Man, today I was just beat. The work week just took it out of me I guess, because for the first time in a long time, I didn’t really feel like heading out. As I hugged my wife under the covers, she mumbled, “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?”

Kicked out of bed, I suited up, made my morning snack of toast w. peanut butter, and hit the road.

Unfortunately, the day was pretty flat. There were waves to be had, but they were few and far between. I was still pretty tired, possibly fighting off a cold, and even though the waves were small, it seemed crazy hard to get out past them to the lineup for some reason. I did notice that the water was kind of weird, with several of what I can only describe as “cross breaks.” Not sure if that’s the right term or not, but the waves seemed to be breaking in multiple spots, peeling off in diagonal lines, with some weird current in between. Nothing crazy or anything, but odd.

It seemed like my judgment was just off today. I would charge for waves that turned out to be shitty, and then be so tired I missed a good one. It didn’t seem like anyone was scoring much, but I did see a few people get some rides, including one of the two Chris’s.

I did get some good wave handling practice. The water was pretty shallow, so I charged through the impact zone a few times, using various techniques, and I feel I made some progress in handling myself in the surf. I even got to practice turning turtle, when a larger wave suddenly loomed over me, appearing out of nowhere. I paused for second, then paddled towards it and flipped over at the last second… and it worked! The wave didn’t pound me! I’ll have to keep practicing that one, until it’s second nature!

All in all, I’m still glad I went… it was a beautiful sunny day, much nicer than most of the mornings have been lately, and there are far worse ways to spend a Saturday morning than paddling around in the ocean on a bright sunny day, chatting with friends about the surf, and getting a great workout to boot! Hopefully tomorrow will bing me some waves I can catch!

One other thing I love about surfing is the drive home. I truly love driving my car, crusing down the empty early morning freeway, window down and radio blasting. I feel like I always luck out on the way home and find some seriously great music on the airwaves. Here are some highlights from this morning:

Oingo-Boingo – “Only a Lad”

Blondie – “Rapture”

Gold Earring – “Radar Love”

Bruce Springsteen – “Born in the USA”

Well, hopefully I’ll have a more interesting post next week. Till then, be safe!

This post has been a long time coming, and I apologize for the delay. Between work, life, and actually getting out in the ocean, it’s been harder than I thought to carve the time to chronicle my aquatic misadventures.

As I wrote in my last post, about 2 weeks ago southern swells were hitting the shores of Los Angeles, creating waves that were fantastic for good surfers, but dangerous for kooks like me! After nearly drowning, I had to take a day off, and skip my usual Sunday session. Suddenly something that had seemed beautiful, calming, and pure fun had been twisted into something dangerous and frightening. I don’t mind admitting that the whole experience left me shaken and scared.

I saw an interview with Gerry Lopez, in which he described the experience of wiping out in Pipeline on the North Shore. He said it was so scary, that even though you usually survived, you died a little bit… That was exactly how I felt. For the rest of the week, I had a strange sense of detachment. Part of me was missing, scared into hiding by the brutal beating the ocean inflicted on me, or maybe lost out in the rolling waves, still struggling to get in from the impact zone. I knew what I needed to do… I needed to get back on the horse.

I’m proud to say I stuck with my action items from my last post. I stepped up the cardio section of my workout. I continued to practice my balance and pop-up drills. and most importantly, I went to the doctor, and had my lungs checked. Turned out I had been suffering a mild case of Asthma all along, and didn’t even know it! I’m sure that contributed to my lack of breath that day.

Finally, the weekend came, and I prepared to get back in the saddle. On Friday, I tried out a new spot, legendary Bay street in Santa Monica, home of the famous Z Boys. Numerous sources listed this as a good beginner’s beach, but when I pulled up and surveyed the surf, I had my doubts.

That Friday was the last day of the swells, and the waves still looked pretty big to me. They built up, and closed out fast. The tide was very low, giving the impression that the waves were crashing down in knee high water… It just didn’t look good to me. I gave it a shot, and paddled out, but something didn’t feel right.

