The Swell: The Distraction

I wasn't quite whole out in the water today. For the first time in some time I was distracted to the extent of not being happy with myself or my performance. It wasn't quite unwarranted for there were several factors eating away at me; a night lacking of sleep, my old bird's sudden contact with me, my surfing buddy's contentment to stay in bed all afternoon (be it with a pretty bedmate, but still), and being surrounded in the water by 5 guys, ranging in age, but all older than I and far better in ability. I exercised poor wave choice, and just couldn't connect the dots from cut backs to floaters or vice-versa. I did pig dog some back side lines right under the lip, and stuck some fast drops, and had an all around decent (come to think of it) day out in the water.

But still, I didn't appreciate the solitude today. The 5 guys swapping waves and laughing around me struck a memory of last summer where I got to surf with the three surfing Lang's, and Lando. It was a day full of surfing, coupled with an afternoon beer and a cup of coffee and then a session straight into the pitch of darkness. There were hardly any waves for either session that day, but it wasn't about the quality of the wave, the session was about friendship and loosing the worry and loosing the stress. We cooked out that night in Lando's backyard, drank as many Narragansetts as there were waves surfed, Dannimal played his guitar while singing songs he wrote in Gutamala and we sat around a campfire laughing through the night. Then it was good friends, lately it's been good waves, hopefully one day they'll be seamless.

This is Lando's rigged pickup on the way to the sunset session
(Dannimal peaking out)