Getting Out Of My Head

Lately I've been trying to get out of my head.  April has been long and extremely difficult.  From work to changes that come with spring and life, I long for the winter days when I could head down to the beach, paddle into size able, clean waves and forget about it all for a few hours.  Spring has all but taken that away.  Now when I look out at the surf, all I see is whitecaps and 15 hour gusts throwing sand in my eyes.  Yeah, I have my board and suit in my car, but looking at all that gnarly foam for some reason has been getting under my skin lately.  I bumped into a buddy the other day at Linda Mar while I was taking The Kid out again for another lesson.  My buddy tried three times to get me out.  I had my suit on but my board was in the car and for some odd reason, I forgot my leash.  My buddy even had an extra leash in his car.  "Nah, I'm good man, besides, I gotta watch the kid" I told him.  He looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, stuck on his hood and paddled out.  For some odd reason, I still don't regret not paddling out with him.  I was pretty content, and pretty cold.  Damn onshores...

However, I paddled out a few days prior to that meeting.  Things were looking like slop, but I told myself that if I made it to the beach, I was paddling out no matter what.  I pulled up to the south lot of Linda Mar, checked out the surf and just told myself "fuck it."  I stuck on my wetsuit, grabbed The Sunset, did a couple of warm up stretches and paddled out with my buddy Amal, just a bit south of the Taco Bell.  By the time we made it to the outside, I ducked dived about 50 times.  No lie.  It was just one sloppy white water after another.  It had to be @ 7 seconds or something, the waves and the wash were about 4 yards apart.  The Good news is that it wasn't as windy as predicted, the water felt like it was around 58 degrees, I was wearing no booties and if it weren't for the short period intervals, the outside would have been considered glassy... kinda.

Once we got out there, for some odd reason, Linda Mar was trying to produce some decent peaks.  Within 15 minutes, I think I had around 5 waves.  No face time, but some fun drops.  The waves had some slope to it, nothing steep, which made it easy and fun.  Then after a couple of waves, I ran into Manav and Tanji.  It was good to see them.  We gave each other fist bumps, and talked about life and everything else in between.  It's always great to run into buddies unexpectedly, especially when the surf sucks.  But for some reason, the surf didn't suck. 

For about an hour and a half that evening, the waves were good.  Linda Mar offered me probably the funnest right I've had all year at that beach.  I caught it way outside and practically rode the wave into the creek.  I built up a lot of speed going down the line and gave it a right hook of a snap once it sectioned.  I caught another pretty sizeable, sloped out wave earlier, and had another pretty good snap of the section.  It wasn't to bad at all, considering it was spring at Linda Mar 

After we got out, Vanessa, another good friend was in the parking lot.  I haven't seen her in a while, and it's always great to catch up with her.  We all ended up eating burritos down the street, talking story, having some laughs and discussing our upcoming annual Trestles trip that's coming up in a few months.  And I also met another cool lady surfer, Kate, who's coming to Trestles too.

Maybe things aren't that bad and I'm just stressing out on a Sunday evening because of the week to come and what happened during the end of last week.  It's hard to get out of this bolo head of mine.  I'm just lucky to have a bunch of good friends, a surf board and big blue next door.  If those three things can't get me out of my head, nothing ever will.
 

Oh and one more thing...  I took The Kid out surfing again and he solo paddled into his very first, real, non-white wash wave!  I was so stoked for him.  He paddled into the peak, glided for a second, stood up, made the drop and went left for about two seconds of face time.  He raised his hands in the air, looked at me and we both yelled for joy!  So stoked for him!  I just want to thank Dan and the folks at Sonlight Surf Shop for setting The Kid up.  Dan and Robin are always really helpful and encouraging.  Great job Kid!