Obviously, being warm and on a weekend there was the problem of crowds and so we had to pick our spots well. We started oput on Saturday morning at the Wall, and at 8am it was all good, but by 10am there were 3000 surfers in the water, 90% of which were beginners and hackers, so you had to be careful (especially on an SUP). I was really careful not to jump line and take more than my fair share of waves, and generally I would take waves that other people couldn't get, or get off the wave is someone else managed to swim onto it even after I was already on and riding to give others as much chance as possible to get waves.
Still, even though I probably gave up more than half my waves, my wave count was impressive - maybe 10x or more as many waves as anyone else I was with. Just that is an awesome argument for SUP. By Sunday night I was completely broken after 3 sessions a day.
I certainly got my fair share of trashings, especially since I was surfing mostly outer reefs in average 15 to 20ft faces. While I had both my 10' and 8'6" Enigma's with me, I rode almost exclusively the 8'6" - what can I say - I'm a shortboarder at heart and thats the way I want to ride my SUP. But despite the surf being so big, I jsut paddled like I was swimming my shortboard - late take offs, and surfing in the pocket.
Obviously we were there to surf, not take pictures, so it wasn't, until the last session of each day that anyone bothered to grab the camera, and as such the best sessions and surfs were obviously not caught on film. Still, I had one of my best days of surfing ever (from Mexico to Hawaii being counted in this statement).
There were of course a couple of looser prone surfers griping about me being out on an SUP. One balding, fat old guy on a 10'6" Longboard was telling me I had no buisiness being out in the lineup on my (8'6") SUP, and dropped in on me several times intentionally, and a couple of shortboarders were grioping too, but it wasn't until I said to the whole lineup "If I'm on the wave, and you can get it... take it. I'll get off and get another one.
This totally changed the dynamic of the lineup and suddenly everyone was hooting and cheering on everyone else, from SUP to longboard and shortboard (except the bald ass on the longboard who remained a dick and dropped in on everyone from shortboarders to other longboarders, never waiting his turn).
There is as many people know a bit of apprehension about SUP, mixed with fear. But most of it is based on fear of the unknown rather than a real problem. As the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said: All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed, and third it is accepted as self evident.
The swell went from 5' on Saturday monring at the wall (8' to 10' faces) to consistant 18' to 20'+ faces on saturday by 11am. This morning session Sunday was one of my all time best sessions ever, in a little known far-from-the-beach spot that requires a good paddle out and a willingness to get drilled by rogue sets.
The lineup was a core group 15 of no nonsense surfers who were there for quality waves. I got wave after wave (it was super hard for prone surfers to catch which meant I got more waves than I ever could have dreamed of) in such quality conditions. If I was heistent about SUP before, that is now totally gone. On my 8'6", I certainly got belted a few times getting out, and went ove the falls a few times getting on with a board that's realitively slow for a SUP.
Although I had my 10' SUP that would have been much easier, I', more than willing to pay my dues for better performance, and so I prefer to ride my 8'6".
So here are some photos of the weekend - like I said, not representative of the best conditions because we were surfing, but still these are not bad.
