Marlon and I got to the beach a little earlier today than we have been - I had a time table to keep to get Noe and La over to music and sailing respectively. There was leftover energy from the WNW still on tap this morning. Quick draining tide and almost no wind made for really clean conditions - a big change from yesterday.
Marlon and I brought out the same gear as yesterday. Post session Marlon said he got some really fun waves.
The waves over in front of the cabins really weren't breaking. And up until the last half hour, every wave I caught ended up with a wipeout - incredibly frustrating. I eventually told myself to calm down and focus on keeping the board closer to the water (to prevent the catastrophic breaches I was having). My last four waves were back to normal for me - long rides with lots of hard carving turns. I did move the mast forward a quarter inch so the back foot pressure issue from yesterday was resolved. I'm attributing the blow ups from yesterday and today to the 7cm mast height difference. The extra height allowed me to still ride high and have the tail buried sufficiently. Going to the 68cm mast took that margin away, but I did not adjust my riding accordingly.
Now that I have identified this, any time there is wave energy and I can catch waves outside the shallows, I'll bolt on the 75cm mast. I can be more aggressive on takeoffs and turns and not pop the tail out of the water. Whenever the tide is lower and the wave energy is less than optimal, I'll use the 68cm mast. These conditions are where the waves are small (thigh high and lower) and the tide is between +0.7' and +1.0' (above 1.2' I really don't worry about the bottom interactions).
I'm glad I figured all that out, and that there is still purpose having the 75cm Project Cedrus mast (I thought with the 68cm mast I would be using the 75 way less).
W:10/F:20/S:8
