Session 95 - rainy but pumping OB

Saturday decided to sleep a bit later and wait for the tide to drop, since I've been surfing the fat high tide waves during my weekday dawn patrols. Plus, sometimes it's nice to sleep in on Saturdays ;)

Made it to the beach around 11 just as it started to drizzle. The tide was still dropping to a 1.7 ft low around 1:30 or so, and the swell was building. It was pretty foggy and nasty, but the surf was pumping and getting pretty steep and fast as the tide continued to drop. It was pretty crowded too, considering it was rainy and ugly out. Sets were in the head high range, building into a foot or two overhead on standout sets. I stayed out for an hour and 40 minutes, on a mission to catch 20 solid waves. Since I am still repairing my 6'5" JC, I ended up paddling out on my 5'11" Rusty swallow tail. I haven't ridden that board in a while, and it's a treat on small, fast waves because it turns on command, and cutbacks are effortless (at least going frontside for me). I had a few memorable wipeouts too. On one head high right, I totally goofed on a top turn and somehow ended up landing on top of my upside down board, bruising my left thigh on my skegs. On one of my last waves I caught a big jacking outside set wave, easily a couple feet overhead. I took the first part of the drop fine, but then the wave did this weird staircase thing and I skipped off the face of the wave and air dropped down to the flats. I tried to stick the landing, but totally ate it, bounced off of the sand and got rolled pretty good. I redeemed myself with the next wave, #20, a steep reeling left that I was able to connect pretty much all the way back into the beach.