Classic Porto Evening Session - 041911

Surf Report: 1 – 3 feet

Winds: On shore, but not as bad as it could be for an after work sesh

Atmosphere:  Cloudy and gloomy

Water: Cool

Dais and I were g-chatting today.  I messaged Matt, and he told me that he went out this morning, and was writing about his morning session.  I couldn’t wait to read it. 

Dais told me that he was thinking of doing a sunset surf session.

“Me too!” I said.  But I was weary:  the winds are on shore, and when I stepped out of the office, the winds were blowing pretty hard.  The sun was still hiding behind the clouds and it was a bit of a gloomy day for a spring morning. 

Dais said that he’s going to “temple.”  He needed to get wet, and get some salt water on his gills.  I was thinking to myself that I should too, but I had my doubts about how good it was going to be and what not.  But the idea of going to temple didn’t seem half bad.  Indeed, it was Good Tuesday. 

Then he told me how Matt’s writing inspired him to definitely go out.  So, I checked it out.  He wrote about the morning conditions being clean, and doing a “hit and run” attack on Porto.  He paddled out in between the tanks and took a high wave count and snuck out of the water before getting docked by the Manhattan Beach Nazi parking meter maids.  So, I was thoroughly impressed, and I wanted to go out too.

My boss told me that he had to leave early today.  He was going to attend a Passover dinner with some of his friends and clients and that he had to be in the valley by a certain time.  I felt this was the green light to go surf!  He left around 330 PM.

I counted the seconds tick by on my watch.  I was watching the ASP Bells Beach competition, and grew increasingly eager to paddle out today. 

I left my work around 430 PM.  I grabbed all my work stuff and dropped it off at home, packed my board, wetsuit, towel, and some change that I had left and headed out. 

I got to the beach around 530 PM.  Dais was about five minutes behind me and parked near the bathrooms.  The waves looked crappy at best.  However, the sun was shining brightly and reflected a million diamonds on the surface of the ocean.  Some longboarders were catching waves, and a shortboarder was able to bust one turn on the wave face. 

“Well, it should be fun,” Dais and I said to each other. 

Dais had exchanged his two front fins to his old stock fins, keeping the middle fin as the green Simon Anderson fins that were once on Jade.  He said he did it during work.  I told him to stop being a surf addict and get some work done. 

We walked out to the sand in front of 45^th Street and decided to paddle out there.  Not too many people were there, and the water looked inviting.  There was a baby seal out on the shore.  He was just watching the waves, duck dive the waves, and then head back in to hang out on the sand.  I wondered where his mother was, or if he was hurt.

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing.  This is better than being Texas,” I told Dais, referring to our fallen weekend warrior Khang.

“Yea man, he’s suffering a lot over there.  I don’t know how he does it, but I would never, ever be able to do that,” Dais added.

Khang would have loved this evening session.  So, this evening session goes out to you Khang. 

We walked out and paddled to the line up.  The current was strong today.  The waves were only about 1 to 3 feet, with a lot of lefts coming in, but the waves had some energy behind them.  I paddled for a left, popped up, and started to pump.  I felt the wave lose some energy, so I stomped on my front foot repeatedly to stay in the wave, and the wave reformed on the inside.  I took it as far as I could, and bogged out. 

Then Dais caught a right.  Or was it a left?  I’m not sure, but I saw him paddle for the wave, pop up quickly, and get to his feet, not his drop-knee stance.  He rode that wave all the way in to shore. 

Yes, it is that flat

“Damn, this current is strong, we’re already in front of the tanks,” I told him.

So I started to paddle back towards 26^th Street.  Dais, on the other hand, let the current take him away.  He drifted far away from me, and I didn’t see him until an hour later.

I took a few waves during this one hour period, where the clouds started to roll in from the horizon and covered up the sun.  The water was a grey color, but it wasn’t too cold.  The water was a metallic blue when the waves broke, and a lot of these waves would break unpredictably.  I would be sitting in the line up, paddle for a wave, catch it, kick out, and see a three or four wave set just clean up the whole line up. 

