Get High and Surf

I finally experienced the joy that is surfing during the highest of high tides. After yesterday's surf debacle (where the author arrives at the beach only to find the highest of high tides and then searches in vain for a place to surf before going home unsurfed and pissed off), I resigned myself to surfing in whatever conditions met me at the beach today. Once again, the tide would be over seven feet when it reached its peak. I didn't care. I wanted to get in the water. I didn't even let the wind stop me. I was going in. Period.

I was the first one at the beach. I went to the shore and just stared. Then Bob came. The sun was out. The wind was offshore. He'd surfed yesterday in the same high tide conditions. He said he paddled out while everyone else stood around waiting for it go get better. It never did get better. He got his waves. They did not. We decided we'd go. Eddie probably would have slept in, but we were going. As usual, the shorter board stayed in the car . . . as did the leash. I'm following Alan M's suggestion that I go leashless whenever I'm on the longboard. With the tide being as high as it was, I would have gone leashless anyway. I don't think it's safe to surf in the high tide conditions with a leash. You're literally surfing in two feet of water and the last thing you need is something yanking your board back at you. If, by chance, you lose your board when you go leashless, it's not like you've got far to go to retrieve it.

In the end, I was satisfied. There were four of us out there. I thought surfing in this tide was a good way to work on board control. There's not a lot of room for error when it's that shallow. There were no long rides, no walking to the nose. Paddle, pop-up, bottom turn, kick out. Well, I don't exactly kick out. I kind of ease out of the wave. I'm not well-versed in the art of kicking out well, thus the reason why I don't do it well. It was offshore when we paddled out. When we surfed in, the winds were going sideways, making for unpleasant Victory at Sea conditions.