Turn On It, Tune Out, Drop In

E WIND 20-25KT. SOME GUSTS TO 35KT...ESPECIALLY NEAR GAPS IN COASTAL TERRAIN. WIND WAVES 6FT. W SWELL 5FT AT 12 SECONDS.

It's a natural progression...and, in some ways, a natural regression...and a recollection...of developing skills in surfing. Although I have surfed for over 30 years, some years every day, others only intermittently...I have much to learn, and less time to learn it. My skills are also slowly eroding, yet improving on some levels. Progression and Regression. I remember riding broken, diminishing whitewash into the shallows until the skeg ragged in the sand as a child. Riding those same crumbled waves as got older, but struggling ever further out against those spent, failing waves to get longer rides. And never, would I go so far in as to drag skeg! Kooks!

As confidence and competence grew the level and desire did as well. Catching an unbroken wave proved elusive at times as a boy. But persistence and daily attempts paid off. There are moments that remain indelibly impressed upon one's memory...the paddle and drop in on a head high wave, the pop up and ever so brief carving bottom turn, the roller coasting frontside peeler, the reeling backside wave and kickout that sends the board spinning into the air...all these moments exist in me...but the one that has come back again and again is snap of the surfboard off the top of the wave, sometimes vertical, sometimes not...but always satisfying.

Local Reports:
Got up this morning to see the ocean is flat. It was a nice four days of swell, though. Caught an hour to myself at a popular right point at uber low tide.