Latest Surfs...

[oldmansurfer]

I forgot the first wave I caught today was one where I was paddling and the wind coming up the face of the wave blew water drops into may face so I couldn't see and had to take off based on what I could see before I paddled for the wave. It was an uneventful wave but scary because I chose to continue taking off even though I couldn't see the wave. All I did was a bottom turn and a cutback and another bottom turn. So it was that wave and the one where I had my tail sliding out that my neighbor saw paddling out

[drowningbitbybit]

First time I'd surfed in a couple of weeks due to a stinking cold, and a little swell came out of nowhere with offshore winds and no crowd - great conditions

And I tried my first carving 360, which went well, except that...
a) I turned through less than 180 degrees.
b) I fell off.
c) I hit my head on my board as I wiped out.
d) I mashed my teeth together as I hit the water

Back to the drawing board with that manoeuvre I think...

[dtc]

at least you got to 180!

[oldmansurfer]

I have thought about doing a 360 and on many waves I thought "I could do a 360 here" but for various reasons I chose not to.....LOL I think some day I may do one but the wave will have to call for it. Maybe now because I sometimes do tail sliding turns I may do a tail sliding 360 who knows? I had 2 days of waist high waves. The first day there were head high nice looking waves breaking way outside at Black Rock but I wanted to go home and watch the University of Hawaii football game on TV and if I went way out there (5 to 600 yards paddle) it might take too long and I might have missed the beginning of the game. Turns out the channel the game was on had another football game that went on longer than expected so they didn't play the beginning of the game anyway. On the second day Blackrock was blown out so I surfed the sandbar. Not quite as exciting as getting hit on the head by my surfboard but I got exercise and practice popping up.

[oldmansurfer]

I have still been thinking about the surf session I had the weekend before last. I was taking off on a wave and there was s huge ridge running the entire height of the wave so looking straight down the wave the ridge was on my right and curved across in front of me to the bottom of the wave. This was a huge ridge like almost a foot high and I didn't want to hit it but the wave looked good so I took off angled so that my board pointed to the left missing the ridge. But these waves were steep and taking the drop my tail slid out and I did this on two waves and yet I didn't fall down. I was thinking it was because I stayed calm but I think also it was partly because the ridge limited how much the tail could slide so my tail slid a little and hit the ridge stopping it and on the first wave where I was engulfed in whitewater I was riding along this huge ridge and it made for a stable platform on a usually steep and hairy wave.

[oldmansurfer]

Went out to Blackrock today. It was head high and slightly crumbly but the water was blue as was the sky. I counted how many strokes it took me to paddle out there. It took slightly more than 600 going at a pace of a stroke a second or slightly faster as it usually takes me about 9 to 10 minutes to paddle out. I caught like 4 waves and then there was a lull and I had to paddle all the way back in

[oldmansurfer]

Went out to Blackrock today again and it was breaking ok overhead with some walls but there was a few SUPers out there and I didn't catch any good waves in my allotted time. I caught two waves and came in. Well on one wave I did a rail grab turn. I took off and made a bottom turn to the right but the face on the wave faded so I carved back to the left and I knew the whitewater was going to hit me so I grabbed my rail. LOL well it's my first rail grab ever in my entire life and it worked, I didn't fall when the whitewater hit me. Coming in I caught a series of waves of short duration. On one of them I took off and there was a steep drop and I carved a backside bottom turn and the wave just disappeared or went flat LOL I was like huh? On the inside near the shore I was riding a shin high wave and my feet got totally tubed in a clean little tube over the sandbar

[oldmansurfer]

Fun session today, head high fast breaking waves got to practice speed turns and forward hops/unweighting. I did a few off the lip turns and almost a cutback and a foam climb. I took off getting hit by the foam 2 times, once I made it and the other time I wiped out. I was surfing by myself but there was a boogie boarder out who went in before I paddled out and a female surfer who came out right before I came in.

[oldmansurfer]

It was a little smaller today and more backwash but still fun. I took off on one of the bigger waves that came in and it broke under me and it looked challenging but I went ahead and stood up and rode the whitewater down made my bottom turn but wasn't able to get around the break onto the face of the wave. I guess if I was a pro surfer or maybe if I was 40 years younger I probably would have made it but not today. I would have hated to not go and be left thinking "I wonder if I could have made it?"

