You had to be there, exactly there ... somewhere in the surf

Sometimes you just never know ...  a desperate, "crapola" onshore surf day can turn into something quite "worth the trip."

With only one free, non-work day (Sunday) this Labor Day weekend, I needed to de-stress from what has been the mother of all deadlines. Long and the short of it — I was going to go to the beach and get wet, come heat, come humidity, come thunderstorms, come lugubrious clouds, no matter the conditions ... you get the point.


So I packed the van, called Frank for some recommendations, and discovered he was in the same need of a salt-water dip. I was tardy, so Robby, who needed time to get his work together, decided he'd tag along for an afternoon of reading a the beach, too.

We arrived and took our time checking the break, figuring out where the best place might be to catch the peaky, shifty, and sometimes crunching surf. Tide was low-mid-incoming.


It was a slightly crowded situation with a few highly talented surfers out there. Plenty of rip currents and a good number of beachgoers added to the mix.

I had been thinking of SUP sailing on the 9'6," but with so many surfers in the water, and a good number of knee-to-waist-to-shoulder-high sets, the regular 9'0 and 9'6" longboards were just the ticket. It all depended on where you were, when, and which break you picked. the size was there if you were patient. The quantity unlimited.

But the paddle outs were a beast. I found out pretty quickly that the SUP/surf session two or three weeks ago did not cut it as far as prep for a full on hard working paddle-out through multiple whitewater dunkings.

And the prize for truck of the day at RM2 goes to... vintage
Suburban.  Board slides in slides out; who needs a rear
window anyway? How much time you want to waste
getting to the water, is up to you.

But judicious rests between the sets paid off. Reviving just enough paddle power to make the waves I wanted and get a couple of fun rides and a couple of fun crashes.

Need more paddle time for sure. That said, I was pleased with the Ben Aipa.  A good knee-ride, a good standup ride and a few short rides that ended with off balance crashes. I want to get this board sussed out -- I feel it coming.

At one point during a paddle-out, I thought Id made it over the top of a "big incoming." I was wrong. Instead, going backward over the falls, as the wave ripped the board from my hands.

I don't miscalculate those too often, and lesson learned.
I should have and could have paddled harder to get over/through the lip of that one. Don't ask me ho, it's all in the moment, but I feel that ass-whooping needn't have happened. Still a good wake-up call. No schnoozadaisical paddling when the set waves have some mustard to them.

Must have been a helluva set.

The last time I had a hold down that long it was a a swell with a name like Linda or Hugo or some such alphabetical storm nomenclature. Yes really. Those you don't forget. Except that day the swell was 7-9 foot. Today, however, it was a mere 2.3 - 3.3 ft swell, and about a short 6 second period (see chart).

Interesting Factoid:
The "point where the waves break in water depth" is "at about 1.3 times the wave height. (A 6-foot wave will break in about 8 feet of water.)"

I fully rotated underwater, backwards cartwheel style, and waited patiently — I honestly had no idea which way was up, and there was little point in wasting air swimming downward or sideways — for it to release me.

Holding breath a bit longer, a bit longer still, bouyancy finally prevailed and I kicked the rest of the way to the surface.

Saw the board to the east,  took another breath, pulled it in by the leash, grabbed it by the tail, just before the next set did it's best impression of a small avalanche. It wasn't as big as the first and had already broken. No big deal.

Lenny is concerned about the bodywork on his Sub.
This one shows him much can be done with fiberglass
and Benjamin Moore paint.

Surprisingly, for such a crowded holiday weekend beach, we ran into Florian and his buddy Pieter /Thies(Sp?), with Pieter's kids in tow having a grand time.

For conditions where I really didn't expect much — just wanted to paddle and get wet and a little beach time — it was a good day to be back on the longboard after nearly a year off.

Could have used a few more of the regular crew. C and S ... you know your names. I'll call / text next time, promise.

Yes, for a while there it got real glassy in between the swells, and that happens more when they are large enough to block the wind. They cleaned up and lined up even better later on.