Three out of Four

I surfed three days out of four from Saturday to Tuesday. A pretty big south by southwest swell came in and M., his friend Kevin, and I decided to take advantage of it. We started off at the south jetty of Venice and it didn't look all that impressive. Kevin has a big truck so we put our surfboards into it and headed up to Sunset Point.

I should probably mention that prior to this I bought a new old board from District where I got my bike rack. The board cost me 99 dollars. You can't really beat that. She's not the prettiest board- closer to yellow than to white, but she certainly looks like she can get the job done. She's only 6 foot (maybe 5'11). We'll have to see if I can manage that.

Back to the beach..

After a long time of walking to Kevin's car and locking our bikes we headed out to Sunset Pointe. The waves were pretty darn big-- 4-6 feet from time to time.

So... as I expected.. it was pretty difficult to catch waves with the little thing. Conditions were very nice, though. I think I could just about get on a knee. It was embarrassing. It also had to do with the weak wax job on the board. I normally put a ton of wax on the board. I only had one layer on this board.

Sunday--
We rode out on our bikes. M. and I took our bikes (M. towing his 10 foot board with a rickshaw contraption and me with a sort of side-car/catamaran type of mechanism for my 6 footer) ALL the way out to Sunset. It took us about an hour. The ride was pretty fun, though. I felt bad for M. He can't really go to the beach without drinking. He took out two bottles of malt liquor and polished them off in the alley on our way from Venice to Sunset. Needless to say he had a horrid time trying to catch waves given the size of the buggers. The waves were pretty mountainous. I was able to do MUCH better-- catching at least 3. (But man do I have to work on my 'S' shapes. That's basically my project over the next two months.

One guy there, called Brendan really tore it up. See his photo below.

There were a lot of beginners there, but it wasn't until yesterday that I realized what a gift that was. The beginners may be in the way, but at leas they don't take all the waves!

Which leads us to yesterday- Tuesday

Was supposed to meet up with M.'s cousin Hassan. We communicated via facebook, but we don't have each other's numbers. He wanted to go up to a place called Heavens. It's WAAAAY up north, just shy of the Ventura County line. Waves were a very good size and conditions were perfect other than the frigid water. I only had my wetsuit so I just couldn't stay in long enough to get acclimated to the water.

I went up with Luisa who I mentioned in my first post I believe. She was looking very tasty and we had some fun playing portable foosball. See photos below. It was still a very nice day. As you can imagine, I am not looking forward to getting back to work.

Take care now!

Huge Progress!

So Sunday was a big day for me.

I used the surf rack and I met my friend, M, on the corner of Venice and Overland and we commenced to cycle to Venice North Jetty. We got there at about 9:30, but it took me at least 20 minutes to put the wetsuit on, earplugs in, wax on the board, sun cream, et al.  M. waited patiently and drank malt liquor that is cleverly disguised as one of those trendy but cheap energy drinks. (In any case, if the police questioned us, we'd certainly argue that we thought it was one!)

The waves!

 One to two and a half feet of decent quality. After a half hour there were about 6 of us sharing the waves, and each of us got some good ones. For summer, it was pretty decent. I think I was the only shortborder there, which is a shame because there were very few people really ripping it up.

I certainly tried my best to represent, but I'm going to need to take a few HUGE steps forward in my technical improvement to claim to be a ripper.

After about an hour and a half I decided to call it a day. I caught about 6 waves (none of them lasting more than 7 seconds), but I needed to save some strength for riding the catamaran ('cause that's what the surf rack makes my bicycle look like).

So we rode back to M.'s apartment for more malt liquor, espresso and quesadillas. Then a brief jump in the pool followed by mild viewing of Superbad-- a very nice lazy Sunday!

By the way.... Luisa (Italian girl) sent me a text a few hours ago. We meet tomorrow!

New Surf Rack for my Bike

This weekend I tried out a new bicycle-surf rack.
It worked like a charm.
I got the rack at a store in Mar Vista called District. I wouldn't have bought the thing if the sales guys hadn't attached the thing on my bike right in the store. But it seemed to be a good fit for my bike (standard old school ten speed) right from the get go, so I paid the 69 bucks with a smile.

From Pico and Fairfax (approximate location of my home) to the Venice coastline I needed about 45 minutes. I'd call myself a medium cyclist-- not exactly Lance Armstrong, but slightly more ambitious in my cycling than your average fixed-gear street warrior.

By far the best thing about it is being able to park the thing anywhere people are mellow. I met a beautiful Italian girl called Luisa right after a quick surfing session on Sunday and we rode together (she with her beach cruiser) to the cafe on California and Abbott Kinney. (Now I remember... it's called Abott's Habit.  I had to explain to her that in English it rhymes. She just liked the combination of weird vowels!)

I parked her bike and mine together sans lock on the curb up against one of their little tables. We took a table inside that allowed me to casually watch out for possible bicycle thieves. Wasn't necessary, though. Just a mellow time. The coffee was just what I needed to make the 45 minute ride back. Beautiful, lazy, summer Sunday.