Kinda big Wednesday 6-21-2006

Surfing on a Wednesday, it’s been a while.

I met Chase and Joe at Bolsa Chica this morning at 6:00 in the morning. My though was to stay north and out of the way of the brunt of the swell which had already made the papers. I had deliberately avoided the first day of the thing, hoping to let it loose some energy before braving it.

My friend, Chris was talking about paddling out at the river mouth in the overhead surf when I saw him and Joe on Monday night. There were sure to be quick take offs, fast turns and brutal walls of water.

“Doesn’t sound fun” Joe replied. “ I need a bit more time to stand up.” He smiled. “And when I turn, I ain’t so fast. I put on the turn signal first, you know.”

We laughed. “That sounds more like it, man.” I told him. “I think I’ll be going with you.”

So, we planned to meet at Bolsa Chica.

I got there early, about 10 till 6. The waves were small, textured by the wind, inconsistent, and the sets didn’t seem to be coming in at all. Chase pulled up in the his big white delivery van, and I waved him south.

“Nothing here.” I said, and recommended we try the cliffs.

Chase drove of to the cliffs. I stayed back to wait for Joe a few minutes. When Joe pulled in, I waved him to turn right back around.

We stopped at the upper parking lot first, but moved on. I got to the south parking lot at 15 minutes past 6, right as a monster of a set rolled in. I could see a big left shoulder from the road.

By that time, I was rushed. I typically need to be in the water before 6:15 to make my time count. I called the office from my cell phone.

“This is Travis. I’m running a little bit late this morning. Can you sign me out until 9?”

I hung up. I hoped the secretary wouldn’t pay attention to the time code on the message. It might be a give away to get a message at 6:15 in the morning saying that someone is running late to be at work by 8. But, in a sense, it was true. I was late getting into the water, and I wasn’t about to limit my time. So, I was going to be late.

On the shore, we walked south a bit looking for a lull. We crossed paths with a guy who was getting out, and asked him about the current. He said that he’d started at 17th street, and drifted to where we were in about an hour. 17th street was just over a mile away. So, the drift was going to be bad.

There were nice lulls between the sets to get out to the line up. The set waves were healthy and strong. Most of them looked like walled close outs, but here and there were shoulders and peaks among them. The “tweeners” (in-between set waves) were pretty good.

There was one girl in the water who seemed to be keeping good time with the current. She must have triangulated a spot on the shore, and was constantly paddling to the south. I followed her all morning. She was easy to spot, so when I noticed she was too far south of me, I put some paddling in. I fought the current for the whole hour, something I knew my arms would not forgive me for.

My first wave was too big and too late. I wound up on my knees, practicing my longboard kneeboarding technique. I actually made a decent turn, in an attempt to avoid killing a high school age kid on a shortboard.

My first real wave was a good drop into a fun left. In fact, all my waves were lefts. Such is life in Huntington in the summer.

“that’s one thing I know about this beach.” I told Joe while paddling south. “if ever you think you are lining up on a nice right…. you are mistaken.”

I had a really good wipe out also, trying to stand up and instead flipping forward to smack my face into the water before getting flipped about by the churning foam. I ended up on the inside, where two more set waves crashed into me before I could gain my board and paddle back out to the line up.

“Don’t worry” Joe said, paddling south and laughing. “nobody saw it!”

After my second good ride, my arms started to give. At one point, the girl I’d been following was missing. “Great.” I told Chase. “ I lost my marker. I guess I just paddle indefinably now.”

I also had the song from Pirates of the Carribean stuck in my head for some reason, probably having seen an ad for the upcoming movie. So, I kept humming to myself about "yo, ho, ho, ho, a pirate's life for me."

I started looking for a wave to take in, joking: “I’m going straight!”

“What do you mean?” Joe asked.

“That’s from when I started surfing. When somebody would ask: are you going right? Are you going left? The answer is ‘fuck that. I’m going straight.’”

I found my wave, and went left, turned off the bottom and headed up the face but saw that it was going to crash on me, so I turned back down and went straight.