2.09.2004
After you've been surfing awhile you begin to get to a point when you experiment with weather conditions. Stormy seas, night time surfing, early moring and sunset.
This story is about surfing in the fog.
My first experience surfing in the fog was at the cliffs in Huntington Beach, again in the 80's when I had no money, loads of time and was a starving student.
Huntington can really get socked in with fog so thick it is unsafe to drive. You have to navigate from pure memory and drive with your lights off so that your lights won't reflect the fog. My buddy and I negotiate ourselves ever so slowly to the cliffs where we had surfed many times before. There is absolutley no way of telling how big the waves are except for the sounds of the sea and those are often misleading. We suit up and paddle out. My eyes are wide open and I feel very alive. No one in the parking lot but us which means we have the beach to ourselves this morning.
It is both scary and thrilling at the same time. Fog typically equals no wind so the sea surface is ideal for surfing. We paddle out and can see no further than 5-7 feet max. in a radius. You echo locate your buddy by talking out loud and paddling toward the noise. The waves were a solid 4 foot with long intervals. You had to focus and be ready to snap your board around at the last minute to catch a wave or to get under a wave ready to break on your head. You take a few "toad" waves (take off and die) till you get the rythm. We surfed for an hour with the beach all to ourselves. We took a break and talked with each other about chicks, parties and important nothings that brohs talk about in the line up. Then my buddy said...."listen"? can you hear that?......and I said "what" with really big eyes ready to flip and paddle?....he said exactly.....I can't hear anything...we are in a rip tide.
In thick fog you cannot see the beach! We took a total guess and began paddling in a random direction. I was pretty damn spooked to freely admit it, because anyone who knows me knows my sense of direction is not the best. I made it a point to paddle exactly behind him so if we are lost at sea at least I have someone to hang out with! Misery as they say love company. We got tired of paddling, stopped and without a word to each other just listened intensely both facing the same direction. Seemed like a 1/2 hour went by without a word. We heard a wave crash way way off into the distance behind us and we simulataneously pulled a 180 and dug hard with our paddles to gain some ground. We had been paddling way out to sea and I felt like we would see the oil rigs soon!
That pretty much ended our surf session for the day and we still laugh hard to this day when we ask each other "seen any oil rigs lately?"
This story is about surfing in the fog.
My first experience surfing in the fog was at the cliffs in Huntington Beach, again in the 80's when I had no money, loads of time and was a starving student.
Huntington can really get socked in with fog so thick it is unsafe to drive. You have to navigate from pure memory and drive with your lights off so that your lights won't reflect the fog. My buddy and I negotiate ourselves ever so slowly to the cliffs where we had surfed many times before. There is absolutley no way of telling how big the waves are except for the sounds of the sea and those are often misleading. We suit up and paddle out. My eyes are wide open and I feel very alive. No one in the parking lot but us which means we have the beach to ourselves this morning.
It is both scary and thrilling at the same time. Fog typically equals no wind so the sea surface is ideal for surfing. We paddle out and can see no further than 5-7 feet max. in a radius. You echo locate your buddy by talking out loud and paddling toward the noise. The waves were a solid 4 foot with long intervals. You had to focus and be ready to snap your board around at the last minute to catch a wave or to get under a wave ready to break on your head. You take a few "toad" waves (take off and die) till you get the rythm. We surfed for an hour with the beach all to ourselves. We took a break and talked with each other about chicks, parties and important nothings that brohs talk about in the line up. Then my buddy said...."listen"? can you hear that?......and I said "what" with really big eyes ready to flip and paddle?....he said exactly.....I can't hear anything...we are in a rip tide.
In thick fog you cannot see the beach! We took a total guess and began paddling in a random direction. I was pretty damn spooked to freely admit it, because anyone who knows me knows my sense of direction is not the best. I made it a point to paddle exactly behind him so if we are lost at sea at least I have someone to hang out with! Misery as they say love company. We got tired of paddling, stopped and without a word to each other just listened intensely both facing the same direction. Seemed like a 1/2 hour went by without a word. We heard a wave crash way way off into the distance behind us and we simulataneously pulled a 180 and dug hard with our paddles to gain some ground. We had been paddling way out to sea and I felt like we would see the oil rigs soon!
That pretty much ended our surf session for the day and we still laugh hard to this day when we ask each other "seen any oil rigs lately?"
Comments:
Post a Comment
![[ BLoG'N XML ]](http://sanonofre.com/blog/xml.gif){kind=small}