Day 39 - An hour late and a wave short

Sessions 43 and 44

Session 1 of Day 39

Things cleaned up over night and the swell actually got a lot better. It seemed like it was all windswell, but this one was generated from a greater distance than the previous day, which combined with the offshore wind resulted in some very good shape. The tide was on the rise, but the sets were large enough to break outside with some consistency resulting in some of those moments... where we watched in awe at the shape of the waves up and down the beach. We should have been on it earlier and we knew it, the tide would shut it down, and it did. Jay was amped, frothing for waves. I can recognize the boy's style from a mile away, that's what happens when you surf with somebody a lot, you only need a silhouette. I saw a guy drop in, he looked just like Jason, but he was spazzing out like a typical portorior* so I only half paid attention as he tried an angry turn on the dying wave. It was Jay, wrought with too much emotion he had lost all connection to style as the angst that had built up in him from days of sub-par surf and injury had gotten the best of him. He got a couple in typical style after I let him know that the suspect wave did not go unnoticed. I had a couple of really fun waves. My last one was one of the most memorable of the session. I took off on the inside, dropping into a well formed a-frame peak, with one pump I had quite a bit of velocity, there was only one problem... deer-in-the-headlights standing in stomach deep water. I decided to risk his safety for my satisfaction. I was headed left, he was square in my path, requiring a deep bottom turn in order to lay my board up on the lip for an extended off-the-lip/floater carrying me about 10 feet (just passed the bystander), I held on as long as possible and then released from the lip. It was a gamble that paid off, to my surprise not only did I make it passed him, but I pulled it. That was a fitting way to come in and it left a good taste in my mouth, which was probably responsible for the motivation to get moving for a second session.

Session 2 of Day 39:

We got out there and it showed promise, but again we were let down as the waves really had trouble breaking on the outer bar. The increasing onshore winds played havoc with the weak wind swell causing it to break too early, resulting in mostly impotent sections. None-the-less, surfing every day had us case-hardened, we did not even think about it, we were hunting for gems out there. Yeah, we had some turns, I had a near reverse and Jay had a couple good turns on the inside. So we closed the session trying to shag a few in close to the shore and we did. Jay finished it off with a very nice frontside snap on one of these insiders, he had finally rained in the emotion, applying restraint to not overpower the waist high junk, he got on top of this last turn without a bobble. I guess he still has a patent on that frontside snap. Ok the session was messy, but the broken record applies here, it was still fun.

*Portorior - Your typical Los Angeles weekend warrior who likes to go to El Porto a couple of times per month and tries way too hard to rip, resulting in an inept, ugly exhibition of head-snaps and exaggerated movements that do not actually coincide with any functional surfing move. Studies have shown that these guys typically talk about surfing 4.6 times more than the average dedicated surfer.