Thoughts from El Porto

So the oddity of life and the peculiar way things work shows it's way through my recent blog entries, or lack there of. I created this to talk about surf and well, it's surfing that has kept me from writing. Or better yet, transcribing. Scrawled out in my moleskin are the thoughts and recollections of the past days but in keeping brevity in mind I'll just leave you with my thoughts from yesterday. Enjoy:

I've got a cup of coffee and my notebook as I sit on the rocks at El Porto. I await the call from Cole telling me she's out of work, so in the interim, I do the only thing which comes naturally, I go to the beach. There's a decent mix of surfers in both boards and ability.

The few times I've surfed here have been enjoyable. The fun lefts and the soft rights out in front of the power plant or who knows what it is industrial complex. I've had good luck here with the fish, stalling and continuing on into the reform - a soft wall which is good for a cutback and a crouch, pulling yourself through the back of the wave.

I feel a little antsy while watching some of the better surfers make their way through the sections and snap turn a rooster spray against the gray sunset. And though my boards are in my truck my wetsuit hangs on the balcony at home for the fourth day in a row.

Today was cliffs, around six foot with a current which could rip a hole through teflon. After crossing under the railing I was poised to traverse down the dirt cliff when I saw two guys digging for a wave. The second guy had paddled around the first to beat him out of position but as karma would have it, the first guy (who had original position) stroked into the wave of the day. I stood there board and leash in hand and watched as his red board cut high and fast across the face of a head high plus wave.

I was stretching in the intertidal when the aforementioned surfer came walking by - I told him that I watched him from the cliff and that it was a hell of a wave to the end the day day on, the kind of wave you just go in afterward. He admired my board and was shocked that it was a Becker, for his was as well. Not knowing the size we matched pintail to pintail and decided it was around seven feet. His board was numbered around a thousand, a real classic.


There's barely any sun left right now and just two black specks left bobbing in the water, the last of the El Portos

I did well today. The first few waves were nothing of glory or gloom. But as I raced up the coast, catching left after left, (A south swell in southern California is a goofy footers wet dream) I found my rhythm and the strength in the pain from my body. After each wave it was right back on the board and right back out into the breakers: hard, digging and taking lick upon lick, my head border lining brain freeze. I had the power of desire in my arms.

There were no epic waves today. One frontside crouch to put my head and shoulders under the lip, which proceeded to crash on me and I skated out from the wash onto the shoulder to finish the wave. And there was one left, a big boy I hit with a drop and stall on a great angle. I then proceeded to pump once or twice before a cutback off the lip, from which I saw a lot of open wave behind me so I returned right and cut back in the soup and raced the white up the coast. I pumped fast and she sped close but I beat her out for once and celebrated with a big swoop of a cut back. No spray off the top just a text book swoop with my knees bent in homage. The kind of wave you want to end your day on but it wasn't my last wave, and for that I was glad for that stoked the fire and made me burn my arms more and more until I neared Bolsa Chica and the yearning for a cup of coffee, a hot shower and drive up north to see one of my close friend's overpowered me and I jumped off my board and body surfed to the shore with a 6 foot 8 piece of fiberglass in-tow.