*** Official 2020 Community Surf Journal ***

[oeste858]

a tale of 2 sessions. Real high tide so checked a few of the reefs. Settled on one I rarely surf anymore as its fickle, shallow and a pain getting in/out on the reef. Looked like some fun CH lefts. But there was almost 15 dudes in a 10 yard takeoff zone. Lots of eggy attitude and dropins and no rights possible today. I didn't feel like hassling, got annoyed and bailed after 2 quick inside waves. Ugh.
Threw board in car, didn't even change- just drove over to another spot dripping wet, kook of the day style. Giving up any cred and all dignity, I even had the changing poncho on over the wet fullsuit so the seat wouldn't get soaked. LOL.
Reef #2 looked alright so I bolted out there. Passed a buddy who was coming in and he said it was fun- no one out! Well bros, I had it to myself for a glorious 15 min! Imagine that after the circus the past few months. Another local kid joined me and we took turns for 30 min before a few more guys came. It was real nice. Blew off work stuff and stayed out for over an hour. Beautiful autumn day, crisp water, and waves were fun: waist to chest high, soft but workable. Not too much open face, so really had to fade on every bottom turn to get enough shoulder for a carve or topturn. Got several long rights that let me get in a few turns all the way inside. Same board as yesterday, the Tyler Warren personal zipper fish, and it felt fantastic, really lit up any time I had room to carve or wraparound. I've ridden so many twin and quad fish and I love all the little differences, but this is the first thruster one and it's a good tweak. Stocked. I feel like I'm gonna want a custom from TW. Great day surfing. My shoulders are sore.

 

[silentbutdeadly]

way to go pancho oeste!

 

[enframed]

paddling around with garden clippers at your kelpy spot? Guys at a notorious unfriendly spot do that to clear the surf line.

Guys in Santa Cruz would never do that at certain spots.

 

[Aruka]

Aruka, you ever consider paddling around with garden clippers at your kelpy spot? Guys at a notorious unfriendly spot do that to clear the surf line. Otherwise, I guess you got to take the second wave of the set, let the first one bury those bulbs. BTW how thick are those? 3/4"? board busters!

they are like floating baseball bats. big heads. they can knock a fin out or damage your board if you hit one at speed. the take off zone is usually pretty clear but there are a few problem patches down the line. never thought about clippers. they can be snapped in half pretty easily if there is enough slack to get both hands around them a couple feet from the top.

same spot today. smaller, like waist to chest and long waits but really nice and lined up when they came. no one was there when I arrived but it got crowded within an hour or so. took out the lightbender and had a great session. been too long since I rode this board or any twin fin really. such a high performance and fun fish. I didn't surf for too long once the crowd got thick. I didn't want to stay out and get frustrated by the weekend warriors so I waited for a good one and left with my high stock levels.

the wind was bone chilling and I swear the water dropped a few degrees since yesterday.

 

[Iceman]

Found a beachbreak peak with some fun lefts. It was on the inconsistent side - plenty of windswell in the water, but suspect the better waves were from some secondary south swell. Mostly chest-shoulder+ with the occasional overhead set, but the bigger ones were mostly closeouts. I was all by myself and thought I was getting 000'd a couple times, but the few people drifted through the lineup and further south never to return. One dude finally joined me on the peak and stuck around until his friends convinced him to paddle to the peak up the beach. Fun carvable waves on the 5'5'' as per the usual. Last wave was a sick one, opened up with some speed off the bottom into a layback, and jammed a couple more before it closed out. Beautiful midday glassy conditions.

 

[Kento]

STOCKED STOCKED STOCKED!

Went through hell moving up north but finally got settled in to the new place up north in Santa Rosa, job is going smoothly considering Covid restriction headaches. Kids are in school and enjoying it so far; much more art-based, which I dig. And trying to sell the old house too on top of everything else so been stressful.

This weekend was first reprieve in many. And coincided with clean conditions. Well, clean and cold. 30 degrees this morning with 53 degree water. 4/3 and booties would have to do and they did! Toasty although had to get used to extra rubber. Surfed an exposed beachbreak which sucked in the windswell nicely. Glad I surfed my thicker 6'6" as a lot of paddling going on; even though only about shoulder high to a couple feet overhead, breaking way out the back and waves had PUSH. Something you don't see down south (a couple spots excepted). Blew my first wave as I tried to short-circuit FS bottom turn, dug rail. Oops. But not seen by too many thankfully. Lots of redemption after that, though.

