[Paddlewise] Davenport Paddle Surf Classic Competition

I admit I kind of forget about Paddlewise on occasion, or wonder if my 
content is too local to share and sometimes just forget where I've 
posted stuff!
My apologies if any of the above apply!

My friend Gennifer and I entered our first surf competition back on 
11/10. We're mostly just weekend surf warriors, although we surfed about 
three times a week for about three months to get ready when we decided 
to do it. So we were a bit trepidatious. She is quite new to surfing 
short boats, so has come along way in a short time. I have no excuses!

You can see some nice video I took of a couple of heats on my YouTube site:

http://www.youtube.com/sandmarks

And you can see video of my friend Gennifer in the biggest surf she's 
ever faced here:

http://ckf.org/video_player.asp?VideoID=1241

My apologies to natural sound preferers !!!

http://www.sandmarks.net/Davmap.jpg
I think our first impression upon seeing the Davenport surf area Friday 
morn was along the lines, "we aren't in Bolsa Chica anymore!" The yellow 
line represents the 350 yard surfing area, with the observation beach on 
the extreme right. The waves coming around the point on the western side 
gave the biggest rides. There were 5 or 6 kayakers out practicing on 5-6 
foot waves and doing incredible moves. There were several large rock 
formations impeding their inside travel, but they didn't seem to slow 
anyone down. With such a large surf area so far from the beach, I 
wondered what would happen if you ended up out of your boat. I asked 
several people what do you do if you have to swim and the consensus was 
"Oh, you don't want to do that!" We met several more kayakers and 
expressed our nervousness about being new competitors, but everyone was 
welcoming and encouraging. We finally took to the water around 1:30 to 
get a closer look, but the wind had whipped up and with the higher tide, 
all the waves were gone!

Saturday the competition started with a talk on the sand at 6:30. I'd 
gotten there an hour earlier, the first to arrive. Waves were supposed 
to be smaller than the day before, but there were some nice clean rides 
showing. The first 5 heats were for King of the Wave, where High 
Performance kayaks, International Class kayaks Waveskis and Sups all 
competed together in groups of four. Though the beach was far away, the 
angle of the waves gave a good view of the action and there was plenty 
of it. KotW was Geoff most popular category for the competition. Gen was 
due to surf the Women's HP division at 9am and I was up at 11.

When Gen left the sand to make her way to the surf area, she'd 
accomplished the main goal of our attendance. We couldn't guarantee we'd 
get a wave, only that we'd show up! There were still some nice, clean 
looking waves of variable sizes. Gen took up position closer to the 
beach where the waves weren't so big, but that brought them closer to 
the the rocks. She was a bit wide of the better surf area, but after 
chasing a few small swells, she moved deeper to the left. Finally a wave 
face came in that she couldn't ignore and she jumped on a nice short 
ride to break the ice. After that, she moved leftward even more. She 
ended up catching at least two more waves of increasing challenge and 
came away with a score of 24 points on the heat. Not bad considering we 
considered 0.5 was good enough to make us happy.
http://www.westcoastpaddler.com/community/download/file.php?id=5081
By the time I launched at eleven o'clock, conditions had started to 
deteriorate. The wind kicked up, the swell declined and the water was 
much more choppy. I figured my best be was to head to the far point to 
try for the steeper waves. As I paddled out, for the first time I really 
started to worry paddling in cold water, as I could feel the cold coming 
through the plastic deck through to my legs, despite my long wetsuit. 
But the Jive had been good to me, as far as rolling in the surf and I 
was pretty sure I could avoid a swim. Catching a wave was a bigger 
problem. While I got on top of some big waves, I couldn't seem to drop 
in, although my competitors around me seemed quite able! I was up 
against three great young paddlers trying to compete with Sean Morley, 
Jim Grossman and Dave Johnston and they weren't about to give up a ride. 
They had much more confidence to line up right next to the rock to 
ensure their priority on the wave and perhaps I was just too scared to 
wait for that deep face I needed to get me on.
http://www.westcoastpaddler.com/community/download/file.php?id=5082&t=1
I moved over toward the right to at least try for some smaller waves 
with less competition and finally I fought for a short ride. That left 
me deep in the cove with some waves to punch through on my way out and 
on one of those was Kurt, slashing back and forth. I picked a line 
trying to give him a clear path, but I guess I zigged when I shoulda 
zagged and we were getting real close. I rolled to hope to get out of 
his way and that left both of us wondering if there'd be an interference 
call on either of us, but we both lucked out. I continued on trying to 
catch waves further right, but I was lacking speed on my drops which 
would cause my bow to purl and lose the wave. I waited hoping for that 
rogue bigger set that usually showed up to give a ride, but my time ran 
out. Four points was all I could muster on the round; not what I was 
hoping for.

Conditions worsened and Gen was only able to score a few points on her 
next try. I launched again at 1pm, this time in my Mayan Seas Delfin, 
which Geoff was letting me surf in the International Class. While I was 
much more leery of rolling the Delfin than the Jive, I also knew its 
size gave me a better chance of catching a wave and I felt good paddling 
out. But once again conditions were bad and there was hardly a wave to 
be found. Additionally, the higher tide meant the inside waves were now 
crashing against the cliffs with a noise that made getting too deep 
unappealing! In 19 minutes of searching, I caught my last and best wave 
of the competition to score 6 points!

On Sunday morning, conditions were looking nice and clean, but would 
change back and forth dramatically during the day. Gen had two heats to 
do on the day, the first a combination heat with three guys and the 
second, the finals for the women's division. She was pretty upbeat 
heading out for the first head despite some tough looking conditions. 
She got right in the mix in about the same spot as her rides the day 
before, but the waves were bigger this time. She had to do a lot of 
jockeying to get into a good place, but soon she was on the biggest wave 
of her life screeming down the face! She hit the heavy white water on 
the bottom of the wave and fought it all the way deep in the cove. After 
that she battled the constant white water coming in to knock her all the 
way back into the rocks, rolling several times to keep out of trouble. 
She managed to get a few more white water rides, but the first was her 
toughest ride of the competition.
http://www.westcoastpaddler.com/community/download/file.php?id=5083&t=1
Her final heat was the Women's finals. She had fourth place wrapped up 
and spent most of the heat watching the others three surfers show their 
stuff. She tried for a few nice sized rides, but I think she was mostly 
just glad to have made it through the whole competition. It was the end 
of a long journey and a great weekend. We met an amazing community of 
kayak surfers that we in SoCal don't get to see, but maybe we'll meet 
them again!

Mark
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