Hot Summer Nights

Beacon's Beach Sunset

Well I arrived back in Encinitas on Tuesday.  It’s been a whirlwind of unpacking and getting myself back into the mode of being here.  It was kind of hard for me to leave home and get on that plane to come here.  People couldn’t understand why I wasn’t ecstatic to be leaving for CA, but the truth is that it has always been very hard for me to make big changes like that, especially total changes of scenery.  I hate leaving people.  It was extremely hard to leave CA and come to NY in the summer, even though I’m glad now that I did.  My plan is to do summer in NY again next year, and I’m sure it will be very difficult to leave.  Only one person really understood where I was coming from, and I was glad to have her empathy.

Anyway, enough about my moping around.  It’s really nice to be leaving the NY weather and getting some sun here in CA.  The palm trees never cease to amaze me, and I’ve already seen a few dolphins out in the lineup at Grandview.

I surfed for a few hours today and the waves were beautiful, clear, and blue.  They weren’t big, but that’s ok.  I had some fun rides.  I rode my Merrick Flyer because during my last session I somehow collided with some donkey and the nose of his board punched a hole in the bottom of mine.  Now it has to dry out before I can take it to Ding King for repair.  When that happened yesterday it took all my willpower not to get REALLY mad.  I mean, I was pretty upset, but I could tell that I was about to spiral down into being really angry and in a bad mood.  I mean, that can happen when your pristine, new board gets a hole put in it.

I’m getting ready for Halloween.  I’m going to be a flapper.  Let me tell you – the scariest thing you can do this Halloween is to go to Party City the day before Halloween.  It is like a ZOO, with kids running around throwing plastic scythes, begging their parent’s for candy, and shrieking like banshees.

Meanwhile, it was interesting to be checked out by a banana at the supermarket and have my purchases bagged by a bottle of ketchup.

And in case you were curious, those aren’t my groceries on the belt.  I don’t normally buy 5 bottles of wine and a box of cheerios.

Well that’s it for now.  I really want to turn this more into a photo blog, so look for that in the near future!

I’m kinda getting the travel bug again.  As if it’s not enough that I’m going to be spending the Winter in San Diego!  The thing is, I get a little depressed when making changes – such as picking up and leaving.  I’m going back to California on the 27th, and while I’m really excited about that I’m also sad to be leaving here.  I mean, it’s kinda silly in a way because it’s just going to be getting colder, greyer, and more boring here as we stretch into the colder months.  But still, that’s just the way I am.  I’ve always been that way.

Anyway, my method of coping with the slight depression is to make plans and goals for things that I really want to do.  Right now that means I’m thinking of some places I want to travel to.

One of my big goals is to surf the Mentawai’s in Indonesia.  So recently I’ve been reading and browsing the Kandui surf resort website, drooling over the pictures and videos.

The waves range from user-friendly to advanced.  I was looking at the different waves and it’s not like you have to surf deadly double overhead grinders into dry reef.  Some of the waves just look like perfect, head high peelers in crystal clear blue water.

I’d love to go to Bali too.  Last night I was talking to Katherine, and I had no idea she did so much traveling in that part of the world.  She traveled and surfed in the early 90′s when she was my age, and she did it alone.  She went to Australia and Bali and the Indonesian islands a bunch of times.  I was so stoked to be talking to her, and it was so weird because I had just been thinking up all these crazy ideas about doing some traveling on my own.

I mean, I really would love to travel with friends, but life doesn’t always allow people to simply take off for two weeks and blow money on a surf trip.  So, if I can’t latch on to some trips with people this year, then I might consider taking a trip on my own at some point.  Maybe not Bali right away, but somewhere.  Caribbean, Costa Rica, wherever.  I also want to work on my surfing a bit more.  I’ve made a lot of progress the past half year, so I’m stoked on that.  If I’m going to these places I want to be able to surf and know that I know what I’m doing if I want to take on more challenging waves.

The thought of traveling right now is appealing because I want to live life and do as much as I can before I potentially settle down with a family or whatever.  And there’s no rush for that.  I really want to have a family, but right now I’m free as a bird and I want to take advantage.  Plus, when you get older it’s harder to surf hard without fearing injury too much.  That’s just a fact of life as you get older.

