Suckups

Nine months of living here.........3 good sessions...............on a lark the last one, the 4th. Crossed up wind a side/off combo, with a double overhead swell, probably close to maxed out
here, except those rare swells.

Lefts draining into the rip, beautiful lips throwing flawlessly, walls standing upright. The wind turned against the cliff somehow offshore and opening up the barrel, while on the reef it crumbles the weak right that has no form.

Tico, myself and one other on it......soon to be just the 2 of us as the taciturn one leaves early. "Get as many of these as you can.", I tell Tico as I expect the hordes to descend at any moment. A Saturday after 3 weeks of storms should have all comers scouring the corners of the coast for just these gems.

The wave is deceptively easy as you gauge the approaching lip and spin one or two strokes into the wall as it builds ahead of you and you drop into space, fin free until mid-face where they find themselves. Don't spend too much time finding a line, just aim high. Try to find that band at the top of the wave and feed off it, then after building speed I look for a bottom turn to make it into the inside meat. By the time I kick out and look back to the take off zone it's a 100 yards away and there are more empty waves pouring through.

Time after time we do this rarely getting time to rest, God how I wish there had been more than one go out in the previous 3 weeks. My timing is off and as a result my feet seem out of place, these waves are flawless.

After an hour I tell Tico that we may be the only ones to surf here today, it's been years since he last surfed this place and it's better than he's ever had it. He's completely stoked, but not 10 minutes later 2 figures come into view along the same route we used to get here. One carries a familiar board and waves it in the air, like some totem taunting me. Ding has made the trek despite my thoughts that he was sleeping off the previous night's activities. I have a short pang of conscience for not calling him before leaving, but ignore it.

The 4 of us split the peak, all taking lumps beween these magazine like walls. A few rights are picked off but there is no channel to sweep you back out to the line up. The two I manage to paddle into are like their sisters to the left, lovely shoulders to drape some spray over and zippery throwing lips onto the flats allowing a coverup before fading away. I drift in the slack inside current to the rip at the north end, but it feels uncomfortable and I prefer the lefts for the quick returns.

As the low tide pulled the last of the water between the reef and the bar, the waves merged and exhausted we left the water. There were still classic lines out there but we were toast, it was mid afternoon, I had left town at 8:30a.m.