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***Official 2022 Community Surf Journal***

Sam_K

Sam_K

Legend (inyourownmind)
Dec 11, 2019
413
958
93
Got a lil cocky and went out to the swell magnet on a low-ish tide. I know this spot is a meat grinder but I reckon I've been feeling a bit invincible lately. That worked out well.

First wave I caught, lip closed out on me in about 2 feet of water. Oh I spent a few trouble free seconds underwater, then I went to the bottom and got dragged across a cluster of live coral. Ended up with the worst collection of reef cuts I've ever had. In the grand scheme my gouged back honestly isn't that bad, but it drew enough blood to end that sh!t session and keep me out of the water for a few days.

Humble attitude restored, cockiness ejected. For now, anyways.
 
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Aruka

Aruka

Tom Curren status
Feb 23, 2010
12,172
23,139
113
PNW
34F air, 47F water. offshore winds adding to the chill. brown swirling currents with the occasional thumping corner to be had if you were lucky.

awful board testing conditions but I've never let that stop me. the new-to-me twinsman felt fine for the .03 seconds that it spent on an open wave face. hah. but actually it did make all the drops and it felt like about the right volume for me. i got like two turns, one of which was decent.

i also got beat down worse than I have in months. took an insider and then like 6 double up closeouts in a row landed right on me. got pinned to the bottom and ragdolled a bit. i thought i was in shape but i was pretty gassed after that. surfed for another twenty minutes but the wind turned and it went from bad to worse.

my lips were numb after the walk back to the car.
 
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T

Tarab_ish

Legend (inyourownmind)
Nov 14, 2018
357
850
93
Quick lunchtime surf out front. Wind looked like it was going to blow out but then it never did. Head high and short period feeling, sometimes a little gutless but pretty peaky. Fun little day overall.

Took out a 6'8" bonzer that I haven't surfed in years. I bought it used 10 years ago, liked it at bumpy reefbreaks, but after breaking the fin off twice I had just left it for a couple years. Rather than re-glass on the fin I routed out a fin box (first time I had ever done that). I'm immediately pretty pumped on this board. I definitely need to relearn how to surf it, and to remember to put my back foot over the fin and actually drive off the fin rather than surf it off the middle. Frontside it felt at home doing fun low-angle but drivey roller-coaster combos on steep parts of the wave. Backside felt really solid off the bottom, but occasionally I'd be heading up to the lip and it would all of a sudden feel like too much board, like I didn't know where to pivot from. Definitely going to surf this board a bunch though
 
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Sam_K

Sam_K

Legend (inyourownmind)
Dec 11, 2019
413
958
93
Tarab_ish said:
Quick lunchtime surf out front. Wind looked like it was going to blow out but then it never did. Head high and short period feeling, sometimes a little gutless but pretty peaky. Fun little day overall.

Took out a 6'8" bonzer that I haven't surfed in years. I bought it used 10 years ago, liked it at bumpy reefbreaks, but after breaking the fin off twice I had just left it for a couple years. Rather than re-glass on the fin I routed out a fin box (first time I had ever done that). I'm immediately pretty pumped on this board. I definitely need to relearn how to surf it, and to remember to put my back foot over the fin and actually drive off the fin rather than surf it off the middle. Frontside it felt at home doing fun low-angle but drivey roller-coaster combos on steep parts of the wave. Backside felt really solid off the bottom, but occasionally I'd be heading up to the lip and it would all of a sudden feel like too much board, like I didn't know where to pivot from. Definitely going to surf this board a bunch though
Click to expand...
Single fins (and I'm assuming bonzers as well?) are funny like that. You try to turn from the center of the board and you just fall off. They really hammer into your head the need to turn with your back foot.

I sort of (a little bit) like single fins, but unless I'm seriously mistaken you just can't generate a lot of speed. I feel like on a single fin, you're much more at the mercy of the wave, versus being able to do something about the situation. All fine and good at Pipe (as in the latest JJF vid), but when riding average waves I can't ever imagine wanting a single fin versus a twinny.
 
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bluengreen

bluengreen

Michael Peterson status
Oct 22, 2018
1,770
4,656
113
SF x Encinitas
doc_flavonoid said:
high 30's air
high 40's water
wind at 8-10kts offshore
tide zero'ing out

punchy little tubes. did i mention it was cold af?
Click to expand...
Do you regularly travel the whole NorCal coast surfing? Sometimes I get the impression OB is your local. Other times, it sounds like you are surfing way up north.
 