One of my coworkers, who also surfs, spotted me in water (he said it was easy as I was only guy not wearing a hood ), proceeded to introduce me to other locals in the water, which was cool. But he also told everyone that I was newly up here from Orange County. Ugh. So much for rolling incognito. All good, good vibes all around.

Waves were shifty and a little tricky as windswell would disappear or jack out of nowhere but I got a slew of good waves. And as tide dropped, it got better. The shift was signified by a solid right I got that went for 100+ yards. Was in flow of wave, reentry, roundhouse, and out the back, but trippiest thing was that I wasn't lagging on the wave at all but it had so much push, I covered a ton of ground in a short amount of time. Was like where I grew up surfing but on steroids.

For an inaugural sesh up here, man, I can tell I am going to love it up here. So stocked I can't even believe it. What a great way to pop that cherry.

 

[jkb]

STOCKED STOCKED STOCKED!

Went through hell moving up north but finally got settled in to the new place up north in Santa Rosa, job is going smoothly considering Covid restriction headaches. Kids are in school and enjoying it so far; much more art-based, which I dig. And trying to sell the old house too on top of everything else so been stressful.

This weekend was first reprieve in many. And coincided with clean conditions. Well, clean and cold. 30 degrees this morning with 53 degree water. 4/3 and booties would have to do and they did! Toasty although had to get used to extra rubber. Surfed an exposed beachbreak which sucked in the windswell nicely. Glad I surfed my thicker 6'6" as a lot of paddling going on; even though only about shoulder high to a couple feet overhead, breaking way out the back and waves had PUSH. Something you don't see down south (a couple spots excepted). Blew my first wave as I tried to short-circuit FS bottom turn, dug rail. Oops. But not seen by too many thankfully. Lots of redemption after that, though.

One of my coworkers, who also surfs, spotted me in water (he said it was easy as I was only guy not wearing a hood ), proceeded to introduce me to other locals in the water, which was cool. But he also told everyone that I was newly up here from Orange County. Ugh. So much for rolling incognito. All good, good vibes all around.

Waves were shifty and a little tricky as windswell would disappear or jack out of nowhere but I got a slew of good waves. And as tide dropped, it got better. The shift was signified by a solid right I got that went for 100+ yards. Was in flow of wave, reentry, roundhouse, and out the back, but trippiest thing was that I wasn't lagging on the wave at all but it had so much push, I covered a ton of ground in a short amount of time. Was like where I grew up surfing but on steroids.

For an inaugural sesh up here, man, I can tell I am going to love it up here. So stocked I can't even believe it. What a great way to pop that cherry.

Yew!

Stocked for you Kento! Great way to start a new chapter.

 

[Kento]

Yew!

Stocked for you Kento! Great way to start a new chapter.

Thanks! Such a shift in so many different ways and I couldn't be more stocked!

 

[Senor Sopa]

Thanks! Such a shift in so many different ways and I couldn't be more stocked!

Yep, great start Kento! Good to hear you found some rubber. It's gonna help meeting loc's on the first session. And you now have a "buddy" to go with. I somehow have a feeling that your quantity of session will be down, but quality will be up.

Anyways, today was smaller. 10:30, looked at some cams, one nearby spot was complete fog, the other nearer spot was clear, but you could see the bank out there. I thought it's now or never. In the five minutes it took to get there, fog came in. I thought, fork it, this place is close to shore, don't matter. By the time I got suit and booties on, fog was lifting. Paddled out to Crack's at jibbly high, two others out, guy and girl on giant foamer, one other paddled out at same time as me. They were low skilled, not paddle worthy. Caught a handful of runners. Then decided that Boulders looked a bit better, kinda 000'd all three of the others. I guess because I commented on N. Salas review, I decided to pretend I was surfing for review edits. Finally caught one, despite the weakness, I just balled up and forced the lip action to occur, great lack of spray. The wave continued on and I did another at the closeout end. The kind where you go light on feet and hope the wimpy wave can bring you back down and you can do a clowning claim.

Fog never came back in, but looked like it was lurking down at B.R's. zone.

Cool/Strange chit:
Pre session: Two large ladies, beach walking in wetsuits with masks on.
Post session: Two old dudes, one had full suit, taking beach walk.

This might have to go onto the worst fashion thread.

