skunked

Today I woke up early and fought with the layer of ice enveloping my car. Then I scraped and picked at the knee high wall of frozen snow and ice blocking my driveway. After a sketchy ass drive I arrived at the first lookout point. The parking lot was completely iced over and I was worried about driving the blue flame in. I parked on the edge and slid down to take a look at the bay. It was big and disorganized still, even though the wind was practically dead. The bay had big sets closing out the a-frame and the point. Further down I could see sets hitting the other headland, some wrapping and pitching like some far off wave in the south pacific. But it was too big and shifty to make the solo walk and paddle. Water dropped down to 0 C. (32 F.) and the air temps are down to about -9C. Way outside you could see huge sets feathering on an outer reef. The swell is supposed to be straight out of the south but it almost seemed like it had some east in it.

The next point looked a little better but for a pre-work session it looked questionably rideable. The waves were breaking inside but off the headland. Again it was super shifty and it seems like the angle was wrong or the swell just needs more time to get organized. Skunked! I couldn’t believe it. After a second looksy I sucked it up and started the drive back home. The roads were just as bad as before except now there was the morning traffic rush. The worst part about getting skunked on a weekday morning is having to drive back into the city with rush hour traffic –especially the morning after an ice storm.

Now I sit here readying myself for a full days work. I’ll try and not think what the other point, that misto one that works like a machine on this type of swell, and how it’s probably overhead and barreling. I’ll try and pretend like the waves are terrible all day and I’m not missing anything. But you know how it is, I’ll sit here the whole time brooding about how I got skunked cause I couldn’t wait a little longer, or drive a little farther.

Today is three years since I started Ku Yah. Thanks for reading along all this time.