since I've been back in the water more consistently and since I'm not on the heavy Cooperfish, and since I've been sitting in front of this computer all day again, I was wondering when my back would start freaking out on me. The answer: today. I was in the water for about 20 minutes and every pop-up got this little hitch in it. I had a decent right that I took all the way in and decided that was enough. It's time to start contorting my body again to build strength in all the muscles that aren't worked by paddling.

Also, I had serious longboard envy this morning. In the parking lot as I was pulling on my wetsuit, I spied a tiny woman barely carrying a huge single-fin. I looked at my un-longboard with some distaste. I do have good days on my un-longboard, but I never have the same joy as I do on the big board.

Cheating

I read the swell energy was going to be down until the latter part of the week, so I thought I'd take it easy on myself and break out a longboard. But then I thought how that would not help my short(er)board training, so I compromised and took out a board I hadn't surfed in over a year. It was dusty when I got it down from the wall. It's a 1970s single fin -- my Disco board --with a diamond tail and wings. It's 7'0" and three inches thick all the way to the rail with a beak nose. The last time I was on it, I was coming off riding a 9'0" almost exclusively and, frankly, I sucked. This time, everything about it was easy. Paddling, taking off, turning. It's kinda like cheating now because it's so much like surfing a longboard (but without the longboard sexiness): turn from the tail, step forward for speed.

The good kind of sore

Sunday was great. I saw some of the weekend crew I haven't seen since I started having my weekend escapes in Valencia/Ventura. I took out the 7'0" Okazaki even though I was tempted to take a longboard because I wasn't completely confident of my abilities in what would surely end up being a crowded sunny morning. But I told myself I'd have to start challenging myself on this board if I wanted to be comfortable going to Costa Rica with it in December. So I tossed the board in the car before I could have second thoughts.

At the beach, I found chest-high waves came through with decent shape! I was surprised to find how easy it was for me to catch waves and pop-up and get the right stance. I'm no longer blaming my shorter board ineptitude on my ineptitude, I'm blaming it on the crap waves I surfed prior to Sunday.

It was so much fun on Sunday, I started attempting "things." Not quite tricks, just things. On one left, I saw the shoulder line up and I got a little speed going... enough to make me think I could attempt a snap. So, I set up and threw my shoulders and hips into cranking the board up and around. I don't think I really believed I was actually going to get even *close* to a snap, so when I saw my board go up and start coming back around, I didn't know what to do. I panicked and screamed like a little girl right before I wiped out. I came up for air with a grin as bright as the day.

This morning was much the same, not quite as good a shape and not as big, but I had a really good right where I did a couple of turns and did a serious "I know what I'm doing" kick-out. I landed on my board in the perfect position and perfect direction to just start paddling back out into the line-up.

I'm so happy with my progress, I may have to reward myself with a longboarding session soon.

I've decided NOT to reward myself with a new (used) longboard. (Surfsister knows what I'm talking about.) I was seriously thinking of getting this used 10'0" Boss that's on consignment. I looked at it and it's not quite watertight, but I feel confident enough in my repair abilities to take it on. I've been casually looking for one of these for the last 6 months, but the weight of new car and new furniture purchases have made the timing of this used board really bad. I realized Sunday that my jones for the Boss came in part from my dissatisfying sessions on the shorter board. When I have decent-sized waves, I don't think about plunking down $500 on a big board with holes in it.

(Also, I just got Bob-O's number, so I'm now seriously considering saving money to order a new 10-foot board from him next year!)

Toes nowhere near the nose

I use my toes to pop-up. Most surfers have no idea what that means because they're probably popping up the correct way. On a longboard, my toe-popping style doesn't matter and probably isn't even noticeable. On a shorter board, it's problematic.

I switched boards briefly with D and found that with his 6'6", my toes had nowhere to pop when taking off on a wave, so there was no popping-up.

I don't know if I'm going to fix this problem, since my toes have a tail to touch at 7'0", but I have noticed that I'm raking my toenails across the deck when I pop-up, sometimes slowing me down. Part of the reason I do this is my toes keep the tail in the wave. Part of the reason I do this is because I'm not sure the board is going to stay underneath me when I pop-up.

Yup. I probably should fix this problem.

Just like a longboarder

So I got the paddling and the taking-off bit down on the 7'0" Okazaki, but I can't quite get my feet to the proper place on the pop-up. I find myself too far back on the board... just like a longboarder. Only, I can't walk forward on the board without the board stopping or squiggling out of the wave.

Nonetheless, I'm happy with the progress I'm making. I'm happier with the fact that I've only surfed the O the times I've been out at home on weekdays, no matter how much I want to break out the longboard.

Can accidents be avoided?

Okay. I'm alternately irked and relieved from Sunday's foray into Ventura. (And I think I'm actually surfing at the Fairgrounds, not C-Street, but I'd have to remember to ask someone to be sure.)

First, let me say that people are SO nice up there. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think that when a break is populated by longboarders of all ages, people mellow out. Or maybe I just have no perspective from surfing in the much more aggro L.A. County. It was much more crowded this week than last week -- probably because it was head-high to overhead on the sets, but even then, people were nice, waiting patiently for their waves and chatting. I met a nice woman my age who moved here from Hawaii and surfed really well with clean style. I also chatted with an old man who looked like a goat and who got two of the best outside waves of the day -- they must have been 9-feet at least.

