Origins: Brett
“We should try to go every day for a week.” Brett said.
And then he spat.
Surfers spit a lot.
It really can’t be helped. We’re told that it’s not good to drink the salt water of the ocean. Drinking salt water leads to dehydration. Human urine is actually less salty than salt water. So when the body processes salt water to create urine, water has to be added – a net loss of water to the body.
Also, salt water doesn’t taste very good. It chalks the inside of the mouth and, after enough time, chaps the lips. So, surfers generally spit a lot in an attempt to minimize the salt water in the mouths at any given time. Most conversations on the water between surfers occur between spits, like a meeting on the pitcher’s mound at a baseball game.
“Yea” I said, looking not at Brett but at the bulge of water moving towards us. “I guess We could probably do that.”
Then I spat.
Just about every surfing, ocean swimming, snorkeling, or diving introductory class or safety lesson advocates the buddy system. Brett is my buddy system. We’ve surfed together for the last seven years. More often than not, when I go surfing, he’s involved.
For a few weeks in the early part of June, Brett had been struggling to catch good waves. It wasn’t for a lack of trying. He was paddling around the surf just as well as anyone, studying the peaks, moving to position, and paddling after waves. He just wasn’t catching a whole lot that he was very proud of, like a designated hitter in a batting slump. Sometimes, he’d lose balance on the initial drop down the face. Sometimes, he’d get a good drop down the face but the wave would die before he could turn off the bottom.
That morning, in the grey and silver June gloom dawn, we paddled after a few waves with limited luck.
I caught a small wave a rode it a little way to the right, finding a clean line of sideways travel. I rode it for a while, fell off, surfaced, mounted my board, and began paddling back out to where Brett was waiting.
The first big wave of a set was coming in. I immediately realized that I was too far away to paddle up and over the wave. I grabbed the sides of my board and pushed up my upper body, preparing for the impact of the wave.
Out at the peak, I could see Brett. he was in perfect position. He took two short paddles, stood up promptly, and angled left. The last thing I saw before the wall of churning white foam hit me was Brett screaming down the face of the wave at top speed, his squinting eyes looking straight into the gleaming silver wall of water, knees bent, arms out.
There's a certain grin that a surfer gets when he's paddling back out to the take off zone after a wave like that. it makes the face look stupid and giddy like a young kid with new toy. i get it sometimes. Brett had it then. it's a great feeling. there's nothing like it.
Ever since my return from vacation from Hawaii, Brett and I had been trying to increase our number of surfing sessions per week. We’d long since realized that surfing once a week on a Saturday or Sunday morning wasn’t getting us enough water time to improve our skills at any recognizable rate. Finally, years later, we were doing something about it. We’d added surfing sessions before work a few days a week. Through the early part of June, we tried to surf at least one or two weekdays in addition to our weekend surfing.
A morning surfing session before work on a weekday is a significant effort for me, something which had never been easy. The morning has to be planned backwards from an 8 am start time at my job in Irvine. Blocks of time are subtracted from 8 am for the events of the morning: the12 mile drive in morning traffic from Huntington beach to Irvine, changing from a wetsuit to business casual, surfing, changing into a wetsuit, the 30 mile drive from Anaheim to Huntington Beach, loading the truck, eating breakfast, and a safety factor of ten minutes for padding around the house like a half sleeping, brainless, useless zombie at five in the morning. Efforts aside, I'd made all of our weekday morning sessions so far.
Back on shore, Brett and I continued our discussion.“Actually,” I told him, thinking the proposition over more thoroughly, “it might be easier to go every day. I think what really kills me is waking up at five o'clock one day and then sleeping in the next day.”
So it began. We started on a Friday, the 25th of June.
The first week of daily surfing wasn’t easy. It required a reorganization of my sleep pattern. As a rule, I’m the kind of person who likes to be awake at midnight or later. My wife likes to go to sleep earlier than this, and most of our marriage has been characterized by her going off to sleep while I stay up watching movies, bad television, or playing on the computers.
I spent the first week in a daze at work, arms and chest aching from paddling. I was spending the second half of the working day drinking coffee and wishing for a nap. of course, once i would got home, i had my wife to talk to, supper to eat, my daughter to play with, bad television to watch, books to read, and ten thousand other things to do before going to sleep.
I needed to establish a routine for the mornings. I had a three gallon drinking water jug, the type normally used in upright home drinking water dispensers, which served as my morning sidewalk shower. Every morning during the first week, I made a pot of coffee, filed up the three gallon water jug, loaded my truck with my surfboard, wetsuit, dress shoes, and a clothes hanger with slacks and a button down shirt, went back in the house to fill a travel cup with coffee, and left Anaheim before dawn.
