10-30-05 At the Cliffs
I met Steve and Brett at the Cliffs for a Sunday morning session the day before Halloween. Steve had called me midway through the morning.
"Hey, it looks good. It's three foot, glassy, and pretty good shape."
"Should we bring the longboards?"
"Nah. Looks shortboard-able if you want."
After the dismal summer of no surf and a wholly unsatisfying Autumn where I worked enough hours to kill a lesser man, it felt good to be in the water. My brother was in town from Hawaii. I let him take the 7'6" and took the 6'8" for myself.
"Are you sure?" he asked. The waves looked a bit mushy, not exactly ideal short board conditions.
"Yea. Take it." I said. "It's not like I'm going to be catching a bunch of waves anyway." I was out of shape, out of practice, short on confidence, and just glad to be at the beach.
The session went a whole lot better than I could have hoped for. I waited inside a lot, and only took off on a few waves. Mostly, I got short rides on late take offs. My shortboard take off was lacking in smoothness, and I wound up on my knees a few times. That seems to be a defensive cop out for me. When I paddle into a wave, and get the idea that I'm too late, I botch the stand up and find myself kneeboarding. Of course, on a shortboard, once you are on your knees, there's no recovering. So, I try to make the best of it. I carve what I can and try to get some turns in.
"Man," I told Brett. "I could have been a kneeboarding champion."
Visualization, my brother told me once, is the key to the shortboard take off. "Visualize yourself popping up quickly and into perfect position." I ran the idea through my head a bunch of times. It worked.
The wave of the morning was ridden by an bellied and older guy on a big board. He caught one of the set waves on the outside, found a clean line to the left and dipped his head into the curl for a solid two seconds and recovered to two more short turns before dismounting. He fell into the water only a few feet from me, paddling out. I'd gotten a perfect view of the whole ride, and congratulated him accordingly.
After my last ride, a reversion to kneeboarding, I came across Brett on the inside.
"I gotta get out soon." he said. "My parking meter is almost up."
I gasped. "Ah... fuck." I had forgot to put quarters in the parking meter. Normally, I surf in the wee hours before eight a.m. when the meters start ticking. I was so used to leaving by eight, that I had completely spaced out on putting money in the meter. I got out. Brett followed.
No ticket. Lucky, I guess.
I got dressed. Brett and I walked up to the railing at the top of the cliffs and watched the surf below. The dropping tide was improving the quality of every set. I saw my brother catch a nice looking right. It was good to be at the beach. We stood in the cool morning, talking work and family and surfing.
"It looks like I'll be in town until Christmas." Brett told me. He'd been doing week long business trips consistently through the summer and Autumn. "We should try to get back into surfing during the week."
"Absolutely."
I need to be surfing more. It's such a satisfying balance to the daily grind. I noticed the other day that I hadn't posted to the surf blog in over a month. Probably, because I'd only been surfing two or three times in that same month.
When Steve got out of the water, he joined in the pledge, committing to try to meet us on Thursdays into the winter. I know my buddy Chase can usually go on Wednesdays, given a phone call.
Just talking about getting back into daily surfing rose my spirits. I'd been in the working man's attitude funk lately. You sell you labor, your time, your beliefs, your haircut and matched shirt and tie, your mind, and your obedience, for money to buy shit that you need to keep up the shit that you have and more shit that you don't need or you don't know why you need except that you need to buy shit. You work to buy shit. You buy shit to get to work. You sit in cars. You sit in buildings. You sit in traffic and listen to commercials for more shit. You sit in meetings and think hard about the best way to make other people more money to buy shit. You look at computer screens. You look at faxes. You read emails from rude people and you answer nicely. Yes, master. I can do that for you sir. Yes, sir. No problem, sir. You're absolutely right, sir, it's better to pollute the ocean than for the company to make less money. You stress. You get sick. You come home tired, and listen to how you don't spend enough time at home in the same sentence as the explanation for why you need more shit. Yes, ma'am. No problem ma'am. Sometimes, it's easy. It's just life and I can do it without complaining. But, sometimes, I start to see through it. The emperor really doesn't have any clothes.
Soon, the water will be cold. I'll be bringing booties, and might even try to buy another one of those stupid looking caps. The north swells will start to wrap around LA and push the right breaking waves into Huntington. The pelicans be gone. Daylight savings time is over. Dawn patrol is back to 6:00 a.m. and it should be at least a half a month before the rains get going. In San Diego, the reefs at Sunset Cliffs will start to get waves. Tomorrow in Huntington, the forecast is for 2 - 3 foot swell from the north, with offshore winds predicted overnight and into the morning.