Second, my waves were nothing to write home about. Again, I brought out the wrong board. Last week, I had Doc and the waves had no power, so I found myself paddling like mad and popping up only to dig a rail in when I cut too hard. I finally learned, but still, I let a lot of pretty decent waves go last week because of my mistake. So this week, I brought Coop, thinking it's weight would propel me down mushy point break waves. Well, yeah, propelling happened, but mushy didn't. I would have preferred Doc's lightweight speed to make it around some hairy sections. As it was, I took off on some big-ass waves that went nowhere, but the thrill of the take-off was worth it. My one good wave actually made me feel like a surfer as I made a bottom turn around a section, came to the top to feel it hollowing, stepped back to come back down and made the hollow section without wiping out, but as I came around the second bottom turn, I was too slow and saw the whole wave collapsing in front of me.

But to my point: I am irked because I pulled out of a couple of waves where I was free and clear down the line but there was someone paddling out right in front of me. There's a chance I could have taken off and cut the correct line so I wouldn't hit him, but I decided I didn't want to take the chance should I have screwed up. I had the heavy board and I didn't really feel like killing someone that morning.

Okay, I'm not irked because I was a thoughtful and caring person. I am irked because someone else, faced with the same situation with me paddling out DID NOT think to do the same thing.

So, I was paddling back out, looking for my coffee wave (the one to take me home to coffee) and I saw a two guys scrambling for a wave. I would have made it over the wave safely if it were just the first guy taking off deeper in the wave, so I'm hoping the second guy sees that he should pull back because 1) I'm right in his line and 2) there's someone else behind him. But second guy does NOT do this and first guy has to kick-out. There is no way, no time for me to correct the course of my paddle-out and eat it in the breaking part of the wave. All I can do is paddle as fast as I can and hope that second guy takes the straight drop instead of taking off at an angle right toward me. HE DOES NOT. He angles toward me on the take-off. I have no idea what the hell he's thinking. I paddle to the very last nano-second until I have to bail or get finned in the the head.

The wave washes over me and I'm hoping that my big honkin' board hasn't knocked out the shortboarder. I pop up to see the guy. I'm relieved he isn't dead. I apologize because I'm nice, not because I think I'm wrong -- but that doesn't really come across, does it? I ask if he's okay and he asks if I'm okay. We're all okay and nobody yells at each other. His friend asks if I'm okay and says the most important thing is that everybody's okay. Okay. We're all okay. And I am again amazed that everybody is so nice. Relief.

His friend says that he heard someone get a skeg hit. I look at the board. It's me. Two surgical-precision fang marks all the way through the double volan glass on the rail. I told his friend there was no way for me to change the course of my paddle and he said in that situation all you can do is throw your board toward the wave and dive under. Great. Try throwing a 35-pound 9-foot-7-inch board while you're floating in the water some day and see how that works out. Irked.

I don't know, can accidents be avoided? I say yes -- at the cost of losing what could be your best wave of the day. But isn't there always another wave coming?

***

PS. I really think I'm having allergic reactions to the red tide. It was back in force on Sunday and I spent Sunday night breathing through my mouth. Today, I'm hopped up on drugs.

PPS. At one point waiting for my coffee wave, I hear my name being called. WHA-? Nobody's supposed to know me here. I turn to shore and see Jen-n-Joey from my home break in Santa Monica waving at me. Small surf world.

What's that floating in the water?

"First flush" they call it. People are really horrible. After the rain, you can see what we do to the world lying in a mangled heap of convenient packaging discarded along the water's edge.

Waves North

I surfed Saturday and Sunday at a point break in Ventura and boy are my arms tired. Because of my laziness and beach break training, I find point breaks tiring -- even at head high -- because of all the paddling I have to do to get into the wave.

It's such a welcome break from crowded weird vibing in LA County. It's nice to surf a longboard spot with mellow people. It's odd to actually take off on a wave with shape and go down the line with NO ONE in front of you -- on the wave or paddling out. Shocking!

Manic-depressive

Better today. I don't want people to shoot me so much when I'm in the water. I'm getting more comfortable on the shorter board -- enough so that I did a "no-paddle" take-off when I was too deep on a wave and enough so that I actually walked forward on another wave that didn't have much power.

Worse today. Actually, it's always the same. Just bad. When I leave the water, go back home, shower, get in my car to go to work... the weight of the day starts pressing at each step of the process to work. It's not that all I want to do is surf all the time -- I feel like I'm over that obsession -- it's that I want to look forward to the day, but I don't.

It's always especially apparent when I have a good morning surfing (and today was, if only because I can feel marked improvement at learning the shorter board) and then get to work with the same old nothing. I need a new gig.

Grumble

I'm too lazy to ride a shortboard. I don't see why I should waste my energy paddling into a wave when I don't have to even think about it on a longboard.

I know. I'm just whining. I'll get over it. I just hate feeling like a kook.

Not quite surfing

I had a few waves today where I was actually surfing. You know, the thing you do when you get a wave with a shoulder and you pop up to your feet and turn a few times... surfing. But they were short rides and long lulls. I looked up and saw EsF get a nice long right. He kept going and going. He kept going until he hit shore. Wave of the day.

So, after more lulling and few shoulders, I saw this big steep thing come off the horizon and head right for me. I decided since I was obviously not going to get the longest wave of the day (claimed already by EsF), I would go for the most exciting wave of the day. I heard some of the pals whoop my name as they realized I wasn't backing off the close-out. I took off at the top of the wave, grabbed the rail, sped down the wall backside, miraculously kept all 9'7" of the rail from digging into the wave, closed my eyes and just waited for the smash. It didn't come when I expected it to. That was weird. Almost made me open my eyes. When the crash finally came, it wasn't where I thought it was going to be, namely, on me. Either I had been in a barrel and made it out of a section, or I was nowhere near as tucked in like I thought I was. "Surfing" blind.

Cheap thrills.