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 *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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