204 Traditions

I know it has been quite some time since I really had a post about surfing, but I have been pretty busy these past couple weeks. Anyways..its not like I haven't been in the water, but I have been doing more instruction and surfing giant life rafts rather than surfing my boards and trying to really get waves. I just can't seem to justify surf camp as something to write about, now if there comes a day when the surf gets too good to resist and we make an early paddle out...then I may have some writing to do, but for the most part I will only be making entries concerning times when I get out there on a board of my choosing and shoot for some real waves.

Today, I got back to my roots from last year and make the trek on down to San Clemente for some 204 waves. I met up with Nick, who had gotten there before me, and brought the single fin down for him to try out. On my way..while I was chillin' in all the 405 commuter traffic..I got a phone call from Nick telling me that he was told there were no waves and that I shouldn't expect much when I got there; fortunately for us, when Nick checked the waves himself things had changed, the tide had gone out, and the waves were up. I rolled into the beach parking lot hopeful that I would be blessed by some fun sets, as the summer before had done so often. I hopped out my truck and peered down towards the beach to see head high sets rolling through. Nick and I met up and walked on down towards the shore, still seeing some fun sized waves, but noticing that things looked a little walled up. Regardless, we paddled out and found very quickly that we were in for a fun day. After a few waves, we were talking about how much we wished there was a camera around for Nick's first wave where he made the drop into a barrel, but missed with his back foot...his face was priceless. I had one where I had committed so much for the wave that I was already to my feet, and then realized it was going to wall up on me, so in trying not to go over the falls I sat back down and looked over the edge. Nick was laughing at the face I made, as though I was thoroughly frightened to go over edge and eat it.

All in all, we had a fun day out at 204, but no San Clemente session is ever complete without some Pedro's Tacos afterwards.

A couple fish tacos later, I was on the road headed back to Newport. I got more than just a good time tonight, I got a renewed passion to surf all over again. I hope this feeling never goes away.

Until next time...praying for surf.