Surfing

One More Wave

~ tomadaonline ~ 1 Comment

The day before I got married in 1986, my brother who was also my best man, went surfing with me. It was a glorious day at Waddel Creek, a few miles north of Santa Cruz, CA. The sky was blue, the wind gently offshore. The waves were moderate and well formed. We caught lots.

It didn’t occur to me, when I took a toilet break and had the runs, that I shouldn’t have been in the water to start, and it was clearly time to get out. But there was surf and my favorite surf partner was with me, if only for one short outing. So I continued, as my throat felt more ragged, as my lungs started to warm toward a burn.

This past week, some 29 years later, I was fighting a cold. It’s been nagging since I returned home from our three week east coast swing back in October. The waves here have been huge. Way too big for me, but on Tuesday it settled down. I hit the surf, caught a couple of little waves and felt unusually fatigued. But there were still waves so I stayed out. The tide was receding, the offshore wind increasing, and when I finally decided to quit, it was difficult to paddle in. I managed to find the shore and stumbled to my car.

Today my cold is much worse. My body is begging for rest. But I have one more thing to do before I can take a break.

Written in response to the Daily Prompt: Flawed

Thanksgiving Moon

~ tomadaonline ~ Leave a comment

The moon sets bright as

thin lines march from the crisp horizon

toward surfers playing faster

than tunes sung by a gull.

 

Slipping and slashing

they trade their tears

for a fast paced

backside beach break .

 

A single session sends

hatred under the bridge,

while winds of change

sweep clean a

purely present breath.

 

First find one,

then another.

 

PS.  Inspiration to write c/o Run Towards Each Other by Katherine Riegel

 

Real Surfers

~ tomadaonline ~ 2 Comments

Yesterday I read a blog post from Real Surfers.  It was the first surfing blog I followed.  For one the guy, Erwin Dence, has a great sense of humor, but two, which maybe is actually one, he’s a fantastic artist.  The image above is from his web site.  There’s more where that came from.

But yesterday wasn’t about Art.  It was about waves, or better stated, the absence of waves.  He and his buddies got Skunked, though it sounds like maybe there were some bitty waves.  At the same time, my backyard, Pacifica, CA, had huge waves.  Too big for me.  I’m looking forward to our surf waning a bit, which it appears to be doing.  Maybe the next swell will hit the northwest where Real Surfers is based.

But check out the drawings in this post.  This is what drew me to Real Surfers