So I got over to Holgate at about 7:45, took some pictures, then got in the water at 8. I was the only one out for at least an hour, which was something I thought about while I was out there: All alone with super clean waist-to-chest high waves and the sunshine warm on my face. A dream? No. As a succession of duck-dives took my breath away, the cold reality made me realize that maybe that was the reason I was the only one out. Still, after being in for three hours, I never got cold, except for my hands, but that's because the glue I had used to patch the holes came off, and my gloves were getting flushed pretty constantly. Looks like it might be time for new gloves, which is a bummer, since I just bought them this past fall. I don't think the slices in them are defects, but I don't know where they came from since they are usually either in my wetsuit bag or on the back dash. Mysteries and Wonders. But at least this may give me an excuse to pick up some 7mm mitts, which will pretty much guarantee that I won't get the wintertime blue fingertips again. We'll see.
But yeah, back to surfing. As you can see from the pictures above, the waves were a little soft this morning, but these pictures don't really do them justice, and they definitely hollowed out a lot more as the tide filled in. I took my hull out and the first long left I caught was a decent length barrel which I flew through just narrowly escaping. For the first hour and forty-five minutes I had a blast on that board, I think I'm getting the hang of riding it, stepping forward or back to trim, getting down really low and feeling the board just take off like a shot down the line, and no pumping it. And it has such a smooth feel to it. The leaning-way-over bottom turns are a blast every time, getting down so low then flying up the face. I had a lot of long swooping lefts on the board today. But I guess I started to get tired or something because I kept screwing up and making dumb mistakes. So I went to grab 002, my new thruster.
Anyone want to buy my deformed child? $100. Just kidding. Kind of. I've had plenty of really nice rides on 002, it's the board in my quiver that I prefer for large, powerful rights. But the problem with the board and softish waves is that since I accidentally shaped too much rocker into it, it is slower than I want it to be. Right in the curls not a problem, but on slower, smaller, or less powerful waves, when the board gets ahead of the wave it just stalls. Like some cars I've had. It's extremely frustrating. Plus, every time I look at the board and see the twist, I become disgusted. Also, the nose is too pointy. I might chop it off.
I guess the board teaches me a couple lessons: 1) Don't just shape rocker into a board without taking time to take measurements and really think things through. I kind of just dove into it and figured what would happen would happen. This is what happens. 2) Take your time. I don't know if the twist happened in the shaping process, but if it did, I shouldn't have let it happen. Even if it is my second board. I still don't know if I feel the twist when riding, but it absolutely has to make some difference. And since a picture hanging crooked drives me bonkers, just imagine what a twisted board does to me.
In a way, it's kind of good that the board doesn't work perfectly, because I think if it did I would just be cool with it and that would be that. But since it has these problems, I pick at it and feel for them when I ride, and try to think of ways to make it better. I think someone sometime somewhere said you learn more from your failures than your successes. I don't know about that, but there's some truth to it anyway.
All I know is that these sandpipers were there before I went surfing, and they were there when I got done, running away from the whitewater then chasing it back to pick up whatever remnants it let behind. I hope they had a good session, because I know I did
It is definitely true that we learn more from our failures than our successes. But isn't that a catch 22? If you fail, then learn, then you fail less and thus learn less. Pretty soon you are not failing at all and not learning at all. But if one is not learning, is not one a failure? What is the answer, o wise one?
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