I caught one, but fell over in my pop-up. The waves were breaking in pretty shallow water, but they were very weak, and didn’t have much of strength to them. I got up, tried one more time, and then decided to get out. The water was black and glassy, there was a low fog in the air, and bottom line… I was still spooked. I talked to a surfer in the parking lot who got out the same time I did, and he said it was a good beginner’s beach, but that it was better to come at high tide. I may try the spot again, but I have heard the water is terribly polluted there, so we’ll see.

I went hiking with me wife up on Mount Baldy the next day, so surfing was out. I didn’t get back into the water till the following Sunday. I went back to my usual spot. I even took a picture of the waves, although I think my camera is a little broken right now…

It was the most important surfing experience of my life. No, I wasn’t suddenly a world class surfer, or pulling off floaters or anything. I did catch a lot of waves, but more importantly, the fun was back. By sticking to waves I could handle, I had a blast! I wasn’t so afraid of wiping out, so I tried to get a bunch more waves. And the more you try for, the more you get! I even ran into a couple guys I knew, who I hadn’t seen at the beach in a while. Chris and Chris, nice surfing with you guys!

My paddling and wave catching abilities are improving, But I still need a lot of work on my pop-up, and keeping my balance. Once I get that down, maybe I can learn to actually turn! We’ll see how this weekend goes. But either way, I am humbled and grateful that I was able to get back on that horse, and get back to enjoying the stoke of surfing. I feel like the ocean has given me back that missing piece of myself. It’s a feeling I won’t soon forget.

“Don’t drown.” Those were my wife’s last words to me as I left at 6:00am this morning to go surfing again.

I laughed, as I always do, and said something along the lines of “Don’t worry,” or “I won’t stay out long,” or some other reassurance.

Today, I came closer to drowning that I ever have in my life.

For the second weekend in a row, there was a southern swell coming in from an offshore storm. I am still enough of a kook to not know exactly what all the particulars mean, but even I know that a swell means bigger waves. And in fact, I experienced them a week or so ago, during the last swell, and felt that frankly, the surf was too big for me in those conditions.

That last time, I had come very close to catching a few waves, but found myself so exhausted from the battle to paddle out, that I felt my safety was compromised. My pop-up form was sloppy, and even when I caught a few waves, I would lose speed and sink once I stood up. When I reached the point where I felt too tired to safely get back in, I gave up and went home, even though I hadn’t been out as long as I would have liked. To paraphrase Dirty Harry, “A waterman’s got to know his limitations.”

Today, I ignored mine. When I arrived at the beach, the surf looked even bigger than last weekend. Rougher too, more current and chop. I should have taken one look and said “Maybe next time,” but I didn’t. A combination of addiction, pride, and determination pushed me forward, and I eagerly prepared to get wet.

To my credit, I didn’t waste me energy trying to fight my way out. I patiently waited on the beach till the sets stopped coming, then made my way out through the somewhat calmer water. Right off the bat it felt wrong.. I was tired from the paddling, way more tired than usual. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was probably due to fighting a stronger current. Or maybe I was just having a bad day. Either way, even in the calm water, I had to rest out in the line up, and when the waves started coming, I let them pass under me as I caught my breath.

Until the last one… Still catching my breath, I debated trying to catch it, but in the end decided to let this one go as well. As it flowed under me I bobbed up, but instead of gently settling back down, something went wrong. It carried me forward just far enough that I got dumped over the falls, and before I knew it, I was tumbling and spinning underwater on my way to the shore. Coughing and sputtering, I staggered to me feet, and tried to get back out.

Never let it be said that mother nature is deceitful. She gave me ample warning signs that the day was bigger than I could handle. As I waited for things to calm down again, I spotted a very skilled surfer, one whom I had seen every day at the beach. In a previous conversation, this surfer had had told me that he practiced every single morning before work. I watched as he caught a beautiful tube on a freaking huge wave. I also watched as he wiped out in a spectacular close out. The wave snapped his board in two. I’d never seen that happen in real life before, certainly not in the mushy waves this beach normally served up. I personally grabbed the nose of this guy’s board and handed it to him, and still I tried to paddle out.

