E's Surf Report: Glassy, solid, body-rockin' slabs!

Yup.. OB turned it on this morning. Zero wind and super-glassy faces on the far outside. Another classic OB scenerio where it looks gentle and inviting from the parking lot but ends up being large and serious in the water. Robme and I paddled out at Sloat around 6:30. Nobody else out there.. a few surfers at VFers, and a few at Noriega. Conditions looked small from the great highway until you saw a surfer that looked like a little gnat in a land of giants as these overhead++ shorepound bombies would crack and peel and munch. I ended up ditching my board and just swimming and diving through the shorepound to get past the mayhem. definitely an exilerating way to wake da fuck up at 6:30 in the morning. 10 minutes of paddling through the churning, turbulent middle section.. then a race through the mine-field of outside bombies.. finally get outside and i have no idea where Robme is.. Start catching waves.. big suckas funneling in.. biggest maybe 9 feet on the face? big. Sexy, oily-glass sea surface. I caught a bunch of big-wavy take-offs followed by drawn-out cutbacks as the waves would mush-out. Also nabbed a few that walled-up and raced along for a spell.. Still no robme!! finally i see the dude, about 300 yards south of where i thought he would be.. turns out he was battling on the inside after catching one.. geez.. OB lashings being dished out.. But i'm randomly threading needles and in the flow.. probably caught about 10 rides, almost all of them quality.. just one of those good days that i'll have to remind myself of next time i get my arse kicked by Old Biatch (OB).. Embarrassing moment of the day happened as i took of on a speedy right, probably a bit over head-high.. paddled furiously, popped up as the bottom began to fall-out.. pumped for a second.. then tried to make a bottom turn but somehow just got bucked right off the wave, literally jettisoned in the air and off my board.. oops.. oh yeah i also tried to take off on this pretty steep right that was already breaking and ledging.. a few strokes and i was in.. but i ended up back on my heels in that ugly-ass squatty-potty position and just got eaten by the cauldron of seething white-water.. but.. my last ride was sooo sick, probaby the best surfing i've done on a wave in months.. a big, hulky right rose up way on the outside.. i was luckily in position and stroked forcefully to get into the beast.. it wouldn't let me in and i stroked as hard as possible.. finally over the ledge and the thing is standing strait up.. i took off on an extreme angle just so i wouldn't fall end-over-end over the falls.. i crouched super low and back for stabilization and basically rocketed down the face, taking a pretty high line.. i then found myself high-up on the face, crouched low with good balance and just eyeball-tearing/rampaging with speed.. so i did what i've invisioned in my head a million times while riding the muni/eating lunch/skating/going to the bathroom/reading email/slacking/etc... and that is just laying down a full-blown thigh-quivering power cutty all the way around the meaty face.. back into the white-water.. then i snaked it around for a bottom-turn.. back up the face.. then into another turn off the top.. man.. now i remember why i often blindly paddle out at OB and deal with the 80/1 duckdive-to-ride ratio..

anyhoo.. Robme scored a few bad-boyz.. we were stoked..
probably still good right now.. go hit it. the wind is real light and actually a bit offshore out of the northeast..

Got to surf a mellow little left with Bug and Wells and some others on saturday and sunday.. A few juicy ones kept everyone salivating but it was mostly squirty quirky peelers.. I saw Bug get one long one for his last ride on Sunday.. I caught a few surprising high-performance/barrelly wedges at this other little wave that's rarely surfed by i guess has its days. It left me smiling.

not that any of us need to hear this.. but.. dano sent me this tantalizing email this morning from mainland mex ..

You will hate me. Surf was so good. More to come.

-d

OB November '02
OB.. like we like it

Pleasure Point rippah'
pleasure point pizza

Eightwest at Jeffrey's Bay