This past weekend I took advantage of the beaches being open in most of California. I flew down to San Diego to stay with my longtime friend Miguel. The surf was up slightly and strong red tide precluded any underwater activities, so we planned to take advantage of the body surfing opportunities all three days of my visit. We went straight from the airport to the beach. From the beach, conditions looked pretty decent, with board surfers getting some good rides on the outside sets. There were no body surfers in the water from which to gauge body surfing potential. It turns out that most body surfers are smarter than us, they knew it wasn't worth it.
As soon as we were in knee-deep water we could tell there was a lot of water moving. Small white water had a lot of power, and the strong longshore current was relentless. Outside, while waiting for larger sets, we were constantly ducking whitewater that was coming in a very short intervals. Because of the red tide, it was like swimming in a washing machine filled with diarrhea. Miguel caught a few waves, I caught one or two, and we both got a drubbing and a workout.
The next morning we were out bright and early to get parking and beat the wind and the crowd. From the beach, it looked pretty good. It was much cleaner than the day before. We swam out to join the line up of body surfers and board surfers. The waves were pretty good. I saw Miguel and all the other body surfers catching some very pretty waves. Some how, I spent the entire session being in the wrong spot, at the wrong time, with the wrong skills. Many times I thought I was in the right spot at the right time, only to be too far in, or too far out, or to have a board surfer take MY wave. The only waves I caught either were over in less than a second, or they buried me in whitewater for the entire ride.
Me inside the big hollow barrel... no, wait...that's me stuck in the whitewater.
My view from the backside of the barrel
Day three was going to be different. I needed to get some wave images for the blog. I never take a camera in the water because I want to catch waves more than I want photos of waves. Since I didn't catch much the past two days, I figured I didn't have much to lose by taking the camera. The surf was smaller and a bit crumbly, but still clean. Miguel agreed to share camera duties so we could both catch a few waves.
What we didn't know, was that GoPro's contain a powerful wave repellant. No matter how big and steep the surf is around you, as soon as it gets within camera range it flattens out. Miguel was really trying to help me out by getting one decent photo of me in one decent wave. He spent over 90 minutes, with very little to show for it. Miguel is a excellent topside and underwater photographer, so it wasn't his fault. It couldn't be that I am a sub-par body surfer. It must have been the ocean's fault.
Waiting for waves to penetrate the GoPro anti-wave device
Anyone can ride a big hollow wave. Me, I'm all about finesse body surfing.
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