Eventually I got back to the lineup, but the current was pulling me farther away from the other surfers. I spent some more energy trying to get back towards the crowd. Finally, the waves started getting bigger again. I waited for a a good one, and began paddling for the shore. The wave came, I caught it… but I felt like I was in slow motion, beaten and exhausted. I tried to back out, but it was too late… with a rumbling liquid explosion of noise and darkness, the wave took me under.

I came up, dazed and disoriented. The wave had dumped me in water that was still too deep to stand. I tried to make my way to my board, but the suction from the next wave was too strong. I held my breath, and again, I was smashed through the water like a rag doll. I felt my board smack my head, but luckily it was just a light hit. I reached underwater,r trying to find my leash to pull my board to me, but my arms felt like two strands of spaghetti. The next wave came, looming over me like a gray wall of stone. I covered my head with my hands as the board slammed down on top of me. I felt my body scrape against the sandy bottom, but I still couldn’t quite stand. The suction began again for the next one. It was getting harder to hold my breath.

I really can’t remember how many times I got slammed. The scary part was, I simply could not get out of it. The constant suction and then impact was keeping me trapped just far enough enough away from shore that I couldn’t get a solid footing. I began wheezing, and coughing, and found it harder and harder to hold my breath before making it to the surface. I gave up trying to get my board, and tried swimming for shore, but the board was still caught in the suction of the waves, tugging me the other way.

Finally, I made a decision. Even though the board was my flotation device, I was too tired to get to it, or even reel it in. And although I had been lucky so far, if it hit me again it could seriously injure me. I reached down and undid the leash that connected the board to me. You’re never supposed to do this, for a variety of reasons, but in my current condition, i felt like it was my best shot. Maybe this was a bad decision, I’m still not sure.

At any rate, the situation was serious enough that I was willing to lose my fairly new, beautiful funboard rather than drown. The board flew away from me, as the next wave crashed down. I did my best to body surf the waves in, gaining precious feet between pounding. Finally, I touched sand, and dug my feet in against the undertow. Even then, finally able to stand, it took every ounce of energy I had left to drag myself out of the water. I had been pushed beyond my limits… My body had nothing left to give, and I was completely out of breath, wheezing and coughing uncontrollably. As I stumbled out of the surf, I struggled to pull down the top of my wetsuit, to ease the pressure on my chest, and make it easier to breath. Please believe I am not exaggerating when I say I nearly collapsed on the beach right then and there.

Luckily, my board was right there waiting for me.

I was so beat, I didn’t even have the energy to take some pictures of the waves, which I had planned to add to my blog. I might take some tomorrow, as conditions are supposed to be similar then.

Which brings me to my lesson, what I learned from all this. I may not like it, but the fact is when a swell comes in, the surf is simply beyond my present capabilities. I need to either find another beach that is smaller on those days, or stay out of the water. Hopefully, by this time next year my skill level will have improved. But for right now, that’s just the way it is. Twice I have tried to battle my way out in swell conditions, and twice the ocean has slapped me down for my arrogance.

The ocean always wins. I don’t need a third lesson in this basic waterman’s law. I may be a kook, but I’m not stupid. If I had been stuck out there even a few minutes longer, things could have gone very, very bad.

Now, proactively, some steps I can take are:

1. Find a a beach that does not get as big when swells come in (if any readers have suggestions, I’d love to hear them.)

2. Continue my surf-focused workout, and pay particular attention to cardio and endurance exercises, to increase my overall strength level in the water.

3. Although it rarely used to bother me in California, the fact is my asthma is getting worse, and it contributed to my problems today. I don’t like to admit it, but I think I will need to go on regular preventative medication if I am going to continue engaging in strenuous activities like surfing.

Since it’s the middle of the week, and I haven’t been in the water for a while, I wanted to take a few minutes to recommend a great website for kooks like me (experienced surfers would like it too, but I’m sure they already know about it!)

