Great video - loved it.  Thanks.  

________________________________
 From: marekreavis <[email protected]>
To: [email protected] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 7:34 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Wednesday contribution
 

  
Last week and this week, up here on the Lost Coast, we've been experiencing 
some wonderful surf conditions - small, but powerful swells with long intervals 
(12-15 seconds) that translate into some exquisite head-high and overhead 
waves. Combine that with bright, crisp Fall sunshine and a 3-day weekend and it 
was hopelessly paradisic.

Without the constraints of work, we got out at least once a day. On Monday 
morning, right at sunrise, my regular surf mate and I drove over the three 
bridges that separate Eureka from the Pacific and checked out the surfbreaks on 
the Samoa Peninsula. At Powerlines there were already a dozen trucks jammed up 
alongside the road with youngsters scrambling into their wetsuits and running 
up the dunes with their potato chip-sized boards under their arms.

We got out, walked up to the dunes' crest to see what provoked all the 
excitement (although we were pretty confident at what we'd see). Big, beautiful 
bombs rising out of the ocean about 300 yards offshore, crumbling and spilling 
off the top with broad shoulders on each side. Agile shortboarders were cutting 
and carving across huge faces with reckless energy and the whole scene was 
sprinkled with black-suited surfers rising and falling on the swells, either 
paddling back out to catch another or waiting in the lineup for the next bomb.

This wasn't exactly our scene. Too crowded, bigger waves than we felt 
comfortable with, and far better surfers than us to boot. We continued on our 
way and drove down a sandy trail to a dead end at the bottom of some dunes 
where a fog horn sends out its constant, doleful horn to the Pacific. There 
were several trucks there already, and three old men smiled in getting as they 
were suiting up, their longboards scattered around them. 

It was AARP Day at the jetty. My buddy, Ric, was the youngest guy there, and 
he's 56. Everyone else was in their 60s and at 61, I was probably the second 
youngest. We walked up the dune to see what we could see and there was another 
2-3 old monkeys, one on a paddle board, already in the water. The waves were 
big, but within our range, maybe head-high or a little more, but glassy and 
almost pornographically perfect. Platonically perfect.

We scrambled back to my truck, giddy with anticipation, and scrambled into our 
wetsuits. I'm always a little slow 'cause I have to put in my contacts before I 
get my wetsuit on, and Ric and the others had all left before I finished waxing 
my board. I ran up the dune and down to the beach to join them, already in the 
water and paddling out for the first waves of the day.

Here's a 5-minute video that's not exactly on point, but catches something of 
the feeling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCgBsm1qyk4&sns=em


 

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