[drowningbitbybit]

Bumpy short-period stuff today, but better than the last two weeks of almost flatness

Caught a couple of the bigger ones (2-3ft), then a couple of the smaller (2ft) cleaner ones, which took me right into where the learners were bobbing about like skittles

First time that I used my cycle rack too - success!

[oldmansurfer]

I surfed waist high waves today. Managed to do a couple of turns on a couple waves mostly just rode the waves in to the beach. The tail of my board got tubed and I caught the lip with my hand as it threw over. I guess it is something I do on small tubes where it's not big enough for me to try to tuck in, I just by reflex reach out and grab the lip as it comes over

[jaffa1949]

EEEEEK Saturday Jaffa had a paddle out at his quiet break at dawn. 60 Guys in the water absolute brain dead no manners drop in snaking long weekend school holidays crowd and more paddling out every moment.
Did lots of paddling and didn't catch one wave, was too courteous to those taking off inside 99% were not making it and drop ins in multiples of 4 on the outside. Fights and arguments in the water
So came in, disgruntled ( strange word that, have you ever heard of anyone being gruntled, I was definitely dis).
The gentleman's latte kiosk was packed so couldn't get a calming coffee.
Driving mayhem in the carpark, went home.
3 days later I still cannot hear, head and ears full of water.
All my usual remedies have failed, can't hear my wife ( dangerous).
They all go home on Tuesday, praise Huey I don't live on the Gold Coast or at Byron Bay.
Put in a general Huey booking for surf on Wednesday or Thursday, with less crowds.

[drowningbitbybit]

It's been small here for weeks and yesterday the wind was howling too (albeit cross/offshore)
I'd got to that point of just needing to get out, so just jumped in the car anyway. My local point was completely blown out... the beachies were just wind chop... but I carried on driving down the coast anyway... and Kirra was absolutely perfect

Small, but not too small, offshore, and nice steep walls on the low tide. The walls were so consistent it was like surfing in a skatepark. I'd gone out the house expecting a 5 minute surf in wind-affected conditions, and ended up surfing for 2 hours until it got dark

[kitesurfer]

Haha. I like that Jaffa. I'm gruntled right now with a bottle of my homebrew.

KS

[oldmansurfer]

I managed to do a full cutback today in choppy sloppy surf. It was so crowded today ....well ok so it wasn't

[oldmansurfer]

Went back out today and it was slightly smaller. Nothing remarkable except when I was ready to come in I paddled for a wave that broke to the side of me, I wanted to go right but it broke too far over so I went left. No left manifested itself and instead I was riding the unbroken wave but there was a hump or peak in he wave that I managed to keep up with. On the inside I couldn't see the wave any more but I kept going and I could feel the force of the water still pushing the board toward the beach so I kept going all the way to the beach. I did that before once and my friend Fred said I was surfing a phantom wave

[oldmansurfer]

Went out today it was overhead and choppy stormy waves. I only caught 3 waves in my 30 minutes session. The first one I managed to fit in a big carving cutback, the second was a steep hairy drop then a cutout with board kicked up to the end of the leash and the third was a long running fast wave that I did a bunch of big top to bottom speed turns then ended in a closeout that I mistimed to do a floater so I went down the steep face barely making it before it collapsed

[drowningbitbybit]

Surfing on the high tide today before it got too breezy and too crowded... an odd combination of ridiculously fat waves that then hit the sand bank, jacked up, and closed out. Too fat and too steep in one wave...

Caught a few of the smaller ones, which went okay. And caught one of the bigger ones... the drop, the bottom turn, the wave on the head

[oldmansurfer]

Overhead waves again today not any bigger but they felt more powerful, perhaps a little faster. Nothing too exciting but some steep almost pearling takeoffs. Probably waves from hurricane Ana

[drowningbitbybit]

I haven't had the chance to surf much over the last couple of weeks... first of all I was busy with work, then there was a very long flat spell

But today there was a decent wave and work that could be ignored

Oh my lord, my fitness has plummeted! I surfed like a beer-soaked sausage on rollerskates. It was not pretty. More or less entirely graceless.

So. 6am tomorrow. Back out there.