Getting skunked is no fun.
How about when you can't sleep at night thinking that there
is going to be good surf in the morning with some size for a change. Getting
over head surf in Ventura during the summer months.... doesn't happen much.
So those hurricanes spinning into our swell window this past
8 - 10 days had promise. Forecasts were predicting the good stuff. I surfed
Thursday mid day and it seemed as if the swell was starting to hit. Granted the
sets were about head high, still more than we've had for awhile it got me
thinking early morning would be really good.
Serious, I was remembering past good summer swells so much I
couldn't sleep Thursday night. Finally it was a little after 5 a.m. and I got
up, fussed about and left the house at the but crack of dawn. With anticipation
I drove down to the point pulled into a parking space, jumped out of my van,
walked up to the beach, watched for a couple minutes and all I saw was lumpy
waist high 3 wave sets.
What??? I watched some more.... inconsistent waist high max,
3 wave sets. I walked up the point and checked Fair Grounds... like it would be
any different up there. Walked back to my van and left.
You know sometimes when the morning is coming off a shallow
low tide and the wind doesn't back down until a late hour at night there is a little
sickness on the surface in the morning. And south swells don't always show well on low tides.
Sure enough when my son got home around 5 and reported that
the surf was pretty darn good through the afternoon... yeah, so the incoming tide cleaned up the surface, and the swell showed better with the higher mid day tide. I was even more
disappointed, because I didn't get any.
Only a surfer knows the feeling.
D.R.