 

[Brsnstein]

Surprisingly fun this morning on the tide push. Waste to chest with occasional bigger sets and peaky. Quite a few were good for multiple turns and there were even some barrel opportunities. Had a chance to backdoor one, but had to abort when some dipsh!t on funboard on the other side of the peak decided he was going to really commit to his face-plant. Rode the blindspot with Jordy mediums again and am really digging this setup

 

[bluengreen]

Overhead, clean, peaky, and a little mushy. As crowded as Trestles up and down the beach, but most were lazy weekend warriors content with bobbing so I got plenty of waves on the 6'8 Blackbird. Mostly just a bottom/ top turn combo, but as the tide got low enough, I got one through to the inside bar. Nice to ride some clean waves after a couple sessions of mostly getting worked.

 

[silentbutdeadly]

2020:

 

[Kento]

Dawn patrolled same general area as yesterday. Same cold conditions but this time changing into a semi-wet wetsuit and wet booties (need to figure out a better drying system) so couldn't get in water fast enough. Water felt quite balmy in comparison to air. Surfed with same people as yesterday, cool to get to know local crew a little bit off the bat. I dig that it's a pretty chill vibe and not aggro at all. Kind of the way surfing should be. Especially at a spot with a gigantic playing field.

Waves weren't as good as yesterday though. A little smaller and quite a bit lumpier. The outside was breaking but flattening out before it could link to inside but there a couple that connected, mostly into a shallow, chaotic shorebreak. Pulled into a closeout barrel and got slammed into bottom pretty hard. But no major harm done. After several outside waves that flattened out before reforming, gave up and surfed the inside. Really tricky as no rhyme or reason to the waves and a lot had a double-up in a weird spot but last one I got was a right that let me go down the line a bit; tried to set up the barrel but wave didn't quite cooperate on that front but I didn't get crunched by it so that was a bonus. Fun morning overall.

 

[gbg]

Get a small fan to dry your suit and boots. No more rank boot smell.

 

[Oceanslide]

Few fun ones on Manta yesterday before it seemed to turn off.
Small and weak today on the Slot NR but the fog kept the lineup mostly empty and caught tons of little and clean waves in an hour.

 

[Aruka]

Secret reef spot basically fired today. A welcome treat after yesterday's garbage. Light offshores grooming glacial blue peaks. A bit shifty but fairly consistent so we stayed busy. Just myself and my good friend. Mostly head high with occasional bigger sets. The air and water were both freezing and I felt like my feet never quite warmed up during my entire session. Botched my first couple turns but eventually got it together. 5-11 SMTH felt pretty good although I probably would have rather been on a normal shorty. It looked smaller from the cliff. Still, the board didn't let me down. Got some fun running right tubes and some turns. Finally lucked into a gem of a right that peaked up way outside and gave me a nice entry into a long slabby section. Didn't think I was going to make it but held on and somehow found the exit. One of my better tubes in a while. Tomorrow supposed to be YUGE. Probably be lots of closeouts.

 

[Kento]

Get a small fan to dry your suit and boots. No more rank boot smell.

Thanks. Suit is generally OK but boots are pervasively slow to dry. That might help hopefully.

 

[MathDebater]

Blasted a fin box out of my banjo after a handful of small but fun waves Saturday. I've surfed this shallow spot for a number of years without a problem so it was bound to happen, but still bummed me out.

 

[Mr Doof]

Saturday dawn patrol with Friend #1.

4th one out as far as I could tell.

15 minutes later - "Where did everyone come from?"

Competition built up as session went along and fighting longshore drift made me get out, walk down the beach, then paddle back out for the long drift so I could save muscles for waves not current fighting, though of course I still did that to a degree.

The old 4/3 I have has too many failing seams, so I think that is the last time I wear it for the season.

Best waves all had drop ins, but they got out the way before it made too much difference.

Worst wave was the one that spun me underwater such that the fin tip jabbed me in the elbow in the ulnar nerve (funny bone) and just crippled my right arms for about 30 seconds. Rest of the session was somewhat marred, but still managed another hour of waves. [When I got home, noticed a swollen elbow and cut. And now two morning later, swelling is going down, soreness and pain at the impact point.]

Sunday was meh in comparison.

 

[silentbutdeadly]

gentlemens hour surf with my son and I ended up having more fun today than the last few sessions. super easy to pick off waves from the inexperienced crowd.