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Today was an interesting and fun workout day and not much else.
There was very little surf and I was disappointed. I left work two hours early on paid vacation time hoping that there was some leftover swell from Wednesday and Thursday. But no such luck. I stood on the sandstone cliffs and wondered if I should beat the traffic and go home or just bite the bullet and paddle out.
I surmised that since it was actually costing me time and money to be there that I ought to use the time. So I resolved to change into my wetsuit with a plan ahead of me. It was pretty flat everywhere but there was a little crew at Pillars with not many waves and another small crew at North, but no one at South. So I paddled 500 strokes out to South.
Then went off my board and started swimming over to North. Here comes the lunatic swimmer again. Who then circled a couple of guys, my 7-2 trailing out behind me, and began the return swim to South. Yeah, I wanted to swim both ways this time.
It was quite different than last weekend. The most noticeable difference was that last weekend there were waves, but not much "swell" so to speak. This week the swell was heavier and there was more current and, especially, there were these huge paddies of giant kelp all over the place that I either had to swim through or around. So it wasn't a straight trip at all, lots of re-positioning. Also, the kelp was getting snared around the fins and leash of the board and I was having to stop and tread water and untangle the mess.
There was one guy out at South now. I guess he saw me paddle out and figured that I might bring some waves in! But I swam away and back. Right as I got back, I was treading water right in the center of the break and a bit to the inside, and a rogue wave popped up. I pulled my leash hard to my body, got up on the board and in two paddles was up and riding on a wave about, oh, 10 seconds after my lengthy swim. It was a good mushballer that I hopped all the way through middles and into Pillars. It was somewhat astounding to go that far!
So I paddled out to South, swam to North and back to South and then immediately caught this wave and then immediately paddled past everyone at Pillars and went back on the outside where I turned and burned and caught a second wave exactly where I got the previous one and the other guy was out there and he must have been perplexed because I got two waves in a row and the second one wasn't as good or long as the first but it dropped me off more or less in the boil area and by that time I thought, well, you know, I did about 30 minutes of swimming and then 15 minutes of riding and paddling back out and caught two waves and that was pretty decent and the sun was now starting to set and it would be nice to change into dry clothes with some light still left and enjoy the rest of the sunset which I did and got home and cooked up some fresh not previously frozen swordfish with some garlic mashed potatoes followed by a nice warm shower and some Gatorade to re-hydrate.
I felt pretty amped after the workout in the water II.
- Cliff |