Surfing down time

Dec 9th, 2006 - Sunnyvale, CA, USA

The first major winter storm is hitting the bay area coast line this weekend. The news papers report waves as high as 22ft!! I wonder if guys are going to be surfing at Maverick's?? I'd love to see that.

So it's been 6 months since I moved to this part of California. I'm about 1hr from Santa Cruz, and with my new job I really haven't surfed as much as I'd like to. I was trying to go once every weekend, but now that it's Dec and the temp has dropped in the mornings to 40F, I'm really not motivated to get into the ice water; even with my 5mm suit. Plus it's ski season in Tahoe..yeah, yeah..more excuses.

I usually surf by myself now, since Ivy doesn't like to surf in the really cold waters here.My last surf was Thanksgiving weekend (end of Nov for people who don't know what Thanksgiving is). It was a beautiful morning surf at this place called the Hook, in Santa Cruz. Sun was out, sea otters were playing, water was glassy, and nice clean 2-3 ft line was coming in. Nice thing about a reef break here is that even though my paddling has gotten a lot weaker, it's easier to paddle out to the line, then say a beach break.

Still, doing some push ups and yoga twice a week just isn't keeping me in shape. I could feel it to on my paddle out...just was sucking in deep gulps of air as I finally got to where I wanted to and then I had to rest 5mins before I felt ready to catch a wave. Though I'm a natural foot, I usually struggle with going right, but the Hook is a right break so I'm getting a little more comfortable with it. So, on my first wave I popped up, did my turn and just relaxed & rode down the line of the wave in a straight line. I'm trying to practice a little more with turns while riding the wave, but since I'm surfing so, infrequently, I'm really making very little progress. Whenever I turn I usually turn so hard that I lose speed and the wave rolls past me or I bury the rail into the water, but occassionaly I get it right and I link 2 small turns together. The Smoothstar skateboard I use when I'm not surfing has helped me alot with this...hmmm..maybe snowboarding will help to??

I remember the little tips Steve gave me in Sydney about going with the flow of the wave, but I guess learning how to read the flow is the other trick. Once, on a big day for me ( 6 ft), I caught the wave, but turned left so quickly that I found myself with a lot of speed and really high up on the wave face. I aimed for a point in front of me and could feel how fast I was going, but I also noticed that I was being pulled up the face of the wave. I shifted my weight to my toes to try and get the board to start going down the face of the wave, but it felt like it made no difference. Next thing I know I'm falling head first into the water.

Well, that's all for today. Sorry no new pics. I do have a bunch to post, but I haven't gotten them organized yet. Maybe with ski season here I'll have more time to work on those blogs I keep talking about....