So, this is not technically a surfing post, but it's informational. Basically, one might wonder, why have you not been out there in a week?? That's not the way to improve!! Well, I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, it rained Monday and Wednesday, and LA surf law is to not go out in the water for 72 hours after rainfall. Why? Cause LA is so damn gross that staph and other terrible things wash into the ocean and you can get really sick. For some godforsaken reason, it has rained almost every week ever since we started surfing! Seriously, this is the wettest year in LA since I moved here. Major sadness. Such is life though. Hoping to get out there tomorrow, and hopefully good stories will follow :)
On a related note, I'm using the lack of surf time as time to learn about surfboard repairs. I've got this beater of an old board, and it would cost more to professionally fix it than it's worth. Therefore, I'm fixing it myself! This should be awesome. I've started building a horse to do the repairs on, and once that's done I'll be fixing away! Pictures and repair related updates will ensue!
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Failed Surf Adventures at County Line
This post'll include two adventures since they were both epic fails (although for different reasons), and they were both at the same break, County Line. County Line lies, appropriately, at the meeting of LA and Ventura counties. We went there once when we were total beginners, and we didn't have a chance back then. The waves are more challenging, and the beach starts with a rocky cliff. Tough.
So we went last Friday and Sunday, and sadly, on Friday, I just wasn't in the right mindset for the challenge. The waves were pretty big (PS, ignore all my claims on how big waves were before...I'm coming to discover that I have a misguided sense of size...I will try to sort that out and be consistent in the future), Bryon says about 5', and they were some of the most powerful waves we have surfed in. I had a tough time getting out past the break, and once I did, I looked off a lot of nice waves cause I wasn't feeling my ballsy self. Long story short, I didn't catch a single wave, and I had a few incidents in a row where I was under water for longer than I like to be, and I got pissed, and stopped surfing.
By the time I officially quit, the waves had deteriorated into less savory things. There were vicious shore breaks, where the wave would suck so much water toward it that it was crashing, HUGELY, on the beach. Like, on sand. Not shallow water...sand. Not safe for surfing. So after getting knocked around, and then dealing with this nasty shore break I just gave up. Sad to admit it, cause early on the waves had been nice, and I just wasn't mentally there. Moral of the story...gotta get my head on straight and always embrace the good waves. Especially cause then, there are days like Sunday....
We left at 5:30 am, well before sunrise, and headed north. The forecasts were good, but the swell was also building, so chances of big waves were high. We got there right around first light, but it was cold as hell and the waves were inconsistent, so Bryon, Lee and I decided to wait a bit. Damon and Christina made a try at getting out there, but issues ensued.
Basically, it was like Friday in terms of power, but the waves were even bigger. Trying to paddle out without being able to duckdive was just crazy. The southward current was insanely strong, the white water was brutal, the period was super short, and the waves were just coming from all directions. It was insanity. As we three sat up in the warm car chatting, those two battled, and eventually they came back up to us with sad faces and no waves surfed.
Once it warmed a bit, Lee, Bryon, and I decided to give it a try. We started pretty north, and I ended up with a total failure, getting out at the south end of the break, never having made it out to the lineup. Bryon failed too. Lee actually made it out! And then we couldn't see him cause there were so many waves and we got a bit nervous. Damon made his next attempt next and got out there too, after much battling. Finally, Bryon and I went as far north as possible and timed it well enough that we didn't have to fight the worst of it, and made it out.
Once I got out there, though, I realized that the waves were the size of houses. No lie. HUGE. So I got out past the break and spent the next half hour trying not to get crushed by massive waves, saying, "We shouldn't be here. Weeeee shouldn't be here." Bryon and Lee both attempted waves, and then went in, so then it was just Damon and I deep, trying not to die. All of a sudden, the biggest wave of life crashes about 20 feet deep of me...no chance to outrun it....so I just turtle rolled and hoped for the best. I survived the turtle roll fine, but then another wave came, and another. HUUUUGE waves!! I turtle rolled them all and wasn't hurt or anything, but at this point I had been dragged so far toward the beach that I didn't think I would be able to make it back out again, so I just penguined to shore and relaxed for the rest of the day. Not a single wave caught, again.
So, that was a weekend of fail, sadly. Hopefully I'll come with better news next time.
So we went last Friday and Sunday, and sadly, on Friday, I just wasn't in the right mindset for the challenge. The waves were pretty big (PS, ignore all my claims on how big waves were before...I'm coming to discover that I have a misguided sense of size...I will try to sort that out and be consistent in the future), Bryon says about 5', and they were some of the most powerful waves we have surfed in. I had a tough time getting out past the break, and once I did, I looked off a lot of nice waves cause I wasn't feeling my ballsy self. Long story short, I didn't catch a single wave, and I had a few incidents in a row where I was under water for longer than I like to be, and I got pissed, and stopped surfing.
By the time I officially quit, the waves had deteriorated into less savory things. There were vicious shore breaks, where the wave would suck so much water toward it that it was crashing, HUGELY, on the beach. Like, on sand. Not shallow water...sand. Not safe for surfing. So after getting knocked around, and then dealing with this nasty shore break I just gave up. Sad to admit it, cause early on the waves had been nice, and I just wasn't mentally there. Moral of the story...gotta get my head on straight and always embrace the good waves. Especially cause then, there are days like Sunday....
