Sunday Dawn Patrol - 20 October

Marlon and I hit the beach at first light on Sunday.

The wind was light, the swell was up (chin high on the sets, if not higher) and tide was headed to a high of 2.0'.  Same equipment as the last few times.

I paddled out to the green waves to see if I could takeoff on these - I wanted to find the upper end of the CF1600's range.  Well - I found it.  The first three waves I took off on I was able to get to my feet, but the speed I was going was a bit much - I got thrown.  If I did make the drop and settle, I ended up breaching.  I figured I should stop beating myself up and stop trying to break my gear by going back towards shore and picking up the waves once they've dissipated some of their raw energy.  After that, I was getting some really long rides and cranking some turns.  I had one turn where the foil dropped out from underneath me again.  After that I tried leaning into the turn and anticipating the extra speed and the turns seemed to get better.  Further in the session, I had a mix of aborts (it got crowded and I had to stop or put the noobs at risk if I messed up the ride) and wipes (green waves again... can't help myself).  At this surf height, I should bolt on the HS1550.

I was using the Takuma coiled leash - I won't be doing that again - I never felt comfortable using it.

This was also the day of the Board Swap at Kalaeloa.  Lots of cool boards!

Uhhhh - I'm way behind...

I've been pretty busy as of late and there has been a lot of weird weather - and obviously I've let this blog (and its siblings) slip.  It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted.  As a "catch up", I'll just make one post working backwards -

We went surfing today in the late afternoon (to avoid the Holiday crowd).  There was a small SW swell pushing in waist high sets - but there was some texture on the water.  I was on the 5'6" prone foilboard, so it didn't matter.  I got up on several waves - using the foil is starting to get intuitive.  On one wave, I got up in a weird way and felt like I did a number on my cyatic nerve (but I've been stretching so it seems to have gotten better - my back is a different story).  No pictures today.

Marlon and I went out this past Friday afternoon - I was tiny and the air was cold.  Still good fun on the longboards.

The prior weekend (when we had a "Kona Low" cold core winter storm hit us) Marlon and I checked out the beaches at the end of the line.  There is really good potential over there -

That weekend we also grabbed some "zoo poo" fertilizer - that is relevant because we stopped off at the Jamba Juice nearby (to wash our hands) and there were some really cool murals up.

We did not go surfing, or foiling, or kiting that weekend (the wind was actually what we were expecting from the Hurricanes that passed this summer).  There probably was more, but that's all I can remember right now...