Sunday, June 22, 2014

Whetting an Appetite for Summer

Four weeks.

Gone two weeks ago, but there wasn't much surf even that weekend.  On the other two, nothing.  June is slipping away without a single surf session.  Going away next weekend, so it was today or suffer my first blanked month of 2014...or any year since July 2012!  

Four weeks dry.  Has to end today.  

The forecasts weren't promising, but a small (2') south swell was starting to fill in and the winds and tides were expected to be benign.  On arrival, it looked more like a SUP day than a surf day...


Heavily overcast, the leaden surface was fairly glassy as occasional waist high waves - sometimes a tad bigger - rolled in.



A west swell remnant worked with the local sandbars to make it peaky and hollow, if small.  A few sticks were scattered from the Main Peak down through LG 1, but Cotton's was surprisingly crowded in the background:



Ghattas showed up and and shamed me into forgoing any rubber, skinning it in the 70 degree water.  I was glad, as I hung in for nearly two hours without any chill.  Eventually, the sun fought through and drove the fog bank offshore.  The 1-minute video paints the scene best:



Mark only had forty-five minutes, but I surfed nearly two hours, sharing the Main Peak area with a half-dozen sticks...all of us treating it all pretty casually.  I actually found myself in numerous mini-tubes, the thin wall of the small wave a crystalline white.

In all, the purpose was served.  Many (small) waves were ridden.  My gills were wetted and my appetite whetted for some real summer surf!