Cottons

The one thing that I really love about Trestles is that there are seven breaks all within a walkable distance from eachother.  Cottons, the farthest northern spot is only about a fifteen minute walk from the farthest southern break, Churches.  And each spot works on a different tide.  If it's high tide, all you have to do is walk five minutes to one of the seven spots that works best and vice versa for low tide. Besides the usual clean, fun waves, that is one of several things that make Trestles epic.

My favorite surf trail. 

On this day, I chose to surf Cottons for dawn patrol (works best on mid outgoing to low tide) and Uppers for the afternoon (works best on incoming mid to high tide).  When I walked under the train tracks, Cottons and Barbs were looking pristine.  Clear skies, slight off shores, peaks setting up everywhere, and not much of a crowd.  I didn't even look anywhere else, I just posted up, put my suit on and jumped in.

Two fellas checking out the surf. Looked clean enough for me.

If I rated my session on a scale from one to five and five being the best, I would have rated this session as a 2.8.  The waves were there, I was just being super impatient.  Cottons is Trestles form of a beach break and peaks shift up and down the shoreline.  I wasn't chasing peaks, but I sure wasn't placing myself in the right spots.  I usually wait for the third or fourth wave of the set, but for some odd reason, I would paddle myself out of position.  After a few times of being out of position, frustration set in.  And once frustration hit, I lost my patience, and from then on it was all down hill.  I wasn't able to get into the flow like I usually do.  I even missed a clear cut, hollow mini barrel.  You'll see it on the video.  And when I watched it, I was in the right position, but didn't see it coming.  Shame on me.  The barrel was pretty clean and makeable.  But I didn't even give myself a chance.  Bummer, bummer and... bummer.


Cottons A.M. from Kookingitup on Vimeo.

I did catch a few good rides.  My best wave came after the camera came off (as always).  It was a screaming right.  It ended with me trying to squeeze into a baby barrel and almost squeaking out.  I was pretty deep in it and I remember almost making the curl.  It was a fun wave, lots of fast sections and really clean.

Cottons

I ended my one day at Trestles at my #1 favorite spot, Uppers.  For some odd reason, no one was out this particular day.  For an entire three hours, it was a grom, an old guy on an log and me at the first point.  We traded 4-5 feet, clean (really clean) waves.  The grom in particular was surprising.  We created a mini lineup and the grom actually respected it!  He was a really good kid, one of those beach blond SoCal surf kids. 

@ Uppers.  The old guy on the log paddling back to his boat.

One thing that I found particularly interesting on this day was the old guy on the log.  He parked his boat about 50 yards on the outside of Uppers, jumped in and paddled into the lineup.  And when his session was done, paddled back and whisked himself back south.  I've seen a family paddle out to Lowers from a boat before (a big 'ol yacht that is) but never at Uppers.  And the thing about it, no one was giving him shit or laughing.  I guess SoCal peeps are just more chilled.  And I like that.

I ended the day with the California Burrito and couple fish tacos at good 'ol Pedro Tacos on El Camino.  In retrospect, I didn't get to surf Rincon like I had planned that week.  The swell that was predicted just didn't show up.  But I did get some really fun waves anyway and some tasty fish tacos, SoCal style.  No complaining on this blog!