BIG.WAVES.

South of BH (LS). Yesterday the waves were huge. I’m going to say overhead-double overhead. Not every wave, but enough.

I could hardly paddle out and I 100% threw up in my mouth from how hard the paddle was for me. That has definitely never happened to me.

The first ride I got was so sweet. I had this sick drop and I was so amped that I made that wave. It made me feel so good. I was surprised I went on it, and so were the dudes around me. I had a couple other sweet waves but I spent a lot of time too far outside. I was just charging yesterday. I was totally scared. I had the jitters. I haven’t felt that way in a while. I took a left like a total kook and by the grace of god the ocean spared me. It was not pretty but I just kept whispering thankyouthankyouthankyou.

I’m slightly concerned about my left shoulder but I asked a friend for some advice and now I’m rolling out my shoulder and it actually feels a little better. The theory is it’s just overuse.

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South of R’s (LS). I went out today but it wasn’t my scene. Someone else coulda done something magical I’m sure but I was having a really hard time reading the waves and most of them I got a bad feeling on. it was so disorganized. They were breaking all over the place and drawing like curtains.

I slept through DP today and I vowed never again. 5am wake up calls from now on.

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I really want to understand why the shape of the waves at SS is the way it is. It’s so dramatic. It’s like a little kid drew a wave, or like the cap part of a sombrero. Not all the time but when it’s firing. It was so much cleaner at SS then LS today.
FOLLOW UP TO THIS POST 10.26.19: I asked my friend whose surfed here a bunch this question last night. It relates to the swell direction—under certain conditions, the swell wraps around, reverbs off the rocks on the left if you’re looking out from shore and forms “teepees”. The weird-shaped waves. Ahah! This explains why it’s not all the time it’s doing this…depends on which wave the waves are coming.

I am beat.

I found my spot to skate—the high school. It’s perfect. Some real gentle declines too.

Everything's Always Wet but Life Is Good

8th and 10th. Peter Matthiesen said it in The Snow Leopard. Something about — in order to know, you really have to go.

There are days that just look like nothing on the cams and when you first get there, they seem like nothing.

And then some sets roll in, or you ride one, and you realize there’s some power to it.

And you look around and no one else is out there save the gulls and the monarchs and you think, “Suckers.” In the kindest way, of course.

Today was such a day. Although to their credit, there were maybe four other surfers out.

I had a couple really sweet, surprisingly long rides given that the tide was rolling in fast. I got out at 4:15—high tide is set for 7:52pm and by 5:30pm we were nearly getting some reverb and losing sight of the boulders that sit by the stairs.

It started raining when I got out there but no lightning. It felt like a day for gloves and booties when I first got out there, which was a little sad.

Backside is coming more natural, and I tried to gas it with my front leg a bit and it didn’t go terribly. Not having touched the water for just two days felt so weird. I’ve basically jumped in every day I’ve been here this summer—I didn’t Sunday b/c I lost the light coming home from Melissa’s lake house and didn’t yesterday b/c I was a wave snob for once.

I can’t be a wave snob.

It’s terrible.

This situation on my ankle from the skateboard fall is not healing. It sits right where my leash pulls if I lose my board and just keeps ripping it open. For the next week I’m going to practice better control of my board. I’ve known for a while I need to be better about not losing it on the wave and now I have added incentive b/c my ankle looks like hell.

I got to do laundry today and meet Ozcat. He likes to sit in the tub all day and especially likes when the water hits his head. He’s gray and wears a bowtie.

Even though everything is always wet—my wetsuit, my bathing suits, whatever I put on the porch from morning dew, life is really, really good.

“Success isn’t about how your life looks to others. It’s about how it feels to you.”

— Michelle Obama