REDEEMED (Topanga Point)

Today, for only the second time in nearly two weeks, the sun came out. I’d already returned my fiberglass board, but now I decided to stay in CA longer, even if it meant using a foam board. I got one in Santa Monica, a beat up generic thing with “rental” written on it. Might as well say “Kook”.

Absolutely nothing was going on at Sunset. So I drove up to Topanga. By this time it was four p.m. and if there weren’t any waves I was just going to continue up to Malibu and take some video, since what I shot before didn’t come out for some reason.

But there are, miraculously, little waves, looking about perfect for me. So I joyfully suit up, feeling a little trepidation about the board.

It turns out to be fine. The board is like a tank---easy to catch waves on, easy to (try to) stand up on. And the waves are really helping. They seem almost as good as the ones at Malibu---but this is a much easier crowd. It gets bigger as the afternoon goes on, but is never more than about ten people, mostly young boys. Even though we’re closely spaced I’m able to get as many waves as I can. Most people are going right instead of left as I’m used to. This means I can sit way over on the left and no one will run over me if I take off straight to the beach.

People seem to be looking out for each other more here. Less competition. Eventually, one of them says Hi to me, and later we have a two-sentence conversation about his board (leashless---I help return it).

I don’t know if it’s the board or the waves or both, but I find myself catching waves at exactly the right times and making the drops perfectly. I mean, I’m actually enjoying the drops. At home I often can’t make them---there’s little room for error on closeouts.

So now I’m actually looking for the drops. And on a couple of waves I get it. I get confirmation of what I’ve always suspected but rarely experienced: there’s a space that opens up when you make the drop right, that makes it easier to swing your legs under you and get them all the way onto the board. Your arms and the waves are pushing the board down so that there’s an incline which allows gravity to aid you in getting your legs under your body. Have I said that right? It said the same thing, in different words, in one of my surf books. But the Paskowitz guy seemed to be contradicting it when he said he teaches people to stand up in whitewater. “Isn’t there something that happens when you catch the wave that makes it easier to stand up?” I asked, but he said no. I think he’s wrong.

I was lost for a while on this board that’s six inches shorter than mine, because there’s no longer any way to fit my toes on the board. I’ve been taught to use my toes to push up. The only times I’ve been able to stand and balance have been when I’ve done that. I slid my right foot along the board as T. said to do, which is the only way I’ve ever been able to get that foot pointing in the right direction so I can try to balance.

But this other way, of creating a space by making the drop, seems to be another way---a necessary way on a shorter board---of doing almost as well, and without the need to use my knees. I say “almost as well” because even when I successfully got my feet on the board this new way, I could not balance the board. Not even close. And because I couldn’t balance, I couldn’t let go of the rails with my hands.

Still and all, for me this was a superspectacular day of “surfing”. Those two rides that made me go, “OH! That’s how it’s supposed to be!”---a feeling I haven’t had before---made it spectacular.

Add to this my first California sunset, with the Santa Monica mountains (or whatever they are) in the background, and I am actually having fun and don’t want to get out even after the curtain finally closes on the orange-red ball and it gets too dark to make out, any more, whether there’s rideable wave coming towards me.