September 10, 2008 Wednesday

Pacifica	Linda Mar
8:00 am to 10:00 am	Consistent 4' to 5', sets overhead
High upcoming tide	Slight offshore breeze, later onshore
Overcast, gray, cold	Good session

“Dad, you must have caught a long one,” Kevin said when I finally paddled outside where he was.

“No, I sat inside to let that big set go by,” I responded. “Hey, there’s a channel over there and the waves are breaking into it.”

I met Kevin this morning at Linda Mar for a short surf session before he had to go to work. We paddled out in front of the restrooms, south of the crowd at the north peak where there appeared to be a left break. I was apprehensive when paddling out; the waves were huge and bigger than last Friday. The sets were big intimating walls that were not makeable, and I stroked over one huge swell after another. After letting several roll by, I finally caught one, an overhead fast wall that crashed in front of me. I immediately dove into the white water to avoid having a long paddle back out. But it was the first wave of a set of ten. I had to sit inside in shallow water until they all passed. Sitting there I observed a deep channel to the north. The walls broke left into the channel. I aimed for the middle of the channel and paddled back out without getting my hair wet.

Great, now I had the spot and a strategy, sit on the south edge of the channel and go left. These walls of water were breaking left due to the shape of the bottom. My next wave was another overhead swell. I locked into the curl, slid under white water that broke in front of me, climbed back into the swell, hit the deeper water of the channel, cut back to work into the shore break. Great ride, I quickly turned around, paddle up the middle of the channel and turned south into position for another wave.

Having surfed here three times in the last two weeks, my confidence was up. I caught several good head high fast lefts. Knowing the channel was there, I took off on walls that appeared to be close outs. But once up I could see the waves were holding up, I powered through curls into the flat water of the channel.

Despite the channel, the biggest waves were close outs. The big ones folded over into curtains of white water from one end of the beach to the other. With my confidence up, I went for one. A big wall was coming through, I though I saw some left formation to it, feathering at the top, I decided to go for it. I didn’t even think about it, I just went. I paddled hard, the board rose up as the swell started passing under me, I looked over the edge of a big drop, for an instance I hesitated, “I’m into it,” I thought to myself, “go for it.” I stood up, swung left, began the drop down a huge wave, looking up at the top above my head, I sailed down the face. The wave exploded all around me, the white water was head high, the board bounced violently but I hung on. I aimed for the channel, the wave began to reform enough for me trim under the white water, and I glided near the shore break and pulled out. Wow, what a wave. Later, Kevin mentioned that I was standing on the end of the tail block; he didn’t think I would be able to hang on, the nose dipped into the water and bounced out and I hung on. We estimated the face was at lease eight feet.

Kevin and I played the one more wave game. One more and we would go in, but we paddled around missing one wave after another. The tide was coming in, the water was getting deeper, and the waves became flatter and more difficult to catch. Kevin finally connected on a huge wall. It was feathering at the top, I thought it would close out and paddled over it, but Kevin went for it. I looked back and saw Kevin’s head screaming in front of the spray of the breaking part of the wave for a long ways as he cruised into the channel. It was a great ride.

With Kevin having gone in, I moved inside determined to catch anything. I caught what I thought was a close out, but it didn’t. I planted the board in the middle of a six-foot curl, crouched down in the middle of the board and shot through a fast section. What a good way to end an exciting session. Kevin and I felt good about this morning’s accomplishments and vowed to do it again.