Out of Rhythm -- It Happens.

I am sitting in my blue chair. There is a distinctive ache in a number of places in my muscles and bones. My tail bone is bruised. It hurts to walk. My triceps, deltoids, upper back, calves, and quads all have lactic acid surging around them. My left forearm has a small sore spot on the bone. All of these are a result of getting my ass handed to me at a mysto beach out east. It wasn't that big. Maybe 4ft. But it was thick and square and shallow and I was slow and out of rhythm.

With my busy grad student schedule I have either two half days or one whole day a week to surf. Last weekend, when I wrote the post "Tal Vez", I over-amped on Dane Reynolds videos and pulled the trigger prematurely. I surfed the crappiest day in the window. Don't get me wrong—I still had a blast at gusty west wind Long Beach. But the next day Jersey fired and I was stuck at home doing research. C'est la vie as they say.

Yesterday was the beginning of my spring break and the only day in the next few weeks with swell, so I decided that an all day surf mission was in order. My buddy Juan and I drove out of Brooklyn around 8:30am and went straight to 67th St. in Rockaway. The dawn patrol crew was just coming in. It was waist high and starting to get closed out. We decided to keep looking. We skipped the Long Beach jetties, which in hindsight could have been a bad move. I know it was good there, but I surf there all of the time and craved a different kind of wave. We kept checking spots further east and then further east still. Nothing was quite right and the winds were starting to funkify, which looked ominous for an all-day driving mission. Fear of getting skunked set in. But there was plenty of pulse and more pulse the further east we drove, so I kept my hope alive.

After a million text messages (from Juan to friends—I was driving safe), we got a healthy tip. At 1pm after about 4 hours of searching we scooted up to a Hamptons moon-scape and to heaving top-to-bottom rights breaking in about 1 foot of water. The winds were pretty strong out of the Northwest, but they curved around just right for this little zone. There were three of us—all goofy. Rubber space men with three-finned probing tools. The water was in the 40 degree range. Icebergs to the face. Just being out there seeing these slabbing pits made all of the driving worth it. There was no where on our journey that offered waves that packed this many pounds per square inch. Juan picked up a few off the bat. I got a left soul arch close-out. My left should was behaving funny. I knew I was out of rhythm immediately. Connor, the local with the knowledge, scored the backside barrel of the day. I refused to know limits, and despite the fact that I was out of rhythm, continued to chucked myself over the ledge with abandon. While Juan was getting little pocket rides and slashing cutties I was getting pitched into oblivion. I have not had such an off session in ages. To top it off I swung on one of the bigger, squarer sets and fell from the very top straight into the sand, right onto my tailbone. The shock that rang through my body at the moment was tremendous. I got absolutely trashed and came up hogtied. Clearly hurt, I continued to surf. I had one redemptive wave at the end where I picked the right line and stayed in the pocket, straightening out at the very end. When the tide pushed in the waves shut down. Sore and limping, I walked back to the car.

We checked another spot after. It looked to have massive potential. Instead of hitting it immediately we warmed up in Connor's car. He told us a story about a Russian gangster buying boats from he and his dad's company. The gangster needed to make sure that blood didn't stick to the deck. He made Connor deliver the boats to sketchy spot in Queens, and also made him drive to the Bronx, and had his hit man sit with him the whole time. After Connor told us this crazy story we checked one other spot. By the time we got back to surf the wind had switched onshore. We paddled out anyhow. The ocean was hating me. Rip current; white water spray in the eyeball like a paint gun; arms that felt heavy and wouldn't move. I saw Juan catch a few, but even he, who had a good run at the previous spot, had a few sections deny him. It was just funky.

In the end, I am glad to have spent the whole day searching for waves and checking new spots. The world just opened up a bit for me and I've finally started exploring the east coast thanks to my new found surf buddies. Next time with those winds and those conditions I'd probably stick to Long Beach, but now I know. It is small this way today. $20 says the spots we surfed yesterday were probably fun as heck this morning early.

Tal Vez

There might be surf this weekend. Fingers are crossed. All of this Quik Pro action is making me want to put the fish down and get on the tri-fin.

Darkwaverider Speaks! Women's World Tour Preview

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Surf Like: Tom Curren and Conner Coffin

Had to post this video of Tom Curren and Conner Coffin just so it will always be in this blog roll. So freakin epic. You can't even tell who is who. Would be funny to add Dane to this, then it'd really be confusing!