The current changed all the faces in the line up.  I maintained my spot in front of 26^th Street, but everyone else drifted further and further south.  I told myself that if I wasn’t in the water, I would be at Venice High’s swimming pool, just paddling, so I might as well just paddle against the current to maintain my spot and get some training. 

I caught a left where I grabbed my rail and tried to pull into the chandeliering section.  I saw the wave face just stick up nicely, with a grayish blue face pierced with the weak sun, so I was trying to touch the face with my left hand, but the whole face dumped, so I exited through the back. 

More faces changed as I stayed in front of 45^th Street.  I wondered if Dais would ever come back.

Around 700 PM, Dais made his way back to where I was.  The clouds parted just for a split moment, and the sunset glowed on the horizon. 

“This is what I came for,” I said out loud.

“Yea buddy,” Dais said.  He took a wave with ease, paddling into it like cutting butter with a hot knife.  He popped up again without doing his drop knee stance, and stood up in one motion.  He glided down and took the wave all the way to the inside. 

The orange was blindingly vibrant as the sun set on the horizon, reflecting orange crystals on the water ripples with every passing second.  I took a deep breath to take the scenery in.  The mountains were tinged with a hue of brown and orange, and the tankers in the distant sea were lulled to sleep.  The orange of the sun painted the horizon in an unexplainable beauty that could never be matched by the hand of any man.  Sunsets are definitely feminine, for only a woman would match the beauty of the setting sun. 

I wanted to catch just one more wave.  I let the current just drift me when Dais rejoined me in the line up.  The crowd was thinning out, and there were just a handful of black wetsuits bobbing up and down in the line up.  Out of nowhere, my wave came.

It was a small wave that feathered out on the outside.  The wave lip sort of broke, and looked mushy as it made its way towards me.  I paddled towards shore first to direct myself into the feathery peak, then paddled at an angle to catch the wave.  I popped up, and slid down the face.  I pumped up and down the wave, and realized I went to far, so I leaned onto my heels and went back to the white wash.  I then started to lean on my front foot and bent my back foot a lot in order to stay in the wave, hoping the wave would double up on the inside.  The wave started to pick up more speed and doubled up on the inside.  I pumped up and down the wave again, and wanted to put an exclamation point on the wave.  I bottom turned, and then did a top turn off the lip.  I fell off my board on the top turn, but I was happy and content.  I took the wave all the way to shore, and that was my last wave for the day. 

I got out and watched the horizon.  The seal pup was still on the shore, looking delirious (as Dais put it) and going back and forth between the white water and sand.  I wondered what he knew that we humans didn’t know.  Animals are more sensitive to the environment than us, so he must have known something.  Or, maybe he lost his mom? 

The sun had already set, and the crowd was reduced to nil.  I waited for Dais until he got out.  He drifted all the way down again, so I couldn’t see his last wave.

I thought I heard my name being called as we walked back to the car.  It was a girl’s voice, so I doubted she was calling my name.  I’m not that popular at Porto to have a girl calling my name.  I heard it again, but I couldn’t see anything anyways, so I ignored her.

Turns out, it was Lauren Nicole Williams.  Hahahaha sorry!  She caught Dais at the showers, and told us that Matt had paddled out too.  He was out in front of the bathrooms and caught a long left early in the session.  She told us how they got out of school, and he saw that there wasn’t too much wind on the waves, so he had to go out. 

“I let him surf because I know how much it means to him.  I know how antsy he gets without surf, so I rather have him surf than be antsy,” she said.

What a great girlfriend.

“Yea, I’m a total douche when I don’t get to surf,” Dais chuckled.  We all had a laugh as we watched Matt paddle for some half foot waves. 

Matt came in and we all said what’s up to each other.  It was funny that we three all had the itch this afternoon, and we ended up surfing at Porto.  We were all surf addicts, trying to get our fix so we don’t become antsy and douche baggy.  All in all, a great, relaxing surf session.

Mahalo, Mother Ocean.