"It's Better Than It Looks, Right?"

It's funny, the ocean. At first it can look so angry. Upset. Overwhelmed with white water and waves from all different directions. Ten minutes might pass and it's a whole 'nother story. Calm and collected. Slow moving swells, etc. Saturday was such. Confusing. Ten, maybe twelve miles separate the two spots we scoped out. The first was all fucked up. Messy brown water mixed with waves from the wrong way. Not to mention some strong onshore wind. A few people had paddled out. But that's not my kind of crazy. So we drove further south, somewhere I figured would work with that sort of swell.


And it was working. At least on the north end. What looked like waist high waves from the safety of shore, turned out to be big ol' bastards. Much bigger than one might imagine. Paddling out with my 9'6" single fin was no easy task. A clean up set came through and nearly washed me ashore. Disheartening. I did make it out, though. As did Ms.Wood. It's funny, but with a parking lot packed full of people searching for surf on Saturday, we were but two of ten people waiting for waves. Everyone else was on the inside.

The first one I went for was a lot bigger than it looked. There may have been some stink-bug as I slid down. Second one was a little smaller, so I went after another. And then another. Collecting confidence. That's when it all went wrong. To late into this one. A real steep sonofabitch. Lost my stick in the soup. Which sucked. Managed to make my way out again. A couple more and then we called it an evening.

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