More Pics from My Last Surf Adventure of 2011

My Last Surf of 2011

This shot was taken at about 11:30am on Wednesday, December 28, somewhere in Northern New Jersey. I say somewhere not so much to protect the spot as that I actually do not even know where this is. Yes, I paddled out and yes, I surfed rights similar to this one, but I only have a rough idea of where I was because it was only my second time surfing down there. Clearly I need to surf there more, but I think it will take at least another year to figure where the spots are and to know where and what I'm actually surfing. As it stands I just kind I drive down and poke my car around in different corners looking for the best thing going, in a reasonable amount of time. After checking about 4 other spots my buddy, Juan, and I pulled up to this spot and watched the two dudes out there get shacked silly. Not wanting to spoil their fun, we checked another spot just up the beach, but it wasn't as mechanical, so we flipped back around, parked and paddled into this gorgeous lineup. The original two guys had gotten their fill of perfect shacks and had left, but there were now about 4 to 6 other guys their stead, only two of whom could actually surf, which made it pretty easy to get in position for the spinners. My second wave was the best backside barrel I've had in ages — since I left San Francisco definitely. I just sat there with my bum on the face, almost Indian style, watching this brownish green cylinder throw out in front of me with no sign of clamping shut. I came out of that first section, saw a second, and got greedy trying to do a fancy layback and then got sucked over. I was a bit mad at myself for ruining a perfect ride, but still, it was sick, and I shouldn't be too hard on myself. I was also shocked at how I can go from two weeks of academic sedentariness into 4-5 tubing backside pits with little to no awkwardness. There's always a little anxiety at first, but it disappears after the first wave, when the competence has been proven. After that sick one I got a bunch of long barrels that closed out on me near the shore (it's so cool how dark and deep the barrel gets when you're riding into the bottom of it). After a few of those I slid into another magic one and made sure not to try any fancy stuff at the end — just keep the line and come out clean, which is what I did. I am still trying to recollect all of these in my head. The silence. The vision. It all happens so fast. Just gotta go do it again. Or write about it. Or bring a photographer along. Pick one or combine a few. Definitely bring a buddy. I saw Juan do some sick backside hacks and witnessed him emerge from a rare left barrel (frontside for him — we're both goofy) that he found down the beach. At that point the tide was getting too low and the swell was dropping rapidly, making the rights too fast to make. As fun as closeout barrels are, they get old after about the 10th one. Still I highly recommend them to anyone working on his/her tube skills. The best way to learn how to barrel ride is to pull into closeouts. We surfed for about two hours then came in and still hungry for surf, changed half way (left the bottoms of our suits on) and drove around looking for another wave. But nothing really spoke out to us. We wanted ramps and walls to carve on and instead were offered fast, small racy rights with hard offshore winds. Looked great for bodysurfing, but not worth it with how cold the 30 knot offshores were making the air. I will post some photos, however, of the spots we checked, and they do look pretty darn good, but I'll admit right now, most of the waves are closeouts. At any rate, it was a great way to have my last session of 2011 and reminded me of why I was stoked to move to the East Coast: any time you move somewhere new it's like you're living your own version of The Search. Even though there's people who know Jersey and all other East Coast spots like the back of their hand, it's all new and adventurous to me. Keeps perspective fresh and inspired. Here's to "discovering" more waves in 2012!

Post Pipe

Pipe is over. Kieren Perrow won the thing. John John had the highest heat tallies throughout the event, but sometimes the guy with that stat doesn't win. Slater had his heat of the comp against JJ, and in my opinion totally legitimately beat the kid. Word to the wise: do not let Slater have priority when he needs an 8+ ride. KP was on fire the whole event, and if I would have read my pre-pipe post a little more closely I probably should have taken my own observations from that winter watching pipe and put my money on him. Hindsight always 20/20. And now the moment all the guys on tour and all the fans of surfing have been waiting for for 9 months is here: the break between ASP seasons. The guys on tour can chill with their families and the rest of us can stop watching contests online and get some real work done. One thing I kept hearing/seeing/reading over the past few weeks is how the surfers really feel that they "have the best lifestyle" of any one in the world. Every time I hear that I get a bit jealous - I feel like I am not in it enough - I don't surf three times a day any more. But then I sit back and remind myself that even though surfing is not my sole occupation any longer, it is still a massive part of my life. I mean I am not being flown around the world searching for perfect warm water reef passes, but I am in it. Every session gives me enough joy to last at least till the next one, clears my head, invigorates my limbs, and sends pulses of stoke through the core of my being. And at the end of the day after this PhD coursework is all done and dusted who knows, I just might write my dissertation in between sessions at random firing locations. All that said, surfing is a great lifestyle, definitely one of the best, but I'm sure there are some other folks out there that are pretty happy with the paths they've chosen, and good on them for that. If there is one thing that I agree with Aristotle about it is that happiness is both fleeting and relative. -D