Manhattan Beach kicks my ass

“You should go out now, instead of waiting for something better, because it might never be better.”

This has been my surf mantra all along, and it suits New York which really never is better, but I didn’t expect to hear it repeated by someone in California. But that is what the old man coming out of the water in Manhattan Beach as I was getting in said to me. Well, first I asked, “How’s the surfing?” Not “How’s the waves?” because I could pretty much see they were closing out and breaking close to shore. His answer was “Fantastic” and it didn’t occur to me right away that this may have been sarcasm.

There were only three or four people out, young boys, and before long they got out and I was all alone---but not before I’d pearled in my first takeoff attempt and could swear the one with all the tattoos on his back was laughing at me.

Next attempt I tried to move forward on the board---it’s 3” shorter than mine and I’m not sure where I’m supposed to be---and the wave knocked me off my board.

When I finally got a wave, there was a steep drop that happened before I had a chance to try to stand up. I still don’t understand why that happens sometimes. D. says it’s because the waves are mushy---does he mean closeouts? Is it from the wave closing out in back of you?

I wouldn’t have considered these mushy waves---like yesterday’s they had more power than Eastern waves of the same size.

I caught maybe 3 or 4 waves in an hour, average for me. On the last one I got to my feet somehow (undoubtedly by putting both knees to the board) and really tried to think my feet into the right position. For a second I may have had it, but only at the end of the ride.

I always surf two hours. That’s my rule; it takes that long to give it my best shot. But today I really wasn’t having any fun at all. So I got out after only one hour, telling myself that I’d surf another beach later. I left my wetsuit on and checked out El Porto, but decided it wasn’t worth it; then drove all the way to Santa Monica. Did you ever sit in a wet wetsuit for, like, two or three hours? It gets progressively unbearable. By the time I got there I couldn’t wait to get the thing off, waves or not. There were no waves.