BOX wrote:Made it out to Agate on Saturday early afternoon. Had meant to go in the morning, but life happened and I ended up having to put it off a bit. Might have missed some better waves, but it was good to get out nonetheless. My daughter came with me and brought her body board, so it was nice to spend some time with her.
Performance-wise, I've had better days. I got some good rides in, but felt like I spent a lot of time just trying to catch waves. It could have been just me, but my daughter said she had trouble catching them as well. Mind you, I'm just a beginner around here, but it seemed to me that there just wasn't enough "oomph". My typical M.O. is to catch waves as they crash behind me in the white water and use them to propel me towards shore as I practice my pop-ups, balance, and if I'm lucky, turns. On some days the waves push my board so hard I feel like I'm hanging on for dear life when I take off. However, on Saturday it felt like the opposite for the most part. Even when I would get good forward momentum by the time I was standing on my board I was at a standstill. I tried putting some more weight on my forward foot, and that helped some, but not enough to keep me going. As I said, could be the waves, could be my skill level, but I'm guessing it was probably a combination of both.
Due to the lack of big waves/propulsion, I didn't get too many chances to work on my drop-in. I can recall at least two attempts, one ending in me standing on my board going nowhere after the wave passed under me, and the other sending me face-first into a spin cycle. Got a nice nasal rinse from that one
But, on the positive side, I did catch a few and got some good rides in (relative to my experience level), so not all was lost. Plus I got to spend a few hours hanging out with my daughter, so you know, can't complain about that. There are no bad days in the water
pra_ggresion wrote:Turns out they have some pretty decent setups.
pra_ggresion wrote:
The "oomph" comes from period. For one, cause physics, the longer the period, the faster a waveform propagates through a medium. Two, consider 2 swells with the same height but the second swell has a longer period. That means the second swell has greater distance between crests and consequently more mass. So a longer period swell is the difference between getting pushed by a car and a train. In general, the longer the period, the better the swell. It's possible that too long a period will cause a spot to "max-out", resulting in close-outs or reform conditions. Longer periods are more rare, they often activate spots that wouldn't otherwise work, usually increases the need for technique because of the increased velocity and mass pushing you, but often leads to that sweet spot of requiring less effort for getting into waves. Period is the most important factor for determining the upper limit of quality that a swell can achieve IMO.
pra_ggresion wrote:Even if it means pissing off your friends and loved ones to the point that you have to ditch them altogether. Cause if you think about it, how great can they actually be if they don't mesh with surfing? One strategy is have your family picnics at that the one place you want to figure out so you can watch what it does through an entire tidal cycle. Every one gets to have a sandwich with an awesome view and no divorce! Win win.
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