Right of Way

New Year's Day 2007. A beautiful sunny day in California, so Ivy and I went to Capitola for a surf. The waves were small, 1-3ft, and the sets came every 20-30 mins so there was a lot going on. That kind of sucks when the water is so cold that putting my hand in the water hurts. So, with so few waves and so many longboarders this brings up a good point about who gets the wave. I try to follow the idea of closest to the inside and first up gets right of wave. Of course when you are a good 10 yards closer to shore than the longboarders you really need to keep an eye on them. A longboarder will catch the wave way before you on your fun board and will ride that wave for a long distance. So as you paddle always remember to look over your shoulder before you pop up and if you see someone, just sit up and move your weight all the wave to the back of board. That way you back off the wave and let the other guy continue his ride.

So on a quite day I give up a lot of the nicer waves to the longboarders and ride the ones they don't go for (usually the smaller ones), but it's all good..just wish once in a while some of the longboarders would let us other folk catch one of the nicer waves..or maybe I should get a longboard?