Postcard: Kelp Monster Green

Here's a postcard I sent to my surf-camp compadres and a few other friends. I place it here as a model of engagement and a memory of good times. This was a day last October.

I've been drydocked too much lately. Rudi and other very serious issues aside, what am I doing? I'm off work (sabbatical, a lovely word), only taking one class with lab, doing chores (sometimes), and swimming, but here I am, so close to the surfable coast, so I really don't have any excuses for not surfing or at least working on learning to surf, on that learning curve. Tuesday morning, a little disgusted by my chlorinated regimen, I hopped in the truck, drove to Santa Cruz. There, on 41st Avenue, I picked up a new wetsuit--O'Neill Psycho I in kelp-monster-green--and then I drove over to my surf-instructor's house to get an old board, a 9'6" Doyle, sky-blue, sand-roughened, battered but dependable.

You can tell something, too much, about me by those priorities. My core score is pretty low. New suit, old board. I just know how keeping warm will matter more and more as the year turns. I had to get wet, of course. Cowell's Beach is close to Richard and Marisa's, so there I went. Only four people out in the water, counting myself, so you can guess what experienced surfers already knew. Wrong tide, wrong swell. I paddled around for an hour, realizing again how my swimming with my fins (for my diving trip to Maui in December with Keith, yes) really doesn't build those paddling muscles at all, at all. I tried to catch a few slow-rolling almost-waves, the best on offer, and that was fun, anyway. Then, I had to hit the road to get up to SF for my marine biology class. (By the way, it's fun and a little odd to be a student at my own school.)

The drive up the coast was beautiful, invigorating and calming, the way the ocean almost always is for me. I looked for the migrating gray whales as I drove along, but I didn't see any. They are out there, still. Coffee and a scone in Half Moon Bay helped also. I got wet, I paddled for some exercise, and I'm ready now. Pacifica on Friday morning?

I didn't surf, but I surfed, you know?