Brett and I established the quota of three waves per day, borrowing the rule from Dale Webster. The qualification of what would be considered a “wave” was left open for interpretations and adjustments. Some mornings, in small surf and windy conditions, catching a ripple and getting to the feet was considered a wave towards quota. On better days, a quick stand up might not be counted, knowing that better surf was there to be had.
After seven days of surfing, I sent an email to my brother, telling him I had done a week in a row, and asking how long of a streak he'd ever put together. In the email, I told him that I was “getting to the point where I can stall, and get a second drop on my rights. my lefts still need work, though.”
When my brother responded, he said that he thought he'd done 28 days in a row. When I read it, 28 days seemed like a really long time.
The Coffee Problem
I'd always been a morning coffee drinker, in need of caffeine within an hour of awakening. However, I was not in the habit of making it at home during the week. My usual morning routine before work was quick and expedient, getting me in the door at the office at just about the time my caffeine addiction began screaming to be fed.
Transitioning to the morning surfing schedule, I began by making coffee in the mornings. This, however, took time out of the morning. If I didn't make the coffee as the very first course of action in the morning, I would have to leave late, waiting for the pot to brew. The coffee pot in our kitchen does have a programmable start feature which I used with great results, when I could remember to set up the pot for brewing the night before.
The making of coffee in a sleep deprived state at 5 am proved too much for me. By the second week of surfing, I was completely forgetting about coffee up until the moment before departure. On several occasions, I simply microwaved the leftover coffee in the pot from the day before, and added lots of sugar. Then I began refrigerating the leftover coffee in the pot when I came home – just in case I forgot to make it the next morning, which of course I would, subconsciously knowing it was safe to do so.
By the third week, I came to the revelation that anyone who would drink refrigerated and reheated leftover coffee with too much sugar to drown out the horrible taste has a serous caffeine addiction problem. I cut out the morning cup of coffee, dangerously fighting sleep on the drive to the beach with the windows rolled all the way down to keep wind in my face, and the radio at full volume to keep noise in my head. I did the heavy eyed drive for several days until my body became acclimated to mornings without coffee.
More later
-Travis
copyright 4004, Travis R. English
“We should try to go every day for a week.” Brett said.
And then he spat.
Surfers spit a lot.
It really can’t be helped. We’re told that it’s not good to drink the salt water of the ocean. Drinking salt water leads to dehydration. Human urine is actually less salty than salt water. So when the body processes salt water to create urine, water has to be added – a net loss of water to the body.
Also, salt water doesn’t taste very good. It chalks the inside of the mouth and, after enough time, chaps the lips. So, surfers generally spit a lot in an attempt to minimize the salt water in the mouths at any given time. Most conversations on the water between surfers occur between spits, like a meeting on the pitcher’s mound at a baseball game.
“Yea” I said, looking not at Brett but at the bulge of water moving towards us. “I guess We could probably do that.”
Then I spat.
Just about every surfing, ocean swimming, snorkeling, or diving introductory class or safety lesson advocates the buddy system. Brett is my buddy system. We’ve surfed together for the last seven years. More often than not, when I go surfing, he’s involved.
For a few weeks in the early part of June, Brett had been struggling to catch good waves. It wasn’t for a lack of trying. He was paddling around the surf just as well as anyone, studying the peaks, moving to position, and paddling after waves. He just wasn’t catching a whole lot that he was very proud of, like a designated hitter in a batting slump. Sometimes, he’d lose balance on the initial drop down the face. Sometimes, he’d get a good drop down the face but the wave would die before he could turn off the bottom.
That morning, in the grey and silver June gloom dawn, we paddled after a few waves with limited luck.
I caught a small wave a rode it a little way to the right, finding a clean line of sideways travel. I rode it for a while, fell off, surfaced, mounted my board, and began paddling back out to where Brett was waiting.
The first big wave of a set was coming in. I immediately realized that I was too far away to paddle up and over the wave. I grabbed the sides of my board and pushed up my upper body, preparing for the impact of the wave.
Out at the peak, I could see Brett. he was in perfect position. He took two short paddles, stood up promptly, and angled left. The last thing I saw before the wall of churning white foam hit me was Brett screaming down the face of the wave at top speed, his squinting eyes looking straight into the gleaming silver wall of water, knees bent, arms out.
There's a certain grin that a surfer gets when he's paddling back out to the take off zone after a wave like that. it makes the face look stupid and giddy like a young kid with new toy. i get it sometimes. Brett had it then. it's a great feeling. there's nothing like it.