T

Tarab_ish

Legend (inyourownmind)
Nov 14, 2018
357
850
93
Sam_K said:
Single fins (and I'm assuming bonzers as well?) are funny like that. You try to turn from the center of the board and you just fall off. They really hammer into your head the need to turn with your back foot.

I sort of (a little bit) like single fins, but unless I'm seriously mistaken you just can't generate a lot of speed. I feel like on a single fin, you're much more at the mercy of the wave, versus being able to do something about the situation. All fine and good at Pipe (as in the latest JJF vid), but when riding average waves I can't ever imagine wanting a single fin versus a twinny.
Click to expand...
haha yep, during that very surf I had a late drop in the stance I reflexively go to -- narrow, most weight on front foot -- and I leaned over for for a frontside bottom turn and did exactly that -- just fell over.

regarding speed: this is the only bonzer I've owned so obvious big grain of salt there, but this thing at least is less fast so much as drivey. It feels related to a single fin but it's its own thing. Like for me the difference between quads and thrusters is that with quads I can get a quick squirt of speed with a half-pump, but with thrusters I get the speed coming out of a turn. Bonzers (or this one at least) is further past thrusters on that continuum. When I surfed it previously in solid waves I could take off deep and get projection out of bottom turns that felt great but if I were trying to line up a barrel and needed a quick pump because I read it wrong it wouldn't be there.

It definitely needs some power to work, but you can push against that power (though I need to figure out how to do that again)
 
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Aruka

Aruka

Tom Curren status
Feb 23, 2010
12,172
23,139
113
PNW
looked fun from above but the outgoing swing had a lot more rip, backwash and current going on than I'd expected.

the twinsman felt fine on the couple lefts and rights that didn't closeout or get wonked out by the backwash. maybe a bigger board would have been nice for moving around the lineup but I don't know if it would have mattered. it wasn't that big or anything, just shifty.

overall between the absolutely frigid water, rapidly changing and tricky conditions, it was super frustrating. forgot how bad the surf here can be, even when there is a nice swell and no wind.
 
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Aruka

Aruka

Tom Curren status
Feb 23, 2010
12,172
23,139
113
PNW
evening redemption session of sorts. glassy left reef waves that improved as the tide and swell filled in. kind of a wait for the sets but pretty decent when they came and i had it all to myself. water temp 45F. crazy cold.

rode the twinsman. took a few waves to click with it but by the end of the session i was feeling pretty good about it. JS fins might be a little big, gonna try a smaller template next session.

might be a window tomorrow before the south winds come in full force. after that the rains cometh.
 
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K

Kento

Duke status
Jan 11, 2002
69,029
21,459
113
The Bar
Cold this morning and I found while suiting up that my non-big toes did not go into one of my booties. Ah that's because my daughter threw a large rock into one of them that was wedged in there nicely - she thought my discovery of her prank was hilarious. Long period swell, about 3' at 22 seconds. Waves looked kinda crappy, backing off a lot and then either not breaking or dumping into a closeout, which only got worse as tide dropped. I got a few OK ones at first, including one of the better lefts the held up in a sorta-barrel that I slotted myself into cleanly until the whole thing closed out into a big burger.

The waves kind of shut down after that as quickly dropping tide did not help things out at all. Another regular and I were chuckling at how dreadful/frustrated it started getting and that, yeah, it was time to head in. Got a right that held up a bit but was kind of a gutless burger that I worked in as far as I could and then proned in to the sand; the look back over the shoulder yielded no regrets.
 
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oeste858

oeste858

Phil Edwards status
Sep 11, 2017
7,024
17,498
113
San Diego, CA
Frothing to see a HH set with only 10 guys out at the main reef on the dropping tide. Couldn't get changed and out there fast enough on SBD's 5'11 stumps twinny. Boar feels great under arm- you just know it's gonna go. Got a couple nice long CH rights to get a feel for it. Did everything I wanted it to. I'd say it surfs pretty twinsmanesque, tho maybe a touch looser / more "twinny".
Long lull as the crowd doubled, then tripled. Somehow the waves got funky and started getting softer and backing off- even though the wind stayed down and the tide was dropping. Weird. Got a couple more insiders and called it a day. Hoping for better tomorrow.
 
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