Warm Water At Last!!!

(There wasn't much out there yesterday. I must have seen something since I can tell I'm about to turn around and paddle.)


What a gloriously beautiful weekend it was in terms of the temperature both in the air and in the water. I don't remember a previous June, in my short surfing life, when I was able to shed the neck-to-ankle neoprene. Yesterday, I wore trunks and a jacket. Today, I opted for the shorty john. I wasn't chilly on either day. This is a treat. I hate fullsuits almost as much as I hate board socks. Unfortunately, I can't live without either one of them.

Soul Brother #1 came with me yesterday and snapped some shots of a few of us while we were in the water. Although I still surf the home break, I no longer surf right in front of or a little south of our landmark (Tower XX). It's much too crowded there these days. Even when you get there early, you still end up being forced to contend with a break full of newbies and wanna bes. It's not only irritating, it's dangerous. I've taken a page out of R and B's book; I surf in a spot where people are simply too lazy to walk to. Why do people think that it's necessary to sit one on top of the other in the water? Even when I was a newbie, I tried to stay out of the way. I would walk as far as I needed to. For one thing, I was embarrassed by my nonexistent skills. I freely admit to that. My secondary concern was getting in someone else's way. Either way, I knew to give myself and everyone else some space. Well, it seems that the new people I'm seeing in the water these days don't understand such logic. They just paddle straight out into the lineup and seem to do whatever they want, hardly mindful of the other people around them. Frankly, I don't like that and neither do the bona fide locals. It was bad enough that some publication's headline stated "XX Beaches Kind to Newbies". Then the sub-headline read "New surfers are welcome at local surf locations—not the case at other surf spots up and down the Cali coastline". How's that for outing a break? It doesn't get much worse than that. As of that wasn't bad enough, I'm told that there are also surf schools there during the week. Our little beach break, the one with the mediocre waves (that were pretty good when I first started surfing but are no longer so), is no longer flying under the radar. And I don't like it.

From looking at Soul Brother #1's pictures, I can get a hint of what I'm doing on the board these days. It's kind of hard to judge since the shape was worse yesterday than it was today. I was also on a log and that was the wrong board for those conditions. The Slick was a much better call today. I can see I'm more relaxed than ever before, but there are still things I want to work on.

I surfed leashless today. Gracefullee walked past me as I was suiting up. When I saw that she didn't have a leash, I decided I'd go leashless too. I trust her judgment. And you know what? I only swam three or four times—one of those times was after I walked up to the nose and fell right off. Since I was surfing where people weren't, there was no danger of me clocking anyone with my board. Sunshine. Warm water. No leash. It was great. I hear a small swell is on the way. That means sunshine, warm water and waves with shape. I'm on it!