E's Surf Report: missed this morning.. looks ok..

surfed almost 4 hours yesterday in the pismo/shell beach area... got back to SF around 1am.. risked missing OB perfection by sleeping in. But.. it doesn't necessarily look to be celestial, unparalleled Ocean Beach nirvana. Wind light to non-existent out of the south.. sun shining brilliantly at the beach.. waves shoulder high but maybe a bit junky?? anybody with the first-hand account?

I'm a lame-wad for not taking photos but i'll give you heads the quick recap of my central coast sessions this weekend.

The central coast surf-zone near SLO-town is pretty much split into two main regions with the sprawling Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in between. North of Diablo Canyon the coast faces west in Los Osos (Hazard Canyon, Left Spot, Sandspit, Cables, Montana de Oro State Park). Hazards and Left Spot are reefs, then it's pretty much beach break northward until you hit Morro Rock. If you haven't seen the powerful, pyramidal, primordial Morro Rock jut out of the ocean and absolutely dominate the visual landscape, you should. Anyway.. then Morro Bay faces west and offers miles of west-facing beach break.. with a few rocks and river-mouthy setups here and there. North of Morro bay the coast bends around and faces southward starting at the town of Cayucus. With the predominant NW spring/summer winds this area can offer some wind-protected waves. Cayucus pier is a comfy, intimate, mellow little beach-break tucked into a bend in the coast. North of Cayucus pier there are a bunch of high-quality, tempermental reef breaks (Killers, Abalones)... I haven't yet surfed these reefs but i watched Killers for a while and i was chomping at the bit. Former Cambria local lady-charger Anastasia told me about an interesting custom of the Killers lineup.. If there are already a maximum number of people in the water (8?), you're supposed to wait on the beach until somebody paddles in.. then you can paddle out to the wave. not a bad little system.

Sooo.. south of Diablo Canyon the coast takes a sharp turn and faces south through Avila, Shell Beach and Pismo Beach.. then sticks back out at these huge Dunes south of Pismo. This weekend the NW winds raged and you could see turbulent white-capping in the outer water.. but the breaks of shell beach and pismo enjoyed glassy, relatively windless conditions. Pismo is just a big beach-break.. i surfed there on Saturday with Seymore Sassafrass.. Entertaining, glassy, crumbly, closing/peeling shoulder-high waves marched in. Seymore worked her way to the outside lineup after much paddling/swimming/bailing/diving/tumbling/dealing.. finally sat up on her board.. only to be knocked all the way back in by a mischievous sneaker set that caught everybody off-guard. Later-on she started catching a bunch of rippy belly-rides and began the trial-and-error-based surfing progression that we all know so well.. She learned one of the first, pivotal lessons of sitting back on your board so you don't pearl on takeoff.. it was great to see her impulsively grinning ear-to-ear after a making it through a harrowing white-water drop and then jettison toward shore with a bucketload of speed. yeah seymore!!

then sunday i slurfed in the shell beach area.. Like Santa Cruz and Point Arena, Shell beach is blessed with all these rock reefs that undulate out into the ocean and create character-rich, pro-peeling, solid waves and sections. On various tides and swells different blips and blaps of the 8 or 10 reefs can come to life and fire-off tantalizing lines. I scored a little left reef called Spyglass on sunday morning. Two "locals" kinda owning it but i was the unobtrusive third and slanked into a bunch of high-performance, reeling left walls. Spyglass isn't a long wave but it invariably offers up one perfect, glassy, rampy section that just begs and pleads to be either molested/groped/spanked/destroyed/pounded or soothed/caressed/hugged/licked/trimmed depending on your style.. Right next to Spyglass is a right called reef-rights that flirted with working but didn't take it to the next level.. i've heard that on macking NW goundswells that place can reel and peel and deal and feel like a mini J-bay or some shit.. You could see it in the setup.. Then yesterday afternoon i had a fun/crappy session at Silver Shoals, which is this beach/reef break in Shell-beach. Kind-of a family-style, people chilling on the beach, gramps and groms in the water, people surfing without wetties type of place.. caught some fun ones. nothing amazing..

anyhoo.. maybe an arvo session today??

the Tavarua ASP contest is on hold today
I am sooo frickin down!

Carrol in the barrel
Tom Carrol

Kalani