SURFIN' SAFARI SUMMER - DAY THIRTEEN - August 3, 2020

 





Anna’s sister by another mother, Cynthia Shelton-Droke, dropped by to spend the day with her on Sunday and that sprung me for a shot at some waves.

The plan was to hit Topanga Canyon Beach late afternoon in the hopes of finding a thinned-out lineup and some actual waves. Topanga is one of these places configured geologically so that it almost always generates something. But Highway 1 was packed and there were no parking spaces. Free ones. I don’t pay. It's a very long coastline here in California. Kept cruising south until a niche appeared at Sunset Blvd., about two miles down.

The surfing has been pretty crappy of late. It’s my vague understanding that summer is typically flatter than winter because swells (with lots of good waves) are caused by storms. In the winter, those storms are in Alaska. In the summer, the storms are down off Chile, where it is winter. Alaska is closer, so more swells make it to our shores in winter than those from the southern cone in summer.

Don't quote me.

There are two types of surfers. There is the athletic surfer and there is “The Waterman,” who may go to such extremes as tracking distant storms swells. He spends a lot of time checking on the weather, wind, and tides. He follows offshore currents... I’m not The Waterman. I wouldn’t know a sandbar if I ran aground on one, which I have, and didn't. At peak, I can muscle my way into the waves that I have already misjudged and poorly positioned myself to catch.


There were waves Sunday, but weak and breaking on the rocky shore. It seemed to me the tide was receding and that, if I hung around a while, they’d be finishing their journey a little farther out and some fun might be in the offing. After a while on the water, however, it became clear the tide was actually coming in, rather than going out. Again, not The Waterman. People up on the road were sitting in chairs watching me flail down below. At this point in my life, I don't give a fig about what others think, but sometimes I like to folly and when I folly, I folly alone.

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