"It's the Shabot!"

Eight feet at fifteen seconds, did I hear that right? It wasn't hard to get worked up about that, especially when they were calling for light offshore winds and ... It's Saturday!

Bob whined, "What is it with this waves on the weekend crap again?" Ha! Andy and I love it. Mark loves it. WE only get the weekends off! Every day is a holiday for Vreeland.

So, Andy called first. He had been up since 5am. I was still snuggled in my cozy bed, delaying the foray out into the chilly morn. Andy was already on the beach, at dawn, with a report, bless him with offshores and barrels.

It was not the "shabot" by any means.

"What the hell?" he moaned, "If it was eight feet at fifteen seconds at Hermosa, we'd be getting shacked! This looks like crap!" Wha???

The tide was high at six, so I had a feeling it might be like this. Strong north swell, high tide, let's see, where might it break? Try NOWHERE.

I rolled out of bed after telling him it might improve with the lower tide, and that I was on my way to take a look. We stood on the beach for about an hour, trying to motivate ourselves to go out. The wind would probably turn any minute and pick up, so that made us think about just going out now, before it turned to complete crap. But, we watched as guy after guy paddled out, and got nothing. Roddy caught one decent one, and I walked down to talk to him when he came in. He had to be at work at nine, so he had to go out. It was just brown swells in a river, is how Andy put it. The tide was ripping down the beach. I was over it. Bob called, and I gave him the scoop, and then I let Andy retell him. Bob had reports from Brian, and they weren't good. Matanzas was crap, too.

We talked to Matt Middlestadt in the parking lot, I love that guy! We talked about teaching, and Colby, and "Shoot That Animal!" (the short film he starred in that Colby made). Then Chris walked by, and told me to "get out there," and that he had seen me get a good wave a couple weeks ago, thanks, Chris! In the end, I decided to just go home, get breakfast, and look at it when the tide dropped, gambling that the wind would not come up. Andy decided to head to Matanzas, where Mark was looking at it.

After only a half hour, Andy called. The tide was dropping, and the new inlet was looking almost good! He said he saw a right peel off, and the wind seemed to be turning more ... OFFSHORE! Wha???? I was out the door in seconds.

When I got there, it was like a different day. The spray was gently blowing off olive green peelers in the sun. It actually looked good. I had called Bob on my way out, and, stoked, he was on his way. We all met up there, and had a great time of it. The sun was out, the water not so bad (I wore a springsuit, just to stay warm), and the wind was light NW. I could see Andy out there, on his placebo, a flash of bright white off the lip! I raced down to the rocks, carefully trundling on down. Once in the water, it was like you could feel the stress of the last few days just washing away. I was eager to try out the Dominator in some more sizable waves.

The first few were fun, I was being careful, still hesitant to push it. The waves seemed a bit fat and shifty, but if you were in just the right spot, you would get launched out and onto an open face that you could race and do anything on. I started trying to push the board to the point of spinning out, but it seemed like it just wouldn't. On one wave, it just did a reverse when I pushed it, like it was waiting for me to catch up and ride it the way it should be ridden. I am still adjusting. Today opened my eyes to what is to come...

What fun we had! Tom came out. He had tales about his broken luck, how he had gotten axed in the neck yesterday by a wave he should have pulled into the barrel on and chickened out. He had slipped down the rocks this morning, and landed on his ass and dinged his board. The last final blow was the Dear John letter he had just received. He was doing good just to be out there. He was smiling. The waves saved him, too. Bob was having fun, had caught a really good one that made his day. Andy was hooting his head off, stoked with his board, the day, and the fact that the water was still warm. After a bunch of good ones, the wind turned a little more sideshore, and I decided to head in. Andy did, too, and we walked along the rocky shore, looking in the tide pools beneath the sparkling, clear blue sky.

It had gone from crap to the shabot, yes indeed...