We left at 5:30 am, well before sunrise, and headed north. The forecasts were good, but the swell was also building, so chances of big waves were high. We got there right around first light, but it was cold as hell and the waves were inconsistent, so Bryon, Lee and I decided to wait a bit. Damon and Christina made a try at getting out there, but issues ensued.
Basically, it was like Friday in terms of power, but the waves were even bigger. Trying to paddle out without being able to duckdive was just crazy. The southward current was insanely strong, the white water was brutal, the period was super short, and the waves were just coming from all directions. It was insanity. As we three sat up in the warm car chatting, those two battled, and eventually they came back up to us with sad faces and no waves surfed.
Once it warmed a bit, Lee, Bryon, and I decided to give it a try. We started pretty north, and I ended up with a total failure, getting out at the south end of the break, never having made it out to the lineup. Bryon failed too. Lee actually made it out! And then we couldn't see him cause there were so many waves and we got a bit nervous. Damon made his next attempt next and got out there too, after much battling. Finally, Bryon and I went as far north as possible and timed it well enough that we didn't have to fight the worst of it, and made it out.
Once I got out there, though, I realized that the waves were the size of houses. No lie. HUGE. So I got out past the break and spent the next half hour trying not to get crushed by massive waves, saying, "We shouldn't be here. Weeeee shouldn't be here." Bryon and Lee both attempted waves, and then went in, so then it was just Damon and I deep, trying not to die. All of a sudden, the biggest wave of life crashes about 20 feet deep of me...no chance to outrun it....so I just turtle rolled and hoped for the best. I survived the turtle roll fine, but then another wave came, and another. HUUUUGE waves!! I turtle rolled them all and wasn't hurt or anything, but at this point I had been dragged so far toward the beach that I didn't think I would be able to make it back out again, so I just penguined to shore and relaxed for the rest of the day. Not a single wave caught, again.
So, that was a weekend of fail, sadly. Hopefully I'll come with better news next time.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Cake Balls!!
With the leftover bits of the Superbowl cake that I had to trim off to level it all, I made some cake balls! As those who know me know, I am a super stickler for recipes. I don't adjust except to put a little less sugar in icing recipes. But for the cake balls, I totally went off the books. Made it up entirely.
Half of them were made with leftover buttercream frosting. The other half were made with the leftover raspberry buttercream. All were covered in milk chocolate and decorated with white chocolate and looked just like oreo balls. Unfortunately, I have no pictures. Not that many were made (about 24ish total?) since I was just using what I happened to have on hand. They came out pretty good though!
I really should have measured what I did even though I didn't follow any recipe. I say this because the plain ones had a little too little frosting, and the raspberry ones had a tad too much, so the consistency of each was a little bit off. Had I but measured anything, I could learn more for next time. Now I've learned to measure! At least something came out of it. And tastiness of course. That came out of it too. Expect more cake balls in the future :)
Half of them were made with leftover buttercream frosting. The other half were made with the leftover raspberry buttercream. All were covered in milk chocolate and decorated with white chocolate and looked just like oreo balls. Unfortunately, I have no pictures. Not that many were made (about 24ish total?) since I was just using what I happened to have on hand. They came out pretty good though!
I really should have measured what I did even though I didn't follow any recipe. I say this because the plain ones had a little too little frosting, and the raspberry ones had a tad too much, so the consistency of each was a little bit off. Had I but measured anything, I could learn more for next time. Now I've learned to measure! At least something came out of it. And tastiness of course. That came out of it too. Expect more cake balls in the future :)
Monday, February 6, 2012
Never to Venice again...
Short post:
Pre-Superbowl, we decided to head to Venice because it didn't look terrible, and it would give us more time to fry wings and fries and frost my cake. Moral of the story, it was awful! Really steep and barrel-y, and just awful. Played around in the whitewater a bunch and basked in the sun though, which was nice. Also, Damon finally came out again, and a new person, Christina, a math grad student who's only here for another month or so, joined us. So it was a fun time even though the waves were terrible. Back to El Porto this week!
Pre-Superbowl, we decided to head to Venice because it didn't look terrible, and it would give us more time to fry wings and fries and frost my cake. Moral of the story, it was awful! Really steep and barrel-y, and just awful. Played around in the whitewater a bunch and basked in the sun though, which was nice. Also, Damon finally came out again, and a new person, Christina, a math grad student who's only here for another month or so, joined us. So it was a fun time even though the waves were terrible. Back to El Porto this week!
Superbowl Cake
I was having some serious issues trying to figure out what to make for the Superbowl. Bryon suggested a cake shaped like a football. I decided that it should obviously be a layer cake but then was having an issue deciding on complimentary layers and filling/frosting etc. I had some frozen buttercream that needed to be used, so that was a given. Eventually I decided to make all layers out of the same thing: chocolate velvet. I used a recipe I had previously used for cupcakes (Mom gave me the recipe! Good call Ma ;D ) and made an 8" triple layer cake.
