No sleep 'til. . .

Original photo by  Brian Roberts

OK, I'm not really going to Brooklyn, but the song was stuck in my head.  So, you're welcome.  Just a small service I provide free of charge.

Any way, TWO WEEKS, it's been two weeks since I've surfed.  I've been doing other things, but I honestly miss the water.

Last weekend, the 25th and 26th of January, was an epic weekend for swell on the west coast.  We had a strong W-NW ground swell charging in that was the right period (time between waves) and angle (direction towards the beach) for most of California.  From Mavericks all the way down to Imperial Pier it was head high or bigger.
 
Speaking of Mavericks, they had the annual contest there on the 24th of January.  It was HUGE to say the least.  Mavericks did not disappoint.

Seal Beach, which is one of my local breaks, and Katin Surf Shop also held a contest the previous weekend.  Seal Beach experienced some very large surf and the contest had great waves.

I wimped out and skipped surfing both Saturday and Sunday.  Wah wah wah.  I live in the Huntington Beach area which is all beach break.  We haven't been getting a lot of rain (nothing significant since Thanksgiving) so the sandbars are not set up like they usually are in the winter.  As a result, the swell was more powerful than the beach could handle.

I did go to the beach that Sunday the 26th and watch guys hopelessly paddle out only to get pile-driven into the sand once they actually dropped into a wave.  It was both awesome and scary to watch Mother Nature doing her thing.

Original photo by Kristine Paulus

Now, let's move on to this weekend the 1st and 2nd of February.  Happy Groundhog's Day, by the way.  Sorry to anybody living outside of California.  Even if we get six more weeks of "winter", California winter is really weak.  It may as well be fall or spring compared to anywhere else in the country.

This weekend the swell and tide were all kinds of weird.  The swell activity went from epic last weekend to non-existent this weekend.  Plus, the tide was going through very large swings.  Really high High Tides and negative Low Tides made the surf hard to come by even with the little bit of wave energy we were getting.

Instead of surfing, I purchased some TRX goodies.  I purchased the TRX Pro suspension trainer from a local dude off of Craig's List.  It is awesome and holy cow, body weight exercise is a lot tougher than I expected.  The other TRX goodie I purchased is The Rip Trainer.  It is a stick-and-ball type training device.  The resistance is attached to one end.  It creates a dynamic off-balance load.  The idea is to use it to help with my SUP paddling.  I also purchased an Indo Board trainer to help with my balance out in the water.  My new Infinity Phoenix is stable, but has different characteristics than the Walden Magic Model I had before.

I've been using my new toys and boy, are my muscles tired.  I really enjoy the workouts.  I'm ready to get back in the water though.  I need to man-up and just get out there the next time we have a good swell event.  Hopefully, all the TRX training during the week will pay dividends on the weekends.

Until next time,
Clayton