Choppy, Sloppy Fun

Around 5am or so, the wind turned offshore, and I made my decision to stay and surf. Sean never called about going to the World Golf Village bike ride, so he might not have gone, either. He most likely did, though. That new Madone is his new fetish. There was also the fact that, after yesterday's little tango with my board, my right buttock feels like it was beaten with a two by four. Ouch.

I am glad I decided to stay and surf, despite it turning onshore by 8am. You just never know when things will come together. Andy, Mark, and I ended up smiling out there in the water a lot today, catching a bunch of shoulder high peelers that actually had some ooomph to them. Glenn paddled out, too, just back from Costa Rica.

It started as usual, Andy and I deciding where we should go. He told me that after he left Summerhaven yesterday, he had loaded up the car and family and gone down to his beach. He was surprised to find it was pretty dang fun. We met at that beach, just as the sun was coming up, but today was a different day. It looked disorganized there, just like at the pier, except without six guys staring at it from the railing and two already in the water trying to catch one that didn't close out.

Let's just go check Summerhaven again, we said. At least there, yesterday, it had been more lined up, for whatever reason, and maybe that would transfer to today.

It did. It didn't look great, but there were definitely some sections, and it was worth paddling out, if only for the fact that it was bathtub warm water and, at the moment, we had light offshore NW winds.

Once out there, we realized, hey, this might be pretty fun! My first wave felt great. A nice glassy right bowled up, and as I dropped in, I could feel it. It had much more punch than yesterday. As I paddled back out, I saw that same guy from yesterday, the one on the Firewire fish. He had been getting so much speed on that thing! He smiled, and said hello. I had told him, yesterday, that he was making the rest of us look like we were standing still! He asked me if I had gotten a "Dominator" yet, and I said, funny you should ask. I had e-mailed Dave last night to ask him if there were any in the shop. It's not like I can just go pick out a board like I could when I had the shop. But, there is something in that concept that brings back the delicious elusiveness of the new surfboard. I had lost that, having all those boards at my disposal. For today, my RC fish felt like it was working just fine. But now, I have that DOMINATOR on my list. The guy told me he was from Pensacola, a brother from the Gulf! I told him I originally was from St. Pete, the dismal land of flatness. He smiled. He reminded me so much of Dave, same age or so, same build. He even cut out of the waves just like Dave, it was so odd. But, back to the fun...

Mark wasn't complaining that it was mushy today, like he had yesterday. I saw Andy do a nice roundhouse cutback on his new quad. We were having us some fun, despite it being rather sloppy and choppy as the wind turned on us. "Of course," I said to Mark, "I have all day off." He smiled. Mark and I both knew. Tomorrow, when we both had to be to work early in the morning, it would be directly offshore and perfect. Looks like it's late into work for you tomorrow, Andy. At least we had good luck the other two weekends. One can't be greedy. Or, should I say, one shouldn't be greedy.

But we are.