Back in the Saddle Again

Text messages from today:

M: "...What are ur plans for this evening"
G: "...cruise by 2nd to see if there's anything surfable"
M: "Surfing! Get back on that horse!"

For the first time since early last fall I found myself in the beat-up parking lot of the Surfer's End at Second Beach with my fish strapped to the roof racks and a crumbled up wetsuit in the back of my truck. As I was getting out of my truck my friend William Hogg drove up in his pick-up and we started the chatter that I've missed so much. The tales from last night and how the swell was in the morning when he paddled out. I pulled the fish off the racks and let him give it a once over. We talked size and where did you get it's which led to talking story about our days out in California. We met here in Rhody but were surfing the same breaks at the same time back west...small world, smaller when you stay on the coasts.

It was small, to be honest but as I said to Hogg on his way out: "Yea, I'm just gonna go out and put a smile on my face." And that I did. As I like to do in these conditions, I made my first wave a dry hair affair (where you don't duckdive or go all the way under until after your first wave). I turned and stroked into the first wave that came to me: pushed up on the rails, paused for a second, popped going left, a little bottom turn back up to the whitewash, then a few pumps, around a tiny section into some more wash and turned the nose back out to the line-up. Huge smile on my face.

There were a few others out this evening, including a father and son. The kid, maybe 10, was riding a twin fined fish and is on the verge of being a ripper. After one of my rides I looked to the west and saw this kid doing a full on rail grab lean into his wave, I just stood there pumping my fist for him...it was a great first day out.

little turns, little rail grabs into little close-outs:::big fun