Three Great days

Happyinsurf.com
Lets all grin when we are in the water!! No need for a grumpy face.

Soft tissue shoulder injuries take time to heal. Been just getting back into the gym and doing light rehab weights. Talked my logical side into taking a break and to allow myself to get back to kiting just a little bit when there in surf and wind.
It was a four hour road bicycle ride in the hills of the beautiful mountains, daydreaming and running into a few paragliding buds at the top of the second long climb up in Little Sycamore. Apparently they had shot up in a real good bit of thermal lift earlyer and were just starting to come down from the adrenaline high. This is a very challenging site to launch, nail the thermals and land at a serpentine road site down on the highway far below with crazy raod racing mortorcyles bulleting by. Helped Vic untagle his bridles after a little off launch bush crash and remembered why DeerMaster, Rod, Vic and crew were such a hoot to hang with. These guys are driven to paraglide. Vic is just recovering from a very bad ankle sprain on landing but was out ther flying anyway.

Road the rewarding gravity induced downhill to PCH via Starbucks for a couple of fruit juices and back down to the house, to find the trees were starting to really do a wind induced limba... Leo Carrillo was averaging 18mph on ikitesurf, so raced up to County Line to be the first one out. It is always heaps more fun when you don't expect the wind to blow. It's like a gift under a Christmas tree that unexplicably showed up in your living room in April. Had the surf and wind for an hour to myself before the gang noticed the beach cameras and one smiling guy out under a kite. It was great hangin with Alidad, Bayless, Alex Kamiskas, Dave and a heck of a lot of new to the area kiters. Wow, what an influx of new faces. The wind swell was showing at the point and long smooth rides were the norm.

After about three hours, it was time to let my shoulder rest and get home to work till two am. What a great day. They were calling for no wind on Sunday so it was working all morning, a soft sand run at Zuma/say hi to old lifeguard buds and then...what the...? am I really seeing stuff move in the trees under this overcast. Johny Regan called from his lifeguard unit near Deer Creek and comented on how great the new south sell looked and said "bummer there is not enough wind for you to kite into it Trumbo as your shoulder won't let you paddle in"..That got me fired up to drive up there and throw up a 12 m GK trix though it looked like a pointless exercise with not a single white cap under the grey skies.

I was really questioning my logic here (is this just a poor as it was cold and not very windy but the waves were epic. Johny had pulled up in the unit with old lifeguard bud Rex walking up. John said, "I've seen you zipping around in this much wind on those arc sort of kites of your Trumbo.You could go in this" He was profetic; amazingly I was well powered and pulled into about twenty perfect butter smooth bowls with nice vertical lips to smack repeatedly as they peeled perfectly off of our lifelong Heavens surfing haunt. Mertin saw how much fun I was having at this sunset sesion from way up on PCH and ran down the trail to join me. With only a couple of surfers way up wind, there was no competition for the waves. The wind would go great for twenty minutes and then lull to sub kiteable for 8. I left after two great hours with Mertin out there on his little 132 chasing the dark water with no caps each time a long gust would come through. Finished off the evening at the gym working my shoulder and wondering how so many of those gym types get by on the mudane repetitivness of jogging on machines and living a no adrenaline and non outdoor sport life...

Today was predicted to be ricktor scale winds and though Disco (Mike) called early and told me to get out there and not miss it, my work first priority had me chugging away till 1:30 and the wind was starting to do the 15 to 35 mph bit. Mike was just driving away from County with a huge wind and wave generated smile on his mug and waved that contented, "told you, the early sesion was the one to get look" He pulled alongside with the window down and just had to say how freaking much fun he just had and was heading back to work stoked.

Got a couple of hours strapless on the nine m GK trix and the 6'4" underground thruster surfboard till it just got crazy with the gusts..You can bump and jump wakeboard stle in this sort of stuff of course but that's not my focus these days. If I'm not working, it would be nice to be having the most fun possible. Time to drive..

Can't wait for that smaller six meter Eclipse Kima to show up. It would have made that session and the later one. Dimitri and Gabe from Eclipse both popped me emails today to say the kites are on the way. Drove down to Topanga in hopes the gustyness for strapless riding would be substantially reduced but it was not to be so. Our bud Allan Sarlo was being filmed by waterman Dave Ogel of Ogelvision at County and there they were again at Topanga. We laughed and I threw up the nine meter GK and underground strapless again.

Fun little waves reeling through the inside but darn if I wasn't WAY overpowered and unable to surf the waves properly.. It can be very frustrating and you are supposed to be out their having fun so.oh well, time to come in with a smile. Just too big of a kite. Everyone else was struggling and unable to throw their rigs till Jamie showed with his strapped in small surfboard and a tiny little kite that he could just huck around...till he also succumed to some gusts on the inside and closed down his session. I went in south of the headquarters and uncerimoniously dunked my kite into the inside drink to keep from dealing with the forty mile per hour gusts from hell screaming through. Klaus was rippin it up and down from his house just north of Topanga and down to the north beach. He was having an absolute blast ripping it up and throwing huge air. On days like this, the extra height and concomitant weight was no issue. He was airborne every other second. Vicarious enjoyment of a session is a great thing in sports.

Dave Ogle was next to his van south of Topanga headquarters as I walked up the beach with the kite floating on the wind under my arm. He gave me a laugh, big cheer and smile as if to say, I know you had fun even though your setup was totaly wrong.

Dave had seen me as a patient in the morning and he had the admirable will power to give his injured muscles a bit of a rest and shoot pictures for the day and stay out of the conditions he and the rest of us crave so darn much. Wow, a patient that actually shows patient compliance on a high wind day with surf.. Will the miracles never end?? While dumping a warm detergent bottle full of Topanga ecoli lousing fresh water over my head, I reflected on just how good life was for us (not the ecoli).

It is easy to focus on everything from relationship, hopes, worries to student loans and coporate taxes and become obsessive on goals while missing the beauty of our lives playing out right there in front of us. Walked across the street shamelessly in a pair of kneeless, oblitereated old levis that a bag person would scoff at with a tattered old shirt that I would never embarass my girlfriend with and walked into my favorite Thai food restaurant Cholada amongst a hoard of tragically hip turned out couples and parties, to sit down alone with a mind full of wonderful images of the day for a fantastic Vegan meal. Thai Spicy actualy was delivered... What a great three days. They are calling for sceaming winds again tomorrow but have a casting way out in the boonies in the middle of the day and working office stuff in the morning. It is worth working to the wee hours to experience life outside of neon fenced human corrals. We all have to copromise but there always are options. It was a weekday and the number of kiters was staggering. Either their investment firms did the Bush belly up or they have figured out, family, work and fun into a really productive model....Good on them!!
Economy Ecshmonomy.. Life is still good. Live it!