The Ride

I was having a pretty crappy session at V-land today - been a few weeks since I had been in some size, super crowded, not feeling too aggressive, had nasty calf cramps within the first 10 min that never really went away the whole 2+ hours I was out there, and got caught inside pretty good several times.

Well, I lucked into one sick double-up on my last wave of the day, which probably ended up being the ride of my life thus far. Not a huge wave but thick and square like a box! I got a nice push from the whitewater on the top wave that pushed me all the way over the ledge onto the wave in front. After that, it was bottoms out. It got real hollow and I got a real nice view, then I felt myself getting sucked up the face a bit as the bottom dropped out even more. That's when that sucker went square and I could just feel that lip jacking straight out over me into the flats. I've been spit out of waves before, but never the kind of spit that just engulfs you as you make your exit...until that wave. I could be wrong - you know how it is when getting shacked - but it felt like a 3-5 second barrel. It was definitely a solid, wide open shack all the way across the inside, though. Yeah, I was screaming my brains out in the channel...and then I really wanted to scream - I guess my hammy didn't like how I was holding my position in the barrel because I had a super deep cramp that wouldn't come out for a couple minutes!

The best part of this? I lucked out and happened to have one of the best surf photographers around sitting in the channel (Patrick Stacy). He was sitting to far outside to catch the second half of the ride when the wave went square, but you can kind of see it starting to throw in the last few frames. Finally, some epic shots of myself, stoked!!!