Manhattan Beach 30th Street 9:30 am to 11:30 am 3’, sets to head high High dropping tide Slight onshore breeze Sunny and hot Good session
It was a classic summer like day for Manhattan Beach.
I flew to Los Angeles this weekend to attend the Sonic/Shares Reunion, which is the 40th anniversary of the implementation of Continental Airlines reservation system. I worked on Continental’s reservations programming staff from 1973 to 1983. The reunion was that evening, so I called my good friend Jay about getting some waves in the morning. No problem, Jay had an extra good 9’0’’ board and an old wetsuit.
Jay, Floyd, a good friend of Jay’s and I marched over the sand dune from Jay’s house to 30th Street. The above picture was taken at the top of the hill, which was our first glimpse of the waves. The photo shows something unique to the beach towns and something I love, which is walk-streets. The walk-streets remove the impact of cars. The houses face each other and are separated by public sidewalks. Behind the houses are narrow alleyways for the cars to enter garages. There is no public parking accept for the few cross streets and a few pay lots. The impact of this layout is amazing. The warm beach weather brings people out of their houses and the closeness of the public sidewalks out front results in a high level of interaction between neighbors and creates a strong community ethos. Everyone who lives in these houses is there because they love the beach, the waves and the outdoors. So as we walked to and from the beach we chatted with several locals in their front yards about the sunny weather and wave conditions. Believe me, the walk-streets of Manhattan Beach are paradise to a surfer.
At 9:30 am the sand was already hot. We entered the water in front of the lifeguard tower and connected with some descent two to three feet peaks. On my first wave I dropped into a fast breaking left, positioned the board mid-way down the face, crouched down to put my weight over the center of the board and shot through a good inside section. That set the tone for me and I caught several good ones after that.
While we were out there wave conditions changed. At first the swells were pushing smaller waves in from of them, often forming double waves. Rideable waves occurred when the two came together. We had to wait until white water was forming on the upper swell, paddle hard to get plenty of board speed, jump up and push the board to drop into the front swell, which by this time had formed into a fast breaking curl. After an hour the two small waves combined into a single wall of water. We were now paddling into the front edge of the combined harder breaking waves. They also became bigger. The previous three footers were forming into consistent four footers with the sets to head-high. The take-offs became flatter and easier to catch, but the waves were bigger, walled and harder breaking. I was quickly humbled by a couple of crunching walls.
Jay and I were sitting together when a big set wave came through. I looked at this huge wave coming right at us and I thought, “it’s walled, paddle over it.” Jay, however, turned and with two strokes was into it. I looked back and saw only his head screaming above the feathering top of a fast breaking wall. “He has no leash and he is about to be crushed,” I thought to myself. I then I saw his board come knifing through the green and white collapsing wave the result of an expert kick-out. Later Jay admitted in waves of that size he should wear a leash.
By now I was tiring and started to stumble and pearl when taking off. That’s a sign it’s time to go in. After a couple more sets, a good left wall came through, I caught it, hung high in the wave, cut left, slid under white water coming off the top, climbed back up the face of the wave which reformed into a fast inside curl, which I rode until it collapsed near shore. That’s it, time to quit.
It’s a small world. Before we started out I discovered that Jay’s good friend Floyd and I had something in common. We both had worked at Continental Airlines reservations programming staff. Floyd started after I left, but via the “do you know” game we had several mutual friends, a few of whom I met that night at the reunion. Floyd is currently working as a project manager on Warner Brothers IT staff.
Like I said before, it was a classic summer day in Manhattan Beach.
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