A Little Southern Comfort

I shoulda cracked it this morning. At 0700 hours the south had filled in complete. It was showing on both buoys. The webcams were flat. The big boys missed it again and were panning the dawn patrol. I didn't think the small southerly pulses were going to amount to anything either. So I took my 9" blade paddle just to do some paddling, and maybe catch a wave or two.

As I was warming up, I saw two, four wave sets pour through GDubs putting up clean shoulders in a glassy, cold water sea. No one out. I paddled over and got it to myself for twenty minutes before Sam paddled out and we surfed it together for another half hour. Waves and sets were consistent. We barely had time to chat, and were always interrupting our stories and then picking them up again when we weren't individually paddling or surfing. As the tide lowered it started sectioning pretty bad. Two longboarders paddled out and the four of us were just too much for what the waves had turned into. I called it a day and headed back to Sarges where I ran in to John on his SUP.

He talked me into paddling a mile down to another reef and I'm glad he did. We surfed there together for about an hour, catching fun little lines behind the peak and riding through to the fast and shallow inside shore break. We had it to ourselves most the time.

Finally we paddled back, catching five or six more waves on various reefs as we journeyed to the take-out at Sarges. A three hour surf in waves I didn't think were going to exist. If I was on a lay down board I wouldn't have bothered.

On the SUP I got my paddle in and a whole load of waves to boot.
May 27, 2008 (Tu)
In: 0800
Out: 1100
AT= 51 to 59 degrees
WT= 51.5 degrees at the nearshore buoy
Wx: Broken cloud cover
Tide: 1.5 Falling to .26
Wind: Calm to 6 mph SSW
Sea Surface: Calm to light wind rippling
Buoy: NWS
0800: 3.3 feet @ 13.8 S
0900: 3.3 feet @ 14.8 S
1000: 3.6 feet @ 14.8 S
1100: 3.3 feet @ 13.8 S
1200: 3.3 feet @ 14.8 S
10'4" Angulo SUP with Infinity paddle
Fin set-up: Thruster with Bluecoil 5.5" center fin and FCS Occy sides
Bathymetry: Rock reefs
CDIP: 1.7 feet at 8 seconds from 320 degrees and 2.1 feet at 14 seconds from 200 degrees