Well, that sure was a surprising morning... The reports sounded pretty lame. But, I would have to drive and check it myself, or risk hearing later how I had missed it again.
At the pier, it looked listless, the water grey-brown, the wind light southwest with cloudy skies. But, I knew I would have to check Matanzas. There was still hope.
As I passed the north parking lot, I could see Bob getting ready to go out, but I kept going. I wanted to see what the south side looked like. Eh, it was weak, empty, gutless and small. Back in the parking lot, Bob was taking his board out of the car, admitting he hadn't even looked yet. We got ready, armed with our eternal hope.
Once down on the beach, we could see there were definitely waves. A couple guys were already on it. One of them Bob knew, a guy named Ben, and he was ripping the little waves! I was happy that it was rideable, for sure, but wished I had brought my fish. It ended up getting better and better, and we said more than once that we were stoked to have paddled out. Dolphins were swimming all around. The crowd grew, but everyone was cool. One guy was so funny. He had the heaviest southern drawl, and was stoked. He shared a wave with me, and we talked about how much fun it was to be out there. He was a heavyset guy, but it didn't stop him from snagging a ton of waves. I was stoked, too. Being on the 6'10" it was easy to catch the peelers and just run.
At one point, Brian said to me, "You look beautiful on that board!" That made my day, for sure. He is such a nice guy. Bob had been giving me grief earlier, saying I should just get rid of that board, and replace it with my fish. Bob has this thing against riding anything but a short board, like I also had for many,many years. There's the thought that you may get lazy, go soft, take the easy way. But, then he asked to ride it, and that was when I saw his eyes light up! He was doing all these turns, and catching a ton of waves. I just knew he loved the feeling, and I think he may have changed his mind about bigger boards today. There is just no denying that sometimes there is a better board for the conditions. You could have ridden almost anything, but something with more planing surface was the ticket to putting you into the speed pocket today. There's not many things better than to see the stoke in a friend's eyes, and Bob had the fire today...
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