Oh, Hell Yes!!!

The only thing I did wrong today was forget my camera. Soul Brother #1 bought me a new digital camera for Christmas. As I drove to the beach today for a session—my first session in weeks!—I realized I'd left the camera at home. That, believe it or not, was the worst thing that happened to me today. In other words, it was a good day, both in the water and out.

I was to meet CYT at RPB this morning. As it turns out, I saw her car, but I never saw her. The place was a zoo so I opted to stay in the bay and not worry about paddling over to Dos Baños. You know the crowd is bad when it takes you 20 minutes to find a parking space on PCH. There was no way I was paying for parking. I'll do it at the Breakwater, but not at RPB. Why pay to park in the restaurant lot when you can park for free on PCH and be just as close? Anyway, I finally got a spot. One of the old guys said I'd arrived at just the right time. "It's actually getting better." But he warned me to stay inside and stay low. The off-shore (on-shore? Hell, I don't know. I always mix those terms up. The wind was blowing toward the ocean!) breeze was so strong, he said, that it was knocking people off their boards. I also realized, once I was in, that the breeze was also weakening an already slow, mushy wave. I talked to this guy for awhile and then suited up. As I was about to put in my left contact, I noticed it was torn almost completely in half. Not good! They're soft contacts that I only use for surfing. I do find it rather helpful to see that there's a wave approaching. Anyway, that meant I only had one contact. Surfing with one good eye isn't fun. I've done it on those occasions when one of my contacts popped out mid-session. As I was cursing my bad luck, I remembered I still had one daily wear contact in my bag. Yep, just one. No, I'm not sure how that happened either. But, alas, it was a contact for my left eye. "Damn, I must be doing something right to get karma like this!!!" I paddled out. As I was about to head toward Dos Baños, I happened upon two of my homegirls from the home break. We've not seen each other in ages. I'm now working full-time. One is in school full-time. The other is about to start school full-time. They're two of my favorite people because we're all moms who are over 35 and we all surf. So there! Well, the old guy was right. It was damn hard to get into these waves. And it was crowded. And it was cold. I'm glad I thought to stick my 4/3 in the car. As I was about to suit up, I'd asked him if I should wear a 3/2 or a 4/3. He recommended the latter, saying the breeze was what was going to make me cold. He was right. I talked to my girls for a time, all the while trying to catch something. Granted, the waves were hard to get into and I've not been in the water since sometime in December, but it got to the point of being ridiculous. This was RPB, for god's sake. It's not a difficult wave . . . most of the time. Finally . . . finally . . . I saw a left start to build . . . slowly. That wave, I'd decided, was mine! The good thing about lefts at RPB is that when you're a goofy foot, you can see if anyone else is going with you (since it's a break where you go right 97% of the time). This wave was big and fat. And it was all mine. I was prepared to call anyone and everyone else off the wave if I had to. "I haven't surfed in weeks and I'm in no mood to share this left, dammit!" That's what I was prepared to say. But once again, good karma was with me. No one else went for the wave. Not one person. It was mine, all mine. And you know what I did, don't you? I carved that mofo up like a Thanksgiving turkey. (Yes, that was a horribly trite simile.) It was a long, tasty ride too. That was yet another one of those waves that makes me so happy that I don't care if the rest of the session is a shutout. It's good I felt that way since the rest of the session was an exercise in paddling futility. I'd paddle for waves and not catch a thing. I wasn't the only one either. It seemed that many people were baffled by those conditions. Just when I was ready to give up, I caught a good, meaty right with nice shape. I knew I couldn't possibly be the only person on the wave since I'd looked to see if anyone else was paddling for it too. As luck would have it, one other guy caught it with me. We smiled at one another, I threw him the shaka, and then got nailed by whitewater. When I came up, he was still going. That, too, was a beautiful ride. I'd told myself I'd get out after that ride. Well, we all know how that goes. It's so good that you can't help but go back for more. I didn't stay out much longer though. I was cold. My bootie-less feet were going numb and I could no longer move my pinkies. I caught yet another good right and took the damn thing all the way into shore. The only thing that stopped me from riding onto the sand was the realization that there were rocks at the shore. Still, I rode the thing virtually all the way in. I got out happy. As if that wasn't enough for good karma, I got back to my car in time to see the parking enforcement guy giving tickets. I asked if my car was parked legally. Wasn't I surprised when he said it wasn't? I assured him I was leaving and he left me alone. Unfortunately, he wrote tickets for the three cars parked in front of me.

Now that the holidays are over, my work schedule is calming down. No more six day work weeks as of next week. So I'll be able to surf two or three days a week from here on in.