Took a trip down to Sand Dollar Beach in Big Sur this weekend to see an good friend and catch a few waves. Partied a little too hard Saturday night and had a bit of a late departure, but loaded up the rig Sunday around noon and hit the road in time to see the golden sunset as I cruised out of town on Hwy 1. Got to my spot up in the hills above Sand Dollar around 8:30 that night and settled back with a beer and checked out the stars. With no light pollution for miles and miles in any direction, the stars literally fill the sky. Happy to be back for the first time in a while, I call it a night and easily fall asleep listening to the offshore wind rustling the dry grass, hoping it keeps up through the morning.
Sleeping up high on the mountain, the sun comes up pretty early and had me up and going a little after 7 o'clock. I took a nice walk down one of the ridges with Ricky (my dog), read a little and dug myself a cat-hole with a rockin view. Ricky kept coming over and getting up in my business, but after a little while wandered off. I didn't notice he'd split until I was filling my hole back in and couldn't see him around. I walked back to my truck and sure enough Ricky was sitting right there next to it, practically guarding the thing for me. What a kick-ass dog!
I rallied down the hill and wasted no time in getting my things together to walk down to the beach. Two boards, my wetsuit, some munchies and a bunch of water. **Side Note** I love surfing, but I really love surfing lots of different surfboards. I surf boards with 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 fins. I've surfed boards from 5'4" to 9'8", but most days you'll catch me on a thicker, wider board just under the 6ft mark. **End Tangent** I brought my green 7ft 70's era single fin and my self-shaped 5'10" quad fish down to surf today. I couldn't believe that I could hear the waves cracking on my way down to the beach, but when I rounded the bend and caught a glimpse of the swell....SCORE! It was going off, head-high+, top-to-bottom, peeling rights and workable lefts, glassy, sunny, offshore, stoked!
Quickly shuffled down to the beach, piled up my stuff, pulled on my wetsuit, waxed up my 7'0" single fin and was about to paddle out - feet in the water - when someone yelled my last name. I looked up and saw my buddy Connor coming down the stairs. He's got a bunch of red hair and was sporting a bright pink t-shirt. Hard to miss! We talked a bit and I decided to paddle out anyways, as it sounded like everyone he was with wanted to take off and get home. There were about 5 other dudes in the water when I went out. Caught a half dozen good waves on the single fin, a few fun off the lips which are a blast on that board in big, chunky surf. It loves going straight, but if you start really pushing and hacking it around, you'd have a hard time convincing someone on the beach it's an old 70's board. Caught a good one in, played fetch with Ricky for 20 minutes, drank some water and then headed back out with my 5'10" quad.
There's nothing like surfing a board you made for yourself. Especially when it suits your surfing better than most of the boards you've ever ridden. There was some very kook-looking kid piping off about how he'd seen a shark fin up at the north end of the beach right as I was paddling out, but he looked like a goof and admitted upon questioning that it was just a really big fin and hadn't circled him or anything like that. I paddled out anyways which, by the looks of their faces, surprised the dozen surfers standing on the beach heeding the shark warning. I caught a few waves, then had three or four really good one in a row. I was in the zone for about 20 minutes, just waiting deep in the pocket of the peaky sandbar, taking off on a bomber set wave and racing it out, carving a few turns and then paddling back out. Each time I'd wait maybe a minute or two for the next wave.
I got one wave that I late-dropped and bottom turned right up under the lip. I closed my eyes as the foam curtain came down and braced for the almost certain wipe-out, but I never went down. I just shot out from under the lip, made another drivey bottom turn and opened my eyes to find myself planted squarely in the pocket, right under the lip. I tried to weight the tail and stall back into the little tube section, but couldn't burn enough speed to drop back into it. In hindsight, a hand-drag was the more appropriate maneuver in this situation, but I'm still working my way toward making a throwing pocket part of my comfort zone. Still stayed firmly slotted in there through the whole section and shot out for a few carves on the shoulder before the whole thing closed out.
The shark-impaired surfers on the beach had noticed my good rides and unfortunately decided to paddle back out. I couldn't get another wave so I took to chatting with one of them for a while. He was kind of a dick, but complimented me on my board - the shaping and the artwork. I caught a few more waves and surfed in. I was out for almost three hours and I laid down on the beach and passed right out for a good half hour or so. I fell asleep with Ricky off his leash, but luckily he's a super good boy and when I woke up he was sleeping right next to me.
Hung out there for another hour or so and then packed up the show. Checked the waves at willow creek and skated down the knarly hill to the parking lot at the bottom a few times. Nothing much going on so I drove down just south of Gorda to check out a swimming spot Connor had told me about. Pretty easy to find, but definitely small for actually swimming and too shallow for jumping in off the rocks. It was pretty cloudy by this point, so I took off, but I definitely plan on going back next time I'm down there.
Ran out to the beach at Andrew Molera as a spot check for someone special who still needs to score a few rides on that wave! It was fah-latte. Some 1 ft ankle slappers rolling through on the sets. Ran back to the car and headed home. Crazy labor-day weekend traffic took a while, but I made it back without incident.
Apologies for my complete lack of pictures. Next time I'll more than make up for it. Big Sur is one of the most photogenic places I've been, so I promise...next time pictures will tell the story instead of all these words.
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