Warm water, bare feet, sloppy joes

We’re back in business people. The beaches are open, as I mentioned in my previous post and it’s ON.

The two months the beaches were closed, I swore I’d be out there as often as possible and I haven’t let myself down. In FACT, June 1, I started a challenge to yoga, meditate and paddle every day. I haven’t been 3/3 every day but I’ve been nearly there and it feels really good.

Enforcing this challenge for surfing has been the strangest and most surprising part. I’m going to be honest—sometimes it makes going surfing feel like a chore. That’s typically just the feeling while I’m driving up to the beach, and by the time I’m paddling out, that feeling has dissipated but it’s interesting. My theory is that so much of our lives feel controlled or forced in some way and surfing, for me, has always been a portal to absolute freedom, that adding it to the list of “things I have to do today” robs it of some glitter. Having it constrained in some more rigid way has felt awkward and strange to me and, quite frankly, not great but the moment I’m in the water, that grouchiness is gone.

The big win this week was jumping into what felt like bath water yesterday. I don’t know which generous water god sent currents of warm aqueous bliss up the New England coast but I bow to you and light a candle in your honor. I jumped in gloveless for the second time this year and couldn’t even believe it. I quite literally stayed out longer because it was so goddamn warm and just putting my hands into the water that typically numbs them within seconds was amazing. Today was a bit colder but I said fuck it, and went booty-less anyway. It was cold at first but I was used to it after five minutes or so.

The waves once more were chunky as they’ve been this wk, with short periods, but they had some power to them. Some great sets rolled through that I just wasn’t in the right spot for but I had a sweet drop on one wave that left me marveling at the distance between where I was a couple years ago and now. There’s just this confidence and faith that I’ve got this when I’m standing at the top of a wave that could only come with so much time on the water.

Happy place. (C) Sara Dyer

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.