[Paddlewise] Frolicking

This was my trip report from my paddle on Tuesday when the surf was up. 
I was inside the jetty at the end where the long period swells coming in 
were probably 5' at most. But just outside of the jetty, at the Wedge, 
those same swells get funneled into 20' foot shore break that you saw in 
the video!
You won't see me trying to beat out a 20 footer in my kayak!

Mark

-------- Original Message --------

There was supposed to be a pretty big swell coming in today, so I
thought I'd go meet it at the end of the Newport jetty! Debra brought
her Cetus and Ken his ski to join me. Looking down the jetty though, it
was flat as a lumpy pancake, but finally a bit of water came down the
pike to give me some hope! A big crowd and a camera crew were camped at
the Wedge, so they too were expecting some fun!

We were half way down the channel when Ken decided he wanted to go back
to the beach to try out his new skicret weapon! 60 odd pounds or so of
lead to ballast his ski! Debra thought he probably shouldn't be alone to
give it a try and decided to stay with him and be his guardian angel.

I got to the end of the jetty only to find it bitter--no waves in sight!
It was a long lull before three sets of waves came in of increasing
heights. Nothing that big, but enough to give me a bit of fun. I'll
admit being a little gun shy after my back injury with the large gaps in
the rocks that seemed ready to grab a body or boat. But mostly it was
just a nice surge up and down the jetty with the reflection off the
rocks causing the most action. I had four different LG boats go by me as
I played, but they didn't seem too concerned with me.

It seemed like a 15 minute wait between sets, but at least I seemed to
be getting more action than the Wedge. They had a camera van there and
towards the end of my stay a chopper showed up, but the waves I was
getting didn't seemed to be pushing much white water over the rocks
there. I was having a bit of fun and then the chopper came over to hover
over me for a while! I figured the least I could do was try and kill
myself, so I surfed one of the biggest swells of the day down the jetty.
Of course, it was coming in at an angle that was taking me kind of high
in on the rocks and I was having trouble trying to turn out. I was happy
that the wave breaking against the rocks rebounded out to help me avoid
going up too high. I rode a few more swells and called it a day.

Back at the SB I met Ken and Debra and Ken showed off his lead improved
reentry skills. It was a short paddle, but as I haven't been on the
water much, I was a bit tired. But I thought if I get lucky, I might
make it on the 5 o'clock news if they show their Wedge footage! It
seemed only proper that we celebrate at Carl's Jr. with a Famous Star!

Mark

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