February 21, 2008 Thursday

Ventura	Surfers Point
8:50 am to 10:15 am	4’ to 6’ with sets overhead
High tide	Crosswind (south) breeze
High clouds and patchy sun	“Thrilling session”

“Kate it was thrilling! In fact, too thrilling,” I exclaimed to Kate when she joined me in the parking lot while I was getting out of my wetsuit that morning. I caught six waves and they were all overhead, thick, powerful and fast. 

Kate and I were staying at the Crown Plaza Hotel located on the water at Surfers Point in Ventura. I’m up early walking along the strand taking pictures of the surf. The city of Ventura has done a great job fixing up the beachfront here. It’s not a beautiful beach, the sand is dirt and the beach is composed of sea-smoothed rocks that butt up against a mass of man deposited boulders to protect against sea erosion. On top of the boulders is a nicely done concrete walkway or strand/bike path with green grass, palm trees, parking lots and public restrooms. This development stretches for about two miles and is very popular with the locals as well as the tourists. 

I was standing on a cement slab above a drainage pipe at a point in the curve of the oceanfront. Fifty yards out the waves peaked, broke to the right and wrapped into the cove in front of the hotel. Ten surfers were out there catching some great rides. As I focused with the camera on these rides I noted that the waves were big. Most were overhead and a few were two to three feet overhead. Out of the several photos I took I selected above one because it depicted the closeness of the waves in each set.  This photo shows four waves: white water of a broken wave on the inside, a breaking small curl, the shoulder high wave this guy is riding and an overhead big one just behind it. The sets consisted of four to five sizable, closely stacked waves. Being the “king of the knee high curl” who has spent the last several months riding the soft little waves of Bolinas I was a little apprehensive. But I came all this way, some 300 miles, with my board strapped to the top of the car to go surfing, thus I’m going out. 

I put on my wetsuit, tucked my board under my arm and walked up the strand to the point I had been watching. I’m thinking that here are some sizable waves at a break I’m not familiar with and I’m going out alone, that’s not a good idea. “Why didn’t I call Colin?” I said to myself. Colin is my niece Allison’s husband, lives in Ventura, tall strong young carpenter and a courageous dedicated surfer. I should have called him. Most likely he has to work, after all he and Allison have two young boys to raise, but I won’t know that unless I call. I passed another fifty-year old long boarder who had just gotten out of the water and I asked how it was. He hustled on mumbling, “They’ve all gone to Rincon.” I take it he was referring that the waves were good and there were only ten people out in the water. 

I stood at the water’s edge and devised my strategy. I would go for the inside peak that is just south of the peak where the ten people are located. I’ll enter the water and paddle at a 45-degree angle to reach the smaller inside peak. 

Good plan, but the execution was weak. The tide was high and the waves were crashing beyond the sea-smoothed rocks and up onto the man deposited ones. One has to carefully climb over the rocks to enter the water. I’m gingerly stepping from rock to rock when a wave of white water hits. In a flash, the surge knocks me over and I’m on my ass sitting on a slab of concrete, straining against getting washed down the shore. I shamble up, jump in the water and start paddling for all my worth. With a little luck and skill at ducking under white water I made it out. 

I sat out there a while trying to figure out the correct position. There is one other guy at this peak. Meanwhile the people at the big peak continue picking off these great rides and I was watching these large, large walls of water coming at me. Fortunately I’m at a point break thus no matter how big every wave has great shape. I finally went for it. A large wave came through, it was starting to break, I paddled as hard as I could, the momentum of the wave pick me up, I stared straight down at a six foot drop, I stood up, the board and I hung at the top of the wave for a second, “I’m into it,” I thought, and then I dropped down the face of the wave. At the bottom of the wave I swung to the right and was looking up at the crest of the wave as the wave started to close out in front of me. I watched while white water ten feet down the line that was beginning to slide down the face in front of me. I turned and straightened out and was thinking that maybe I could get under the white water and back into the swell. Then the white water hit me, it blew me off the board like an insect, my feet went vertical, the board shot out in front of me, and I fell into the turbulence of the wave’s washing machine. “Wow I did it, I rode one,” I said to myself when I surfaced. I grabbed my board and stroked outside to try it again. 

With the ice broken, I was determined to get some rides, which I did. I screamed down another overhead wave, which lined up perfectly in front of me. I shot through one section, executed a sweeping cut-back and turned into another fast section and keep milking the wave until I was way on the inside of the cove near the hotel. I managed to catch four more like this one. All were thick, powerful waves with big drops. 

While sitting out there watching the people at the peak to the north, I thought one of them was a woman. She caught a big one and came screaming by me. Yes, she was an older female about my age, athletic, big frame with gray-white hair pulled back into a small ponytail, no booties, no gloves and a white band-aid across her nose. When paddling back out, she commented to me, “Challenging waves.” I agreed. She caught as many waves as all the other guys out there. Since she showed no fear and such expertise, my guess was she has been surfing for thirty years. 

Getting out was difficult and getting in would be just as challenging. I figured I had to exit the water at the same spot that I entered. This meant I had to go over to the north peak. My strategy was to paddle over there and take a smaller wave and ride it all the way to the shore. Easier said than done. I paddled over there and here came a huge set. I had to paddle out, ducking white water after white water. After the set passed, I turned around and started paddling in. A good wave came, I caught it, swung right and shot down a beautiful wave, which put me near the shore. I paddled north to get to a point where I could leave the water. Like it was when I entered, I had to time my exit between large lines of white water. Floating up to the rocks that sloped down to the water, I managed to stumble over several small rocks to safety. 

When walking with my board down the strand to the hotel I met the older gal walking in the other direction. I asked her if she had caught a good one that took her all the way down here. No, she exited the water by the pier, which is about a quarter mile down the beach, because she’s barefoot and there’s sand instead of rocks there. 

As I walked back to the hotel I had this feeling of elation. I had gone out into overhead waves and handled it; six overhead waves, not bad for a 62 year old. I was proud of myself. 

For the rest of the day I was exhausted and I slept very well that night.