I'll be there. And, I can't imagine why I wouldn't be there Tuesday....
Travis R. English
"Hey, it looks good. It's three foot, glassy, and pretty good shape."
"Should we bring the longboards?"
"Nah. Looks shortboard-able if you want."
After the dismal summer of no surf and a wholly unsatisfying Autumn where I worked enough hours to kill a lesser man, it felt good to be in the water. My brother was in town from Hawaii. I let him take the 7'6" and took the 6'8" for myself.
"Are you sure?" he asked. The waves looked a bit mushy, not exactly ideal short board conditions.
"Yea. Take it." I said. "It's not like I'm going to be catching a bunch of waves anyway." I was out of shape, out of practice, short on confidence, and just glad to be at the beach.
The session went a whole lot better than I could have hoped for. I waited inside a lot, and only took off on a few waves. Mostly, I got short rides on late take offs. My shortboard take off was lacking in smoothness, and I wound up on my knees a few times. That seems to be a defensive cop out for me. When I paddle into a wave, and get the idea that I'm too late, I botch the stand up and find myself kneeboarding. Of course, on a shortboard, once you are on your knees, there's no recovering. So, I try to make the best of it. I carve what I can and try to get some turns in.
"Man," I told Brett. "I could have been a kneeboarding champion."
Visualization, my brother told me once, is the key to the shortboard take off. "Visualize yourself popping up quickly and into perfect position." I ran the idea through my head a bunch of times. It worked.
The wave of the morning was ridden by an bellied and older guy on a big board. He caught one of the set waves on the outside, found a clean line to the left and dipped his head into the curl for a solid two seconds and recovered to two more short turns before dismounting. He fell into the water only a few feet from me, paddling out. I'd gotten a perfect view of the whole ride, and congratulated him accordingly.
After my last ride, a reversion to kneeboarding, I came across Brett on the inside.
"I gotta get out soon." he said. "My parking meter is almost up."
I gasped. "Ah... fuck." I had forgot to put quarters in the parking meter. Normally, I surf in the wee hours before eight a.m. when the meters start ticking. I was so used to leaving by eight, that I had completely spaced out on putting money in the meter. I got out. Brett followed.
No ticket. Lucky, I guess.
I got dressed. Brett and I walked up to the railing at the top of the cliffs and watched the surf below. The dropping tide was improving the quality of every set. I saw my brother catch a nice looking right. It was good to be at the beach. We stood in the cool morning, talking work and family and surfing.
"It looks like I'll be in town until Christmas." Brett told me. He'd been doing week long business trips consistently through the summer and Autumn. "We should try to get back into surfing during the week."
"Absolutely."
I need to be surfing more. It's such a satisfying balance to the daily grind. I noticed the other day that I hadn't posted to the surf blog in over a month. Probably, because I'd only been surfing two or three times in that same month.
When Steve got out of the water, he joined in the pledge, committing to try to meet us on Thursdays into the winter. I know my buddy Chase can usually go on Wednesdays, given a phone call.
Just talking about getting back into daily surfing rose my spirits. I'd been in the working man's attitude funk lately. You sell you labor, your time, your beliefs, your haircut and matched shirt and tie, your mind, and your obedience, for money to buy shit that you need to keep up the shit that you have and more shit that you don't need or you don't know why you need except that you need to buy shit. You work to buy shit. You buy shit to get to work. You sit in cars. You sit in buildings. You sit in traffic and listen to commercials for more shit. You sit in meetings and think hard about the best way to make other people more money to buy shit. You look at computer screens. You look at faxes. You read emails from rude people and you answer nicely. Yes, master. I can do that for you sir. Yes, sir. No problem, sir. You're absolutely right, sir, it's better to pollute the ocean than for the company to make less money. You stress. You get sick. You come home tired, and listen to how you don't spend enough time at home in the same sentence as the explanation for why you need more shit. Yes, ma'am. No problem ma'am. Sometimes, it's easy. It's just life and I can do it without complaining. But, sometimes, I start to see through it. The emperor really doesn't have any clothes.
Soon, the water will be cold. I'll be bringing booties, and might even try to buy another one of those stupid looking caps. The north swells will start to wrap around LA and push the right breaking waves into Huntington. The pelicans be gone. Daylight savings time is over. Dawn patrol is back to 6:00 a.m. and it should be at least a half a month before the rains get going. In San Diego, the reefs at Sunset Cliffs will start to get waves. Tomorrow in Huntington, the forecast is for 2 - 3 foot swell from the north, with offshore winds predicted overnight and into the morning.
I'll be there. And, I can't imagine why I wouldn't be there Tuesday....
Travis R. English
posted by travinator @ 9:20 PM
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