For the filling, I decided on raspberry buttercream, based on a recipe in a cookbook Dad gave me this Christmas! Delicious, for serious. Thanks Dad!
So I made cakes the night before, and they took FOREVER to bake. The edges ended up a little toasted, but it was ok since I had to trim them off anyway because the cake pans I was using had scalloped edging and I didn't want that. The next day I defrosted the frozen buttercream and made the new batch of raspberry buttercream...so easy!
Finally, I stacked it all up, and this is when the football-shaped plan broke down. I was going to have Bryon cut it into a football for me, but I was picturing this:
and he was picturing this:
but the size of the cake didn't really permit either. So we left it as was and frosted it as usual. I did a crumb coating which did beautiful things for the final look. I wanted to decorate it with a football, but I couldn't get the icing brown! It kept turning this awful grey color. I recruited Bryon to help try to make it brown, but he managed to make a different color of grey...oh well. Instead, I decorated it with red and blue, the colors of both the Giants and Patriots, but white plus red or blue makes pink/baby blue, so the cake looked like it was celebrating the birth of football and the gender wasn't clear, rather than being team colors. Oh well. It was the most adorable football cake ever. Here's a picture, compliments of Loki.
.JPG)
The cake was ridiculously rich, which I wasn't really expecting. I could barely finish my slice. It went over well though, and some people even went back from seconds. I haven't asked yet for many specific notes on how to improve the cake, but it garnered many compliments, so I'm thinking this is one worth redoing on occasion!! Woot! The one thing Laura suggested was making the cake more chocolatey. It had a light chocolate flavor instead of a super rich one. I don't know that I would have wanted a chocolatier taste considering how intense all the other flavors were, but it's worth a try. Damon said he didn't think the raspberry center went with the rest of the cake, but others really liked it. Sooo, I'm not sure what to do about that. Here's a picture of a cross section, again compliments of Loki.
PS- Yay the Giants won!! :)
Next, I'll be making cake balls, sans recipe, with the leftover bits of chocolate velvet cake that I had to trim off to level and even up the cakes and the two flavors of buttercream icing. I'm planning to cover them in milk chocolate! Hope they are as nomnom-y as I'm imagining.
For the filling, I decided on raspberry buttercream, based on a recipe in a cookbook Dad gave me this Christmas! Delicious, for serious. Thanks Dad!
So I made cakes the night before, and they took FOREVER to bake. The edges ended up a little toasted, but it was ok since I had to trim them off anyway because the cake pans I was using had scalloped edging and I didn't want that. The next day I defrosted the frozen buttercream and made the new batch of raspberry buttercream...so easy!
Finally, I stacked it all up, and this is when the football-shaped plan broke down. I was going to have Bryon cut it into a football for me, but I was picturing this:
and he was picturing this:
but the size of the cake didn't really permit either. So we left it as was and frosted it as usual. I did a crumb coating which did beautiful things for the final look. I wanted to decorate it with a football, but I couldn't get the icing brown! It kept turning this awful grey color. I recruited Bryon to help try to make it brown, but he managed to make a different color of grey...oh well. Instead, I decorated it with red and blue, the colors of both the Giants and Patriots, but white plus red or blue makes pink/baby blue, so the cake looked like it was celebrating the birth of football and the gender wasn't clear, rather than being team colors. Oh well. It was the most adorable football cake ever. Here's a picture, compliments of Loki.
.JPG)
The cake was ridiculously rich, which I wasn't really expecting. I could barely finish my slice. It went over well though, and some people even went back from seconds. I haven't asked yet for many specific notes on how to improve the cake, but it garnered many compliments, so I'm thinking this is one worth redoing on occasion!! Woot! The one thing Laura suggested was making the cake more chocolatey. It had a light chocolate flavor instead of a super rich one. I don't know that I would have wanted a chocolatier taste considering how intense all the other flavors were, but it's worth a try. Damon said he didn't think the raspberry center went with the rest of the cake, but others really liked it. Sooo, I'm not sure what to do about that. Here's a picture of a cross section, again compliments of Loki.
PS- Yay the Giants won!! :)
Next, I'll be making cake balls, sans recipe, with the leftover bits of chocolate velvet cake that I had to trim off to level and even up the cakes and the two flavors of buttercream icing. I'm planning to cover them in milk chocolate! Hope they are as nomnom-y as I'm imagining.
Best Wave Ever and Wave Full of Dolphins!
I'm behind on blogging....surprised? Don't be. This'll be a regular thing. So, here is post 1/3 for today.
And it was the BEST DAY OF SURFING OF MY LIFE!
So we went to El Porto, Bryon, Lee and I, and the waves were looking pretty. As soon as we got there we saw a HUGE pod of dolphins a little ways out, probably 12 or more of them, which is always a good start to a day of surfing. As usual I was on the QoW, which was perfect for the day since the waves were mostly a little slow breaking. To be honest, I only caught two waves, and only one of them was good. There were also two waves with great potential that I messed up. Let's start with