Turn On It, Tune Out, Drop In

N WIND 15 TO 20 KT.
WIND WAVES 4 FT.
W SWELL 5 FT AT 10 SECONDS.

5 foot swell dropping to 4 feet tomorrow...begs the inevitable question...

To Longboard or not to Longboard...

A Central Coast poet surfeate contemplates...

To longboard, or not to: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to surf
The chips and squashtails of outrageous design,
Or to take a longboard against a sea of troubles,
And by riding them? To carve: to sweep;
Much more; and by a sweep to say we slide
The nose-ride and the thousand natural thrills
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To drop knee, to glide;
To glide: perchance to be tubed: ay, there's the rub;
For in that tube of emerald what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this leash,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so fruitless a cause;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of miniscule board,
The shaper's wrong, the grom's toy,
The pressure of peers, the take-off's's delay,
The ignomity of waiting on the inside
That patient paddle and duck dive,
When he himself might his finest ride make
With a single bare fin? who would closeouts bear,
To grunt and sweat under a flimsy epoxy,
But that the dread of some board longer,
The unwieldy board from whose joy
No surfer returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those tiny boards we have
Than fly like others that we know not of?
Thus peer pressure and suggestion doth make bovines of us all;
And thus the native hue of the steepened wall
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of 2 and 5/8" foam,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of surfing. - Soft you now!
The fair Smithgrind! Shortboarder, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.