Double Surf Session

[markstephens]

Met Sing and Ed at Nantasket at 7 o'clock for a pre-work (for them!) surf session. For Nantasket, the surf was pretty friendly. Minimal wind and relatively warm temperatures, with clean waist to shoulder-plus swells at ten second intervals. Sing is getting scarily good, doing 360s on the wave faces, roller-coastering up and down the green water, just milking those rides. Ed is really finding his groove in the Mega Marauder, looking much more comfortable in it each time out. I'm the newbie in the group, in a whitewater boat, but still was catching pockets, getting in some nice diagonal runs, then practicing carving turns at the end of the run. Did my first roll on a wave today. Flip over, use the force of the wave with a hip snap, come back up and keep on surfing the same wave. Pretty nice feeling.

Also had another slo-mo "airscrew" in the foam pile. This is a roll without getting your head wet. You basically use the upward pressure of the surf to push off of and corkscrew your boat with the stern in the foam and the bow out of the water. I did one by accident last week in Gloucester and decided to see if I could do it again. I guess that is how all the tricks and moves probably get discovered. Something happens, and then you figure out why it happened, and go back out and practice it!

After Sing, Ed and I finished up at Nantasket, I headed down to Scituate to try the Peggoty Beach point break. By late morning, only two boardies left there. A bunch had just left. They were nice enough to point out for me how far right you could ride before the runout would take you into the rocks on the point.

The waves were jacking up on the sandbars off the point to head-plus. Pretty much twice as high as anything we surfed at Nantasket an hour earlier. There was a cross-swell, as the east ground swell collided with some northeast wind swell. The result was that you never knew where the next peak was going to pop up in front of you. All rides have to be pretty much on the left shoulders there or you get surfed into the rocks. The swells were big, but not steep, and even the boardies were frustrated by how hard they were to catch rides on.

I pretty much had my choice of riding the foam right under the steeply jacking and breaking peaks or trying to catch short rides on,

and mostly sliding off, the less-steep left shoulders. I started out

going for the big stuff, but had very little boat control once the

waves started collapsing around me, and took a couple long butt-bongo

rides into the edges of the rocks, even bouncing off one as I

tried to peel off the foam pile. I'd start windmilling in front of

one of these head-to-overhead monsters, only to have it catch me

right under the overhanging peak and pretty soon I was being

catapulted along in the foam, sometimes riding all the way in

backwards. Then, just when I was sure I was going to die an ugly

death on the sharp boulders on the point, the wave would release me

as it hit deeper water just off the point.

Didn't take me long to smarten up and move left to try to catch some

of the nice swells from the east groundswell and/or the edges of the

steep waves hitting the point. But they just weren't quite steep

enough for the whitewater boat. I'd get short rides and then slide

off. Stayed out till about noon. The rising tide was pushing the steeper waves further in to the beach, and I probably had my best ride coming into the beach at the end of the session.

Great day!

P.S. - The Spring Surfing Expression Session in Ogunquit is likely to be called for this coming Sunday. Come up and try short-boat surfing. You'll love it!

[Brian Nystrom]

Have you gotten it wet yet?

[markstephens]

Only in the pool. I hated how it handled so much that I cut it up and redid the front end. It is hard to roll, so I haven't taken it out in surf yet, but I'm going to take it out in some baby surf today for its maiden voyage.