SoCal Trip - late June (part 2)
Gioni
for some ice. Before jumping on Highway 5 south to continue down to
San Diego, I decided to hike in to Trestles since I was here already.
I had little time and with a contest at Lowers, 20 packed into the
Uppers lineup and 20 more at Cotton's, I headed straight out from the
trail into the water splitting the main packs. A moderate breeze was
blowing but some head high beach break took the edge off, quick in and
out waves but the potential was there if I had more time. Trunked it
for the first time since the trip to Panama a couple years ago.
Running late, I again hit rush hour traffic, this time Friday evening
San Diego traffic...jeez. Not too bad, took about 75 minutes to get
from Trestles to the
Claremont area of San Diego and to Mr. Tom Keener's house, who greeted
me with beers in hand.
A sleeper house in a quiet neighborhood overlooking a canyon in the
backyard, close to nature in a sense. We talked story before he took
me on the 5-cent err $5 tour of La Jolla. Got to see the horrific
parking and great potential for surf, except at the pool, where the
harbor seals have taken over. His home break was trying to go but
just not enough winter juice available in late June. A group of 6
tried to snag a couple death barrels just south of there at a "secret"
reef in the middle of LJ.
I'd love to see the place firing on a solid NW swell, but even on the
marginal windswell there was some fun looking surf at most of the
reefs. We met up with
Joanne V and BA at Su Casa a block from W*****S** for dinner. Bill
was supposed to set us up with reservations since he knows the
manager, but Tom and I get there and we are denied.
"Sorry, no reservations and no one here knows who Bill Andrews is" so
we hit the bar to wait. BA and Joanne show up, but Carson and others
are busy so its just the 4 of us. I'm pretty tired after surfing all
day, so all of BA's stories are hilarious and the margarita's are
tasty. Sitting with 2 pieces of LJ living history was a lot of fun,
much better than a Surfer's Journal article.
Friday night ended at Tom's place where I crashed in his loft with
plans to meet the locals at 6am at the Shores. It was originally set
for 5:30am but we negotiated to 6, with BA doing the surfcheck before
hand. Joanne scoffed at the ungodly meeting times with intentions of
sleeping in so I didn't get the opportunity to surf with her
unfortunately.
Day 3 was Saturday, Bill did the LJ Reefs check while Dan King and
Terry Hendricks were checking Blacks. Everyone eventually agreed that
the Shores was the place to be. Head high windswell out front with 10
guys spread out. I originally paddled out on my 7'8" but I was
quickly outnumbered by MALS (middle-aged longboarders) so I ran in and
grabbed the 10 footer. Bill was out on the kneeboard being loud as
usual, Tom Tweed and Dan King came out soon after. Keener still
didn't have the doc's clearance to get wet so he was still sleeping
and the surf was too weak for Terry's tastes but he stuck around to
watch.
Surfed from about 6:30-8am on some fun head high peaks with a good
shoulder for riding the nose. The crowd was manageable but got bad
towards the end and by 10am, the parking lot was full. Surf was
typical beach break but most of the peak's gravitated to me,
first-timers luck I was told. Slow takeoffs allowed for
left-go-rights or vice-versa, stall, step up, style (not me) to the
nose, step back and hit the closeout floater or kick out for the easy
paddle out. Surfing a dawn patrol in a springsuit is awesome!
part 3 (the last) is coming...