Wetsand.com is great because it’s a one stop shop for surfing and other water sports. Click the link at the end of this post, and check it out… On one page you have access to surfing news, surf reports, a great on line store, and some fascinating articles and photo galleries to boot. The surf store has a strong eco-friendly slant, and sells everything from recycled leashes to bio-foam surfboards, which replace many of the toxic materials found in normal boards with plant based, bio-degradable versions.

The surf reports there are great as well, and frankly, I find them a lot easier to read than other sites. I usually have a pretty good idea what the water will be like after checking them out, and when I get to the beach, the waves usually fit my expectations. So at least I know ahead of time how bad a pounding I’m going to get!

I don’t work for wetsand, nor am I part of an affiliate program or anything. I just really like their site, and want to pass along the info to anyone who may be interested. If you like it, come back here and let me know!

Click the logo!

I remember when I learned how to ski. It was something I had always wanted to do, since I was a little kid sitting on my dad’s lap, watching James Bond movies. To me, it seemed like a vital, “grown-up” skill one simply had to possess. After all, what else would one do if chased by enemy spies in the snow? Sneaking into 80’s sex comedies reaffirmed my secret suspicion that the older kids who could ski were definitely enjoying themselves a lot more than I was.

Learning to ski taught me how to tough it out, push through pain, to suffer for something I really wanted. My first day on the slopes, I must have fallen fifty times or more. I fell after every run. By the end of the day, my body was aching, and spotted with black and blue bruises. I looked like an albino cheetah.

The next morning, my friend woke me up, and said it was time to hit the slopes again. I would be lying if I said I was eager. I had never been as sore as I was that day. But I wanted to ski. I had to do it, and even more importantly, I knew I could do it. Even though my first day had gone so badly, I knew in my heart, I was supposed to be able to do this. It may sound corny, but that’s exactly how I felt.

As we rode the chair lift up, I mentally prepared myself for the beating I was about to inflict on my already battered body. But then a strange thing happened. As we reached the mountaintop, I slid off the lift, hit the snow, and went… and never looked back. I didn’t fall once that day. I rarely fell again. Later on that trip, I beat my friend and his entire family, all of whom had been skiing for years, in a race down the mountain. It was like a switch had been flipped. Yesterday I couldn’t ski. Today I could. It was one of the most reaffirming moments in my life. I had been right. I did have it in me, and I had only to endure the pain, ignore the fear and doubt, and I was rewarded with the almost Promethean gift of flight and speed across the ice.

Surfing, on the other hand, is taking a bit longer.

From all outside appearances, I’ve pretty much sucked since day one. But, if you increase the magnification, look a little closer, the improvements are there. Like an optical illusion, or trick of the light, you just need to take a few steps back to see them.

For instance, I used to get pounded because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The waves, if they had any size at all, would just crash over me. If they were smaller, they would just flow under me, no matter how hard I paddled. Now on the other hand, when I wipe out, it’s because I’ve caught a wave, but I’m not able to pop up in time, and it just closes out on me.

I was pretty bummed out the other day, after getting hammered over and over, and I left the beach without standing up on a single wave. But on the way home, I realized I was actually catching waves. I was choosing the wave, paddling my heart out, and getting it! A couple months ago, I would have killed to say that. That was actually a huge improvement, despite the vicious beating the ocean had inflicted on me! I just had to see it in a different light.

So surfing has not been a “light switch.” For me, it is an uphill climb, over a treacherous, constantly shifting mountain trail. And yet, the feeling of peace and accomplishment I get after a morning spent bobbing in the ocean has become addictive. Driving home from the beach with the sun shining, the radio blasting, no traffic in site, and knowing that I took those next few steps, has become an important, and immensely gratifying part of my life.

Skiing was amazing once I got good at it. Surfing is amazing now. And I can only imagine what it will feel like when I reach a new plateau, and I can look down the trail and see back to those tiny first waves, breaking on the distant shore below.