by oldmansurfer » Sun Apr 07, 2024 6:17 am
I was surfing at my usual break. It was big and gnarly somewhere around 16 foot faces. I brought along my "slow board". It was a 7 foot swallow tail that was made for me because I had a friend who tried to make me a fish tail board and it was a pig. I found a new shaper and showed him that board and asked if he could make one like that but one that worked? So he made me this board. Compared to all the other boards he made for me this was a slow board. I did not know how the surf was as my typical method of determining what the conditions were was going to the beach and checking it out. There is a long pile of rocks that protrudes along the left side of this break as it used to be a boat landing. It can break both left and right but mostly I try to surf the rights. This day it was breaking outside of the rocks and as big as I have ever seen it. Typically when it's like this the lefts are better as it was this day. All the local guys alway paddle out from the same place on the corner of the beach maybe 50 yards from the rocks. While on smaller days this is a quick way to get out on days like this it was torture but they all still went out from there. Maybe that is why they were all better paddlers than me. But when I saw the conditions I walked all the ways to the rocks and paddled out there in the shelter of the rocks. I walked past a couple guys who were going in the water at that spot at the same time I was walking up the beach. I probably caught a wave and paddled back out before they go out for the first time.
It was pretty easy as I just walked to the end of the rocks and paddled out in the shelter of the rocks and waited for a break in the sets then quickly paddled out. I probably could have tried to get tubed with dry hair and maybe I did but no longer cared about it by then. When I got outside there were a couple of guys who were sitting there in the lineup. They told me I could catch the next wave because they had to catch their breath after paddling out. So I went on the next wave. It was a gnarly dark tubing left breaking wave with multiple sections. I got tubed multiple times because the sections would just break over the top of you so you had no choice then you would come out and another section breaks over you and you're tubed again. On the inside part there was a section the was walled up and I knew I needed more speed so I did this backside under the lip turn where for a moment I was upside down with my face inches away from the wave. It was a maneuver I had figured out to help me on big backside waves because when I tried to speed turn I often hit the lip with my head causing me to fall. It worked well and I got deeply tubed and came out. Turns out maybe the slow board was right for this day, although if I had the two boards with me which I rarely did I would have surfed my fast board or my third board which was also fast which I shaped and glassed myself which was perfect for waves like this as it rode higher on the wall. Anyway I got to try my new maneuver repeatedly on this day sometimes twice on the same wave. I had a pretty decent day surfing and while the waves were initially scary, once I caught a few that changed. The tubes were dark and the waves were thick lipped with lots of sections. I imagined that if I had my fast board I would have had to slow down to get tubed or to try to stay in the tube longer. One of the surfers paddled over to me and said I was riding the waves further in than anyone else that day. That didn't seem right. For one thing you can't see how far someone rides the waves from the lineup so it had to be someone on the beach keeping track. But even then these guys were better surfers than me and many of them goofy footed. I couldn't believe it so I said "Maybe I am just getting caught by the next wave and getting pounded back inside (which was happening sometimes). He said "No". I said "Well probably they were all cutting out to keep from getting caught on the inside like I was". He said "No, that's not it either". I still couldn't fathom how I could have been riding further inside than these guys.
After a couple hours of getting tubed repeatedly I went in and while back at my car drying off, one of the best surfers on the island walked up to me and asked me if he could use my board. I knew him as did all the surfers on the island but his family and my family were friends and his older brother actually pushed me into a couple waves on his surfboard when I was a kid. He was in my younger brothers class in high school. I didn't loan my boards to anyone but he was persistent and maybe if he got to use it he might like it and give my shaper some business. So I finally gave in and let him use it. Too bad I didn't have my fast board. I don't know what he thought if it but my shaper called me a couple weeks later and told me it was time for a new board. I knew he was right but I loved my boards and never wanted to stop using them until they were falling apart. After I saw him I realized he was the one on the shore keeping track of how the surfers were doing. He did this often as part of his pre surf preparations. He watched how the waves were breaking and what guys were doing what and where on the waves and I guess he formulated a plan from that. It's possible he couldn't see my backside under the lip turns because the lip hid me. He was goofy footed any way so should have been able to do frontside speed turns in the tube.
Lots of the tube rides I have had were like this day where the wave had sections that broke over you and you kind of speed up or slow down to match the speed of the sections although because of the size I was mostly speeding up. Very often I would get tubed multiple times and come out due to sections and on bigger or faster days it was all by accident as I did not often slow down on bigger waves. But my fast board was a problem on days like this because it was fast enough to keep me out of the tube or maybe shorter the duration in the tube by quite a bit. I had to work at slowing down but was learning to do so. Anyway there was some tricks I know how to do that others didn't. Mostly it was because I learned to go fast before I learned to slow down.
So what is worse.... dying or regretting it for the rest of my life? Obviously I chose not regretting it.