June 2, 2002

Surfing part 2

It rained hard from about 3 am till 5 or 6. Today is supposed to be nice. By 7 am the clouds were all gone and by 8:30 I'm on the road north back to the beach I was at yesterday.

The waves aren't spilling as gently as they were yesterday. A little more curl to them today. Oddly I'm the only one out here - no surfers, no fishermen, no beach combers.

Launching: I've tried in the past to use a paddle on one side and my hand on the other to walk myself into the water once the spray skirt is on. Today I used two hands with the paddle across my cockpit. This seemed to work a little better. Better control over the boat and I could scoot faster towards the waves.

I spent a lot of time broached. Actually on purpose since these waves seemed perfect to practice side surfing. I can't say I could control where I was going, but I did get more comfortable with staying upright.

I didn't wear my dry suit today, opting instead for my wet suit and a splash jacket. I've been giving thought about why I didn't roll up from yesterday, and I think some of it may have had to do with the buoyancy of the dry suit. It was an odd feeling. I measured the water temp at 58 degrees yesterday and since I was close to shore I decided on the wet suit.

I had a few great surfing runs - running down the face of the wave and then cutting back over the wave and pointed back out to sea. More luck than control. After a while I learned it was easier to sometimes "back out" through the waves if my bow was pointed towards the beach at the end of my run. It seemed easier to take the waves across my back then to take them across my chest, but for the moment the wave was passing I felt I didn't have a lot of bracing control. While paddling forward through the waves I could "reach over" the back side into solid water for good support.

In any event, backing out was easier than trying to turn the boat in the surf zone. But I did, over the course of the morning, work on turning in the surf - leaning the boat over in the calm between waves, or spinning it with a strong sweep stroke on the crest of a wave.

One exciting run had me racing down the face of a smaller wave, cut over the top (I was broaching - again no control), catch the larger wave right behind it and side surf until the bow swung towards the beach then ride it until broaching in the opposite direction.

About half the waves, maybe a little more, could be handled with just a low brace when side surfing. High braces for the more powerful waves. There were times when all you could see was soup and me - the boat completely lost in the bubbling foam.

I had planned to practice some rolling in this stuff, but got too tired before getting around to it. Something saved for another day.

Woody