After not much sleep last night (sore legs from riding the bike yesterday), I decided to pass on the 50 mile bike ride that we had planned for today. After calling the surf reports, it looked to be a bad day for surfing, too. Small, small, small.
I drove off to the beach with my fun shape, thinking a paddle out might do me some good. I checked the pier. It was depressingly small. I went to tenth street, and my hopes rose a bit. There were some little green peelers, and no one was out. It was outgoing tide, and it had a couple hours to go before it bottomed out. Andy called as I was on my way to Matanzas, and I told him to sit tight, that I'd save him the drive. He said he was just throwing some boards in the jeep. When I got to his beach, I decided to check it, and just then he rode up on his bike. We checked it there, and could see that there was a possibility that we might be surfing today.
Moment to remember: This really old man was walking his yellow lab, and they were both moving towards us. The dog seemed to almost recognize me. It just came right up to me, wagging its tail like it knew me. I was overjoyed at this. I love dogs so much. He wiggled happily and licked me as I petted him, and the old man watched, smiling. "What's his name?" I asked. "Bilbo Baggins!" Oh, how I loved this...
I headed off to check Matanzas, and Andy went off to get the jeep. We met at Summerhaven, and decided to paddle out there, because you could see a couple waves peeling off way out back, with about three guys on it. That turned out to be a "big bowl of wrong," as Jeff Garlan would say. We caught one wave each before deciding this was not the place, and we went right in.
It was off to tenth street then, where the waves had looked the best, green and sparkling, with offshore winds. There were only about three people out, and right off we knew we made the right call. Andy caught a good one on the eleven footer, and I pig-dogged one on his quad that he let me try. That board was lively and fast! It was kinda big for me (6'4"), but it picked the waves up so easily that I didn't mind, and it was surprisingly loose! We stayed out for a couple hours. Andy was styling like I have never seen before. He kept doing this classy, drop-in leaning bottom turn that was beautiful. Zander came out and did some skateboard moves to entertain us. On my last wave, I did a cartwheel dork move for Andy's amusement. I had it in my mind, by then, that the point was going to be happening this afternoon. Turns out I was right.
I really didn't feel like riding the bike all the way out to the point, but Andy was thinking he needed to spend some time with the family, which meant no wave-ski ride out there. I grabbed the Firewire and headed out, after lunch, on my own.
It was only mid-tide by the time I got there. I could see two guys already out, and Andy called right then for a report. It didn't looked that great at that moment. It was hard to tell if it was going to do its thing today.
But, as Alan says, hang in.
There were four guys looking at it, and soon they paddled out. Chuck was one of them. I followed them, and right off the bat I caught a good one. I wanted to run up and call Andy to get down there, but I reasoned that maybe that wave had just been a fluke. But, the waves kept coming, and they kept getting better. They were wedging up into the nicest fast bowls I have seen in a long time. All you had to do was drop in and go! There were tubes galore, and straight up ruler edged walls, shoulder high, to rip apart. I had so much fun out there today. I surfed until I was exhausted. The sun was baking my back, and I knew I should get out of the sun. If only I could save those waves I left for later. It was still so good when I left, but I just couldn't physically do it any more.
I rode out at high tide, under a deep blue sky dotted with fat purple bottomed clouds, and found a sharp paring knife on the water line as I rode. I turned around to pick it up, thinking some creature might swallow it, thinking its silver shine might be a fish, or someone might step on it. I remembered how I had searched the shoreline for a stray piece of wax, earlier. I had ridden all the way to the point before I realized I had forgotten to bring any wax. That was one way to ensure a good session...
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