F-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-r-r-r-r-r-e-e-e-e-e-z-z-z-i-n-g

My feet are still thawing out from this morning. Sun was out, but the wind/water/sand temp was pretty darn cold.

Got out at about 6:30 and most people were south of the pier. I figured I would try to get a few northside. Waves were a little mushy because of the tide, but the bigger ones had enough push for a decent ride.

Saw Brett this morning and we were just sitting around most of the morning. After he left, I got a decent ride every 10 minutes. My last wave took forever. The good news is that wave was my first to split the pier! Kind of silly, I know.

It's probably going to be awesome around 1 or 2 pm today.

Didn't have as good a session as yesterday

I thought today the swell would have backed down a little, but it seemed like it picked up just a hair. In fact, it felt like a mix with another swell.

My guess is that there is a storm brewing off the coast that is screwing things up.

Almost everything I rode today was closed out. Head high sets for the closeouts, everything else you had to take pretty deep. I was a big whuss and pulled out of most of them.

The bigger sets had really long tails, so the shoulder was really tough to get on. I thought I would be slick near the end of my session and paddle pretty far south, but that didn't work either.

On a side note, it was just me and the ocean from 6:30 till about 7:15. Too bad the surf wasn't any good =(.

Much better session today

I decided to surf Venice today and it was definitely fun! I got in the water at about 6:30 and I was by myself for a bit and then just one other person until about 7:15.

80% of the surf were closeouts, but there were definitely some fun rights just south of the pier if you were patient. The waves were moving North to South pretty fast, so your best bet was to start paddling south when you were going for a wave.

Wave of the day for me was a long medium sized one that took me to Catamaran.

The size was shoulder + with some head high closeout sets. When I left the beach it looked like the tide was going out and the surf more punishing.

Damn, feel like a loser this morning

I woke up extra early this morning to get some surf in.

Yesterday, I spent some time on the dog beach in Huntington and saw how awesome it was, but unfortunately did not bring my board. This morning, I was excited to catch some waves for sure.

I checked out Venice at about 6:15 and it looked closed out and kind of small. I made the judgement call to go to Porto because yesterday it looked like it was going off. As I was backing out of my parking spot, I saw Brett and he warned me that Porto would be big and closed out.

...and he was right. When I got there at 6:50, there was one dude suiting up and a lot of people checking it out. I figured, "screw it" and suited up as well. The dude that suited up headed towards the Jetty and it looked like it was going off.

My eyes may have been deceiving me, but it looked head high +, maybe DOH with some of the cleanup sets.

So, after seeing that, I decided to walk southbound and just watched the surf to see if it was worth even going out. There were big lulls between sets, but the distance to the break was pretty far out, so it was conceivable that I would get caught inside.

To make a long story short, I ran out of gas on the inside. I must have been 10 feet from where I needed to be and just couldn't make it past the break. It looked damn good too from where I was - perfect little peeling shoulder. I think if I made it outside, I would have gotten some awesome rides/punishing closeouts.

Ah well, maybe next time. I could have been biting off way more than I could chew, but at least I tried. I saw a couple of kids with boogie boards and surf boards make it out about 300 meters farther south. It may have been a bad judgement call for me to paddle out so close to the entrance of the parking lot.

Maybe if I paddled out where they went out I would have made it.

SoCal Lake this AM

Lake Venice, Lake Santa Monica, Lake Sunset, Lake Topanga, Lake Malibu. 8 am this morning was definitely not what I expected in terms of surf.

I just kept on driving until I saw something. I ended up stopping at Zuma. It was my first time there. I couldn't believe how clear the water was! I could see the sand underneath me.

Unfortunately, the surf sucked. 1' waves for the most part.

When I got back to Venice to play vball, it looked like the swell was slowly peaking its head. Maybe tomorrow the surf will make it happen.

Does anything below 1 foot count as a wave?

Thought I would try to get a head start for this weekend's surf by paddling around this morning. Unfortunately, there were .5' waves. I got 3 - .5' waves, so I guess that can count as 1 wave.

I also just realized that the swell this weekend will be WNW, so Venice should hold up.

Another decent session

Got to sneak in another lunch session this afternoon and it was pretty fun. I think the conditions were better yesterday, but I had a few tiny sections.

The dude I surfed with got 2 pretty long rights though. My only wish was that it was me who got those rides.

Ah well, at least I got to get in the water.

Surfed Porto and finally back in the water!

I didn't post the last time I surfed on 12/24 and 12/27. I got sick after the 12/27 session and on top of that I missed some epic sessions on 12/25 and 12/26. People were using words like "all time".

I hate it when I miss those types of days, but you know, Christmas.

I am feeling better and decided to do a lunch session at Porto. My office is about 15 minutes away and this was my first time trying it out. Session was pretty good; I had a few good lefts and rights, but it took me some time to figure the wave out.

Porto is a little more forgiving than Venice, so I just have to adjust to what it is doing.

I'm thinking of trying to get another one in tomorrow! (fingers crossed)