a weblog by Dax

6 years in the making

Posted on March 26th, 2007 by Dax.
Categories: blog post.

Six years ago this April Spracky and I got married in Hawaii. The day after we got married we walked down to the T&C Surf Shop right on Waikiki and I purchased my first “longboard”. The reason that I put quotes around longboard is because it wasn’t a true longboard, it was 8′6″ lon, but it had a thruster tail.

I think I have gotten this board wet once when I was trying to show Spracky how to paddle around in the ocean.

This past weekend there was a little swell that came through Florida. Right after work on Friday, Spracky and I headed out to my favorite local spot. It was a bit mushy, but I would rather paddle around then work.

On Saturday Spracky and I were getting ready to go to the beach and she suggested that I bring the longboard just for fun. I thought it was a bit of a hassle, but I said sure. Also, the water temperature was still in the upper 60’s to low 70’s range so I purchased a short-sleeve wetsuit top to wear with my boardshorts.

We got to the beach right at high tide. There were a couple of guys leaving the beach and they said that the surf was getting mushy. The sets looked really fun so I headed out with my 6′4″.

After paddling around for a while I was getting frustrated, I couldn’t catch anything. I headed back to the beach and talked with Spracky for a bit and decided to try the longboard out.

As I was trying to get out I was getting pounded by the surf. With a shortboard you can duck-dive under the whitewater or a breaking wave, but it’s just about impossible to do it with a longboard, I’m sure somebody can do it, but I don’t know anybody that can. So you keep getting hit head on by the whitewater and the breaking waves, and you get drug back towards shore. One time I almost lost my shirt and the board kept on flying back toward shore. I finally caught a break and paddled like hell to get to the outside.

Handling the board was a real challenge, you couldn’t just whip the thing around like a shortboard. One good thing was that you could paddle extremely fast on it, compared to a shortboard.

Once I had regain some arm strength I started lining up for some waves. The first set came and I started paddling for the first wave that I was in position for. I wave was passing me by and I was able to actually catch the wave due to how fast I was able to paddle on the longboard. I immediately stood up and it was almost like instinct to walk up the board a little to get a little more speed, mind you that I had never ridden a longboard before. I tried to turn, and of course fell off. You have to be a little bit more patient when trying to turn a longboard.

For the next hour or so I kept catching wave after wave, making sure to try to catch one of the waves toward the end of the set so I wouldn’t have to keep battling the rest of the set on my paddle back out.

I caught a wave almost all the way back to the shore and rested for a little bit with Spracky. I just couldn’t get over how much fun I was having on the longboard, I had always ridden shortboards.

Once I finally had some arm strength back I paddled back out for just a couple more waves. When I was ready to head back in I was looking for just the right wave.

I saw a set building, so I started to get into position. Since I didn’t plan on paddling back out I was just trying to concentrate on getting the largest wave with the best form. I started paddling for it and stood up. I started trying to fly down the face and cut back a little here and there. The wave started to mush out, so I started looking for the fast section to catch the reform. I was able to slide ride into the reform and I could see the wave starting to wall up, so I tried to get right in the perfect section and crouch down. I rode the wave all the way to the beach.

I could not believe how fun that was…I just stood there in the shallow water in utter disbelief…I started to realize that I had become one of those older guys that I always made fun of growing up that were riding longboards and they had the complete look of STOKE on their face.

Dax out-

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