The Santa Cruz Experience

Yeah, I made it up here last night but I got hear just in time to see the last of my friends paddling in from their night surf (around 10:00PM). Oh well. This morning I was on it for the typical Santa Cruz experience. Great waves, cold water, lots of Kelp, and even more attitude.

Surf was mostly waist to chest and kind of soft at the hook this morning. Occasional head high sets coming through. Talk about unintimidating waves. These things just kind of push through for a nice slow easy takeoff with a long playful wall. Some would barrel and saw a few guys get tubed but even the tubes were not really sucking out that much. Duck diving the set waves was so easy, (as long as you weren't all tangled in a kelp patty).

I got my share of waves for sure. My friends made fun of me because I was paddling all over the place. The take off zones are so well defined you only need to sit there and wait for one to come to you. All my paddling around was mostly futile effort, although I got some good exercise. I guess surfing beach break has made me a little trigger happy.

I always tell people that if you paddle out in SC you will see an arguement. Today was no different. A longboarder paddled out and cherry picked three set waves within 10 minutes. A hot shot (dude could have been a pro he was so good) shortboarder had enough and on the third wave just took off in front of him. The longboarder, having taken off at the peak, just stood his ground and a collission ensued. The shortboarder was so pissed (even though he technically was the culprit) that he grabbed the guys longboard and broke the fin off with ease. It was such a reflective action that it was obvious this guy had done this (broken fins off guys boards) many times before. Then he told his bros "I just wanted that guy out of the water and I didn't want to spend a long time arguing about it". Typical Santa Cruz.

Fun times all around though.