The shore break was nasty. Three foot crunchers coming six seconds apart in on-side-on winds. Scott and I stood with our gear (big boards, him with a 5.7 me with my mighty 6.2) waiting for the slightest pause in the wave barrage.
Then it came! Immediately I had to bear off, sailing nearly parallel to the shore before the next line of breakers, looking for a hole to bear up through and get out. And it came too! Out I sailed through nice four foot swell, pleased with myself for getting out on my first attempt...no rejection for me! Then I noticed that my uphaul was dangling, unattached to the base of the mast. Always the kook. No way was I going back to the beach to fix it, so I wrapped it around the boom arm a few times before jibing off of a lovely four foot bit o' swell. It felt so good to be wavesailing again (first time since April.)
Scott was not out. What happened? Scott always gets out. Well okay he'll be out soon, and then the gallery (CD and the Wolf) will see that it's just fine and dandy out here, and we'll have ourselves a solid sesh. I enjoyed the wavy reach and jibed again (oh man does this feel good) reach, jump and jibe. Still no Scott. And what are the other guys waiting for? Jibe. Am I going to do this all by myself? Then a five footer rose, and I thought about how to ride it...started to jibe, then changed my mind, then realized I had to jibe as it began to close in front of me, then layed down the sail as nothing good was about to happen.
This was a mistake. I'd found myself a little impact zone. Also, the wind had just dropped. After two long minutes I finally got the sail up, but now I was nowhere good and quite underpowered, so I bore off and sailed/surfed to the beach, landing a hundred yards away from Scott and Bill Barber (the Wolf having left to check out Ponquogue, and CD derigging in the parking lot.) We all ended up at Ponquogue, where the wind was even lighter...George Pav tried to get out but couldn't, and I never put my board in the water. Everyone else watched (except for CD, still said to be derigging at Tiana. If you see him there, please give him a hand.)
Sounds like a bad day, yes? Yet I will tell you that in this windless waveless hell of a year, I had a good time during those five minutes, and am enjoying reliving the few moments I scored. You take what you get.
i think c.d. is still there derigging...anyone hear from that chimp?
Posted by: scott k. | August 09, 2011 at 06:29 AM