March 24, 2009 Tuesday

Torrance Beach	Base of the north ramp
9:15 am to 10:30 am	4' to 6' sets overhead
High tide	Offshore wind
Sunny and cool	Big rideable wind swells

I was standing in the parking lot on top of the bluff at Torrance Beach looking at these big beautiful wind swells coming in when I spotted four large dolphins riding a swell towards the shore. The dolphins were back and in big numbers. These were the big ones, not the little ones, but the 10’ to 12’ ones. They were all around us in the water. The dolphins are so common here in the South Bay of Los Angeles that the local surfers pay no attention to them. I watched in stunned amazement as shoals of these amazing creatures cruised bay. Two of them surfaced five feet from me, stared right at me, dove to the bottom, the water was clear, swam directly under me and re-surfaced ten feet on the other side of me. I felt that they had given me their permission to share their space.

I drove from Mill Valley to Palos Verdes yesterday. I’m here for two weeks to help with the care of my mother who had a fall and broke her hip. She was recovering at Torrance Memorial hospital. My schedule was to surf in the morning and then visit her in the afternoons. Thinking I would head for Manhattan Beach I stopped at the Lunada Bay Market to change bills for quarters for the Manhattan Beach parking meters. Driving down Palos Verdes Drive, looking across the bay I saw big waves breaking at Torrance Beach and thought that Haggerty’s might be breaking. At Haggerty’s, which is a classic left point break, three short boarders were out. Due to the high tide, the waves were breaking against the rocks and cliff and these guys could barely catch the set waves. Off I went to check out the beach breaks.

Luck was with me; I located a parking place on the street at Torrance Beach thus avoiding the paid parking lot. Over the weekend the wind had howled in the South Bay, blowing dunes of sand on the bike paths and ramps and bringing in a five-foot wind swell. The strong winds were over, replaced by offshore winds, a Santana heat wave was settling in and the ocean had calmed down. Glassy head-high, rideable peaks were marching in. I’ll surf here; the waves looked good and I had free parking.

The high tide pushed the waves up the steep beach and caused them to break close to shore, four to five foot waves with sets overhead crashing fifty feet from shore. The paddle out was going to be a challenge. Near the water’s edge stood a woman longboarder, about my age, wetsuit, booties, gloves, wearing a bright orange baseball cap, board under her arm looking apprehensive about launching herself into the water.

“Let’s wait for a lull,” I said to her. “Then follow me.”

“OK,” she said. A break in the waves came and I ran into the turbulence, jumped on my board and with head down paddled hard for the outside. I had to go under two waves but made it out. I looked back but I didn’t see her and I did see her during my session. Afterwards I saw her on the beach and asked how her session was. She told me she didn’t make it out and gave up. Tomorrow would be better she reassured me and introduced herself; Karen was her name and she was a Torrance Beach regular.

I drifted over to a group of locals, older longboarders who had the break wired. I figured the locals knew the best point in the break. Following their lead I managed to connect with several good waves: lefts, rights and big close outs. The big peaks broke close to shore and were difficult to catch. I moved inside, waited until the waves were cresting, paddled hard, jumped up, went straight pushing my weight forward to drop over the edges down steep, hard breaking faces. The crowd was mellow and gladly shared the waves with me. I heard a few of them complaining about the cold water. The weekend’s big winds had stirred up the bottom.

“It must be 58 degrees,” one moaned.

I had to join this conversation. “I’m from San Francisco,” I proudly announced. “The water up there is 50 degrees. This feels like bath water to me.” They didn’t care to hear my comments.

Out paddled another longboarder who looked very familiar to me. He was in excellent shape and paddled back and forth across all the peaks. As he stroked by me I told him he looked familiar and introduced myself. It was Veet, the owner of the Lunada Bay Market near my mother’s house. Veet and I went to high school together, I’m a couple years older than he is. At first he didn’t recognize me. The market had delivered groceries to my mother for months. I thanked him for it. Then he knew who I was.

“Oh, you’re Fay’s son,” he said. “How is she? Marion (his sister) mentioned that Fay not call last week, so we were wondering.” I filled him in about her condition. Veet is an avid surfer. I could tell by his back muscles and the power of his stroke that he could paddle for miles. Next week he was leaving for a surf vacation to some obscure point break in Costa Rica for seven days. I was glad to connect with him. He, Marion and the whole crew have been a great help to my mother. Their family has been in the grocery business in Palos Verdes since the twenties. Veet took over from his father and hopes to pass the business onto his son, who also surfs. I ask how they were weathering the recession.

“Up and down,” he said. “January was up over last year but February was down slightly.” Translation: they’re hanging in there. Side note: Marion is a volunteer at the hospital and twice stopped in to visit my mother.

Yesterday I received an email from Professor Steve talking about his surf session Sunday at Bolinas. The surf was mediocre but it was a beautiful day and he had the glow the rest of the day. Glow, what a perfect term. I knew exactly what he was talking about. The satisfaction of a good surf session and the healthy exercise stays with you for hours. I was nervous about my mother’s condition and visiting her in the hospital. After my session the warm sun felt good and I had burned off all my nervous energy. As I drove away I had that glow and I was ready to face anything.