Playin' Hookey from the Worlds?

I hesitate to post this blog ... it's my admission that I was out free surfing this morning instead of joining the gathering of the ohana in Oceanside.  Couldn't get down there yesterday, and the draw of water time was just too strong.  My mind keeps turning south though...how are the statesmen of Gillis Beach, the Del Mar Bodysurfing Club, NUROL and SC Waveriders doing against the iconclasts of Wedge's Team Blacksheep and the local Wolf Pack renegades? 

 Instead, Hugh Berenger, Neil Frank and I had a very fun session in the Park, joined by Henry Long, with his camera.  Sometimes approaching head-high, the waves mostly were smaller, but they were bodysurfing waves!  Dredging and hollow, sometimes fast but often slow enough for long rides.  Curving and bowling, doubling and tripling up.  Most of the handful of surfers out trying to ride them were stymied, but we were cooking.  

Hugh made the rare decision to leave the camera ashore, but asked me to take out the GoPro, so I did.  Actually, had a lot of fun with it, compiled into the video embedded at the end of this blog.  I tried to get some vid of Neil as well, but never seemed to be in the right place.  There are a couple of very short clips of Neil taking off, in his full suit, but that's it.

For much of the morning, we had the stretch between the Main Peak and the rocks to ourselves, each of us getting scores of waves.  While we still made an occasional outside wave, when the multiple swells in the water tripled up, much time was spent standing in the shallows, working mutant little bowls.  So fun, Hugh had to coin a new name for them - smaller than "bowls," they were SCSP "dixie cups."  The vid has Hugh working a couple of those dixie cups!

 

Small though the dixie cups might be, they were hollow, and sometimes jacked up to pretty decent size.  The shot above is worth viewing full screen, as a hollow one closes out on Hugh.  Sometimes you gotta give the swell its due, as Hugh does, below:

Got home, and saw the updates from Oceanside on Facebook - Lafferty pulling out a win in my age group over Mark Cunningham, both pressed by SC waverider patriarch Shawn O'Gorman.  Looks like Hal Handley may have pulled out another overall championship.  Photos from the party at the Ca Surf Museum show a lot of people I'd love to see.  But it was a good morning.