Saturday, July 26, 2008

Thick lips, good juice

A small south swell came through today and I got waves. I hadn’t been out in weeks - maybe two months - so I went out on the boogie board. Turns out that was probably a better choice than the stand up board because the waves had some juice, so they were fast and walled up. I saw one guy getting rides, but most of the stand-up surfers were getting creamed or just not making the takeoff.

I made 4 waves in :16 minutes, and got punished by each. On the first, I didn’t have a sense of how strong the lips were. I stayed high on the wall after the takeoff and turn, and got hit in the back of the head by the lip. It tore my hat off and I think I got a mild concussion. On the second wave I pulled into the barrel a bit lower on the face, but then the descending lip hit the nose of my board and pearled it so fast that I literally flipped, fins over my head. The water was pretty shallow and I got scared that I was being pushed down so fast that it was going to break my neck, but I didn’t hit the bottom after all. This one overpressurized my ears too. In the third wave I got el rolloed, but by then I was prepared. I got a good view looking down the barrel, which was fun - for about .5 sec.

After the first :17 minutes I didn’t get anything else for another :15, so I got out. Water temp was 68F according to LA County Lifeguards.

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