Last week was a really exciting week for me. I was asked to design a custom t-shirt graphic and an information card about BirdSwell for the US Open Surf contest in Huntington, CA. A couple days later, I was asked to go down to the contest to meet and talk with the Professional Surfers and give them the shirts and cards. Needless to say, I was super stoked and very grateful for this opportunity.

I was really occupied with this and didn't surf during the week. I also had a lot of work on top of this excitement.

6.24.12 - The best church is in the ocean!

Time: Mid Morning (10:30am)
Where: Montara
Surfed with: Jacob, Blaine, Tracey, Cynthia, Marica, Stan
Swell Height: Head High +
Swell Condition: Left Shoulders and occasional right drop in
Board: 9'0 Maroon Platoon

Session Highlights:
Montara is great when other spots are nearly flat. The swell comes off the sandbars perfectly and the rip currents are not strong. There is often a nice channel that you can paddle through to avoid ice cream headaches.

Today was a beautiful day at Montara. The channel was there and so were the waves! Maroon Platoon and Montara have proven to be a great combination for me. The higher performance longboard allows for a quick paddle out and a clean fast drop in on the steeper waves. I want to bring Tweetie P there and see how that board does because it has a lot of rocker and is built for steeper waves.

I caught a bunch of head high lefts, but the one lone right I caught was the most memorable with an exhilarating drop in. From Tracey's perspective, she said, "I saw you paddling, stop and then quickly pop up to make the drop." When I was on the wave, I thought to myself, "I will either make this drop or go over the falls." Thankfully, I made the drop!

Both Jacob and Tracey said that they saw me catch waves, disappear and then see my head reappear near the end of the wave. I am short, so the waves may have been a little bigger than head high on me, but on Tracey and Jacob (taller) probably head high.

After I caught my last wave, I was waiting for Jacob and Tracey to come in. I saw Tracey going for a great wave and she was in the perfect spot. It looked like she might hesitate taking the wave so I screamed from the shore to give her encouragement. She heard me and paddled harder and made the head high drop into a clean right. I am so glad she made it because it looked amazing from the shore! I know when others cheer for me to get into a wave it makes me paddle and try harder. Sometimes, it takes that little encouragement from someone else to take the wave.

7.1.12 - Thank you for the waves, Montara!

Time: Morning (8:00 am)
Where: Montara
Surfed with: Jacob, Cynthia, Manabu
Swell Height: Chest High with occasional Head High
Swell Condition: Clean Rights and Lefts
Board: 9'0 Maroon Platoon

Session Highlights:
Once again, every spot was flat besides Montara. From the cliff, it didn't look that great. However, the waves were bigger than we expected. Happy surprise!

Cynthia had been saying that the water was around 59 degrees. I was super excited and surfed sans boots and gloves. Summer temperatures are here!

We all caught a ton of fun waves. At one point, I was even kind of hot from the long paddle back. There were some lulls between sets, but the set waves were worth waiting for. I had a blast this morning!

I have been playing my ukelele a lot more and I brought it with us this morning. After the session, I played a thank you song to Montara for the beautiful waves!