Ever since my return from vacation from Hawaii, Brett and I had been trying to increase our number of surfing sessions per week. We’d long since realized that surfing once a week on a Saturday or Sunday morning wasn’t getting us enough water time to improve our skills at any recognizable rate. Finally, years later, we were doing something about it. We’d added surfing sessions before work a few days a week. Through the early part of June, we tried to surf at least one or two weekdays in addition to our weekend surfing.
A morning surfing session before work on a weekday is a significant effort for me, something which had never been easy. The morning has to be planned backwards from an 8 am start time at my job in Irvine. Blocks of time are subtracted from 8 am for the events of the morning: the12 mile drive in morning traffic from Huntington beach to Irvine, changing from a wetsuit to business casual, surfing, changing into a wetsuit, the 30 mile drive from Anaheim to Huntington Beach, loading the truck, eating breakfast, and a safety factor of ten minutes for padding around the house like a half sleeping, brainless, useless zombie at five in the morning. Efforts aside, I'd made all of our weekday morning sessions so far.
Back on shore, Brett and I continued our discussion.“Actually,” I told him, thinking the proposition over more thoroughly, “it might be easier to go every day. I think what really kills me is waking up at five o'clock one day and then sleeping in the next day.”
So it began. We started on a Friday, the 25th of June.
The first week of daily surfing wasn’t easy. It required a reorganization of my sleep pattern. As a rule, I’m the kind of person who likes to be awake at midnight or later. My wife likes to go to sleep earlier than this, and most of our marriage has been characterized by her going off to sleep while I stay up watching movies, bad television, or playing on the computers.
I spent the first week in a daze at work, arms and chest aching from paddling. I was spending the second half of the working day drinking coffee and wishing for a nap. of course, once i would got home, i had my wife to talk to, supper to eat, my daughter to play with, bad television to watch, books to read, and ten thousand other things to do before going to sleep.
I needed to establish a routine for the mornings. I had a three gallon drinking water jug, the type normally used in upright home drinking water dispensers, which served as my morning sidewalk shower. Every morning during the first week, I made a pot of coffee, filed up the three gallon water jug, loaded my truck with my surfboard, wetsuit, dress shoes, and a clothes hanger with slacks and a button down shirt, went back in the house to fill a travel cup with coffee, and left Anaheim before dawn.
Brett and I established the quota of three waves per day, borrowing the rule from Dale Webster. The qualification of what would be considered a “wave” was left open for interpretations and adjustments. Some mornings, in small surf and windy conditions, catching a ripple and getting to the feet was considered a wave towards quota. On better days, a quick stand up might not be counted, knowing that better surf was there to be had.
After seven days of surfing, I sent an email to my brother, telling him I had done a week in a row, and asking how long of a streak he'd ever put together. In the email, I told him that I was “getting to the point where I can stall, and get a second drop on my rights. my lefts still need work, though.”
When my brother responded, he said that he thought he'd done 28 days in a row. When I read it, 28 days seemed like a really long time.
The Coffee Problem
I'd always been a morning coffee drinker, in need of caffeine within an hour of awakening. However, I was not in the habit of making it at home during the week. My usual morning routine before work was quick and expedient, getting me in the door at the office at just about the time my caffeine addiction began screaming to be fed.
Transitioning to the morning surfing schedule, I began by making coffee in the mornings. This, however, took time out of the morning. If I didn't make the coffee as the very first course of action in the morning, I would have to leave late, waiting for the pot to brew. The coffee pot in our kitchen does have a programmable start feature which I used with great results, when I could remember to set up the pot for brewing the night before.
The making of coffee in a sleep deprived state at 5 am proved too much for me. By the second week of surfing, I was completely forgetting about coffee up until the moment before departure. On several occasions, I simply microwaved the leftover coffee in the pot from the day before, and added lots of sugar. Then I began refrigerating the leftover coffee in the pot when I came home – just in case I forgot to make it the next morning, which of course I would, subconsciously knowing it was safe to do so.
By the third week, I came to the revelation that anyone who would drink refrigerated and reheated leftover coffee with too much sugar to drown out the horrible taste has a serous caffeine addiction problem. I cut out the morning cup of coffee, dangerously fighting sleep on the drive to the beach with the windows rolled all the way down to keep wind in my face, and the radio at full volume to keep noise in my head. I did the heavy eyed drive for several days until my body became acclimated to mornings without coffee.
More later
-Travis
copyright 4004, Travis R. English
posted by travinator @ 10:37 PM
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