Session 4 - January 9 - Linda Mar

Jan 9, 7:20-8:35, north end LM, 8'10 Vernor -----> 4'5 Vernors

OK now that the mourning has passed for my broken board, I'll get down to posting this session report. It was a good session. Colin B and Ramin from work were out as well -- I was supposed to meet them at 7 in the parking lot but was a little late so they called and paddled out without me. I found them in the water, which was easy as there were only about 3 people total out at 7:20 (including them). We went out similar to same spot I was at yesterday. Conditions were good again, swell had picked up some and wind was down, so it wasn't as nice as yesterday, ie it was more of the normal closing out you expect from big LM, but there were still quite a few VERY nice waves to be had. I thought I was going to be in for a relatively easy paddle out, but the ocean thought otherwise, and it turned into about at least 10 duckdives and some heavy paddling to get outside. I was making the paddle with Ramin who had caught a wave as I was coming out, he's a nice guy and will hopefully make a good morning surf buddy. Colin as well when he gets down to LM, he goes to OB in the mornings a lot when conditions allow. Plus he always surfs such a small board (5'10 today) I dont know how he does it. I'd say he'd catch more waves with a few extra inches and float under him, but he gets by. My first wave was a good one, as was the case w/ that spot yesterday nice lefts being served up. Nice drop, good face, up to the top of the wave and back down again. Not much of a cutback as it's a pretty fast moving wave and I'm not the fastest moving surfer, plus I was longboarding. There were two guys getting some pretty nice cutbacks and some barrels too by the end (right before my board broke I saw a guy get totally shacked). I followed up that wave with another good one that I wiped out on (I'll blame it on Ramin, he was inside. And not really in the way, but I'll pretend he was), followed by several more good lefts. I'm definitely much more comfortable than I used to be, these waves had pretty solid size, overhead easy. On one I knew I was behind the peak but I took off anyways, thinking maybe I can be cool and backdoor this thing, but I couldn't -- it really wasn't much of a section in front of me, more like an entire close out. But I would've never tried that before, so I'll count it as progress.

The sad ending to my session started out with me turning and taking an early wave in what turned out to be a monster set. I was a little bit late on it, but stuck the drop and actually wound up in a big barrel, biggest of my life, straight stand up, no laying/crouching/pigdogging or nothing, this was a legit standup barrel/(closeout) that I might have had a chance to make it out of (i can't tell when I'm in it -- I'm not to the point where I really have much awareness about what I'm doing when I'm in these barrel situations. It's not like the thought process is in my head: "if I do this or this, I'll be able to get out of that little opening there." It's more like "crap there is water coming around me everywhere whoa this is awesome I'm in a barrel" and then boom I'm underwater and getting tossed around), but I didn't. I felt the water dumping all over me and wiped out...leaving me directly in the impact zone with many more waves on the horizon. I scrambled to gather my (still in tact) board and got on to paddle outside, only to be greeted by a monster of a straight up and down face coming right at me. I thought OK paddle like hell and I'll be able to get over this thing so I tried, but last minute was too late, so as recorded earlier, ditched the board and that was that. Came up and it was broke in half. I let the rest of the waves sweep me in to shore swimming and got out and collected the second half and gathered my thoughts. The guy I had actually seen get completely barreled came in pretty much right after me, turns out he had actually broken his board too, but only the tip of the nose -- he was really good and it was also a 6'something shortie not an 8'10 like mine. That made me feel better though, less kooky if this guy is breaking his board also, not just me. He was supportive of my situation, said that yeah, these waves people can often underestimate them, they can pack some punch on days like today. Good to have some re-assurance and support in that moment.

Alright I'm heading out now, dinner and then it's GAMETIME baby. Blazers Warriors. It's Blazermania time! OH ps sorry I duplicated some stuff from my RIP post above, but it was worthy of it. I don't break boards that often.