Surfing Waves

I am just wondering how many of you do this. I have on several occaisions paddled for a wave and had it break under me. Normally I would just stop and give up but once I went ahead and popped up and rode the whitewater to the bottom then contiued on the wave like normal so I have kept at it in those situations and done several of these takeoff floaters. I always think about this when I read threads where they takeoff and the wave passes them by or they pearl on takeoff. When I do this maneuver I lean forward at first and then once I am dropping bring the nose of the board up so I don't pearl. Often before I land at the bottom of the wave the board is parallel to the bottom. I just got to thinking I wonder how many of you do this? I have no idea how I learned to do this. It is a new maneuver to me. In all the surfing I did before I never did this.

This sometimes happens to me when too late in the wave on popup. It can go 2 ways: lose the wave like a kook or floater take of with high speed like a stuntman!