I want to take risks and have stories to tell.  I don’t want to just live my life in a safe little bubble.  Some of the people I respect most are those who get out there and experience the world.  People who have crazy stories and misadventures in the far corners of the world.  My favorite story to tell people now is about our trip to Mexico and how we had to search in the countryside to find the Ranch, this out of the way surf spot.  It was 4 girls in the rental car, 4 boards stacked on the car, and our directions led us to this dirt road in the middle of the woods.  I was freaking out, thinking of all sorts of scary scenarios – like getting killed by drug lords and nobody knowing for days.  Anyway, the directions said “take the fork that looks more traveled.”  So, every time we got to a fork we would sit there scratching our heads.  “Which one looks more traveled??”  Finally we made it out and into a clearing overlooking an absolutely beautiful point break in the middle of unspoiled wilderness.   I mean, it is one of the experiences I will remember my entire life.

Anyway, that’s my plan so far.  Nothing’s set in stone.  I want to get to CA first and then see where I want to go from there.  Gotta get back into surfing shape anyway since I have barely been surfing more than a handfull of times in the past month.

The weather here is AWFUL right now.  Basically it’s 43 degrees with blowing horizontal rain.  This is more suited to a Michigan December than a Long Island mid-October.  What a rip off this year has been, weather-wise.  I at least got to escape the “June Of Torrential Rain” that Long Island had this year, tomato famine and all.  However, when I got here in July it took a week or two to really get summery.  Then labor day it was like someone flipped a switch.  It was crisp and cool.  We had a few warm days but not many.  And NOW, it looks like FALL has taken a hiatus and dropped us right into the lap of winter.  Boy am I glad I’m taking off for California in like 10 days.

Not to mention the surf has been awful.  Usually September and October are full of nice sunny days with light winds and some clean waist-chest high waves.  I think I can count on one hand how many days of good clean waves we’ve had since Labor day.

The escape to California is on!

I have to admit, it was kind of nice to get that feeling of the season change since I’ll soon be in San Diego, the place of the eternal 70 degree forecast.

Meanwhile…I have the travel bug again.  I have this crazy idea to go to some pretty exotic places, like Bali.  More on that soon.  It’s late, and I’m tired!

Yesterday was a good surf day.

Allow me to explain.  It didn’t start out so well at first.  That infernal wind that has not stopped blowing was cranking out of the WSW early on, blowing the swell into bits.  It was cloudy.  Rainy.  At about 2:00 I went to look at Sagg Main, and it was really thumping hard on the sandbar.  People were getting barrels but they weren’t really coming out that much.  It was looking really walled up and difficult.  I haven’t surfed that much in the past few weeks due to this horrible fall surf season, so I wasn’t feeling very confident.  I didn’t feel like getting drilled into the sandbar or getting a facefull of fiberglass like one unfortunate kid did – resulting in a split lip.

I got word from Meghan at Ditch that it was looking good, and the sun was just about to poke out, so I decided to head to Montauk.  It can be a bit windier out there, but the waves can also be bigger.  The thing about Montauk is that depending on where you are, the waves can be a bit slower – not as fast and steep as a beachbreak but still enough oomph behind them to be fun.

When I got to Ditch it looked less than stellar.  Ditch has been really weird this year with some funky sandbars on the indside causing it to wall up and break heavier.  It was just all over the place when I got there, and I was not feeling very inspired, so I drove out to Camp Hero to check the coves.

When I parked and got out to take a look from the bluffs, I saw Happy Dave and Claire.  Claire had just gotten out of the water and had been surfing with Andrea and Bettina.  Dave was his usual happy self and that helped me snap out of the grumpy mood I had been in.  He lent me his binoculars and told me to check out the right at R——.  Through the binocs I could see a small group of 6 or 7 surfers on what looked to be shoulder high, somewhat mushy rights.  R—— is a right point break that sits just under the stoic and somewhat creepy Camp Hero radar tower.  Camp Hero is steeped in legends and conspiracy theories about the shady past of the now derelict airbase.

Whether or not there have been shady happenings there, it’s a beautiful place to surf.  The view from the water is one of sheer brown cliffs, rocky beaches, and the stark white of the Montauk Point lighthouse to the east.

I’ve only surfed the coves a handful of times.  T——- was amazing when I surfed it last November, glassy and head high, with only 6 people out – and all of them Southampton folks.  D——–’s is a left point by the pillbox, and I surfed that on the fluke swell after the Danny swell peaked.  Glassy and blue water, foot overhead and some fun drops.  Claire, Andrea and Janet Boyd were out that day, and we were having a blast.  Ate it bad on my first wave – over the falls on my head – and came up smiling.  You always have to come up smiling or you’ll psyche yourself out.

