The Whatever Sessions

The Whatever Sessions from Kookingitup on Vimeo.

Lately, I've been looking into new hobbies.  Knitting, gardening, fencing, maybe dabbing into learning a new language, cooking...  Whatever to get my mind off surfing and the endless knee high waves and south winds that blow out anything that is good or ride able.  For whatever reason, the S.P.A.C. has not let loose, not once.  Well, let me take that back, it did a couple times but during spring when winds from all directions destroyed any hope or stoke that I had.  And when there are waves and the weather cooperates, this is what happens:

I'm not really one to complain about crowds.  Shit, I cut my teeth in one of the most crowded reefs in Santa Cruz.  But the older I get, the less I can hang with all the young kids and groms.  Especially down here in SoCal.  Everybody can surf pretty well, and when your in a crowd fighting for three waves sets that come every ten minutes, you have to be on your "A" game.  But it's difficult when your surfing a spot and at the head of the pack is Kolohe Andino and on the inside, besides all the groms, is Pat Gudauskas (someone could win a spelling bee trying to spell that last name!).  It's probably my fault for picking crowded spots to surf, but I'm not one to dwell on if there are crowds or not, I just want to surf good waves.

That's me above surfing at my local break.  I'm pretty hesitant on calling any break my "home break" cuz I don't feel as if I'm ever going to be a local ("What high school did you go to?").  I pretty much wonder to where the buoys tell me too, so I don't frequent the same spots.  But I do have my "local" breaks which are near where I live.  Shores, Scripp's and Black's are practically on my doorstep, so yeah, those spots are pretty much local.  And out of all three, Black's can pretty much go "loco" at times if you know what I'm saying.

That's me on in the picture above again, giving ya'll an example of what it's been like.  Yeah, we get the intermittent chest high wave now and then, but pretty much, it has been ankle to knee high crap.  Whatever waves.  It's been pretty much exercising as of late, and I don't take these sessions too seriously.  Why?  Cuz for one thing, I surf like crap in small waves, and when I do, my confidence in my surfing falls off tremendously.  It's hard to surf well in small surf, especially since I'm a pretty big guy.  I need more "umph" to set up my turns.  One thing that I have been doing lately is wearing a hat during afternoon sessions.  That my friends, has saved my face from burning like a crisp.  I don't know why I didn't start wearing a hat before, but I never paddle out without it after 12p.

I know I'm ranting and complaining a lot in this post.  And I know I haven't posted in awhile either.  I just haven't had anything worthy to write about.  But to be honest, we have had a few good days of surf.  The last couple of days of June were pretty good at my local breaks.  For some odd reason, we had a late WNW swell that made Black's look like a pretty fun winter day.  I had a blast that day, catching some overhead plus waves.  It was good enough to bust my leash.  And after my leash busted, I decided to stay on the outside and body surf, which was a great call. And besides having the size, the waves were nice and peaky, just the way I like them.  We also had a couple of windswells that provided some fun rides at the Pier.  Really fun waves that again, provided those lovely beach break peaks.

This is all first world problems.  People in Iraq would be laughing at my bullshit complaints right now.  But even when there are no waves, I still have this beach to go to.  My wife and I spend most of our sunsets parked on a hill watching sunsets like the one above.  We sit in my car like two teenage love struck kids, holding hands, smelling that sweet sea breeze and watch one magnificent sunset after another.  There isn't much that I can share with my wife about surfing because she doesn't swim and doesn't surf.  But sunsets at the beach is something we can always share, because if your in the lineup watching this or from a hill, the feeling is always the same.