Anyway, back to my story.  The fall days are getting shorter now, so I knew time was of the essence.  The north wind was blowing the swell out quickly, and I all but ran down the rocky path to the pillbox.  Now, I’ve never surfed this particular break before, but having surfed D——’s earlier this season I knew I could do it.  The waves were no more than head high anyway.  Paddling out there is a bit of a trick, but it’s easier than getting in.  You have to time it right, and make sure you don’t get caught standing in the shorepound by a breaking wave that will throw some fist sized rocks right onto your toes.  I started hesitating – I was nervous.  There were people out but I didn’t know who was out there or if I would know them.  Finally I said screw it, I gotta go.  Plus there was a guy sitting up on the shore watching.  I wasn’t going to turn tail this time.

It was a dry haired paddleout, hugging the huge boulders that form the point and stick out of the water for 30 yards until they disappear under the murky sea.  That’s the advantage of surfing a point break – it’s easy to get out.  But my heart was racing anyway – I’m not the bravest surfer and the rocky coves generally make most people nervous their first few times out there.  There’s just an aura around them that’s a bit different than your standard break on Long Island.  In my mind you’ve gotta be at a certain ability level to surf there.  Sure, you get the occasional kook who has wandered astray, but that’s not the usual case.

My first wave was a quick one, but my form was good and I realized I felt good and not off balance like I sometimes feel after a long dry spell.  Eventually after catching a few waves my heartrate slowed and I began to enjoy myself.  The adrenaline rush of paddling out to the unknown was ebbing and now the endorphines were setting in, leaving me smiling at nothing in particular.

My best wave was an amazing peak that I was in the perfect spot for.  Head high and fast, I positioned myself right in the curl, and I felt it breaking over my back shoulder.  At one point the wave started to break a little in front of me but I steered forward and around the cascading lip, evading it and rising back onto the wall and into the sweet spot again.  The best part of the wave was the sunlight behind me, lighting my way, and illuminating the faces of everyone on the inside watching.  I have to admit, if I’m on a good wave it’s kinda cool to have an audience.  I rode it for a good 50 yards before cleanly kicking out and coming back down ready to paddle out once again.

I’m still stoked on that wave, still stoked on that session.  Even writing about it right now is giving me another shot of stoke.  You need all you can get out here, since right now the swells are so few and far between.

Today I was pretty bored, (thanks to LAKE ATLANTIC and no waves…) and it was a relatively nice fall day out, so I decided to take the good ol’ Jeep out on the sand.  I love how you can drive on the beach around here in the Hamptons.  I worry that one day you won’t be allowed to (or there just won’t be enough beach left).

Some of the beaches have gotten really small lately.  It’s just cyclical erosion as they tend to come back within a few weeks.  But it’s a gradual loss, and as someone said “we’re living on a giant sugar cube.”

Anyway, driving on the beach is really thrilling to me.  It really gets my adrenaline going, and the only reason for this is that I’m so scared I’m going to get stuck!  Seriously, my heart is literally pounding the entire time, haha.  I’m sure I’ll get used to it at some point and I won’t get so scared.  The sand around here can be pretty soft, so it’s easy to get dug in if you’re in the wrong spot.

I have to air down my tires a bit as well, so it’s a little inconvenient if I have to drive a long distance later as I’d have to go right to the air pump and fill up.  But just driving around town I can leave them a little low…I dropped them to 25 PSI from 33.

Anyway, there’s something fun about taking your car out on the beach and just driving around.  I went out at a bunch of different beaches– Sagg Main, The Cut, and Peter’s Pond.  Thanks to erosion it’s kind of sketchy to drive all the way down the coast because the beach gets kind of steep and there are small dropoffs and the erosion causes small cliffs to form.  Forget it…if you started falling down that little cliff the car would probably roll over!

Sagg Main Beach

It was good practice today, and I didn’t get stuck at all.  Didn’t even come close.  I just have to be a bit more brave.  I have a shovel and a tow strap, so it’s not like it’s the end of the world.  There’s always someone driving on the beach.  Well, maybe not way down by Peter’s Pond, where you might not see someone come by for hours.

The last time I drove on the beach I really did start getting stuck…I was almost up to the frame, but the reason was that somehow my 4 wheel drive didn’t engage, and I went halfway down the entrace in two wheel drive!  Yeah that’s really great.  Finally put it in a different 4 wheel gear and it got out very easily.

Tomorrow morning I’m going to do my surf check by driving onto the beach.  Should be fun!!!   I just wish the beaches weren’t so shot and I could just cruise down the coast.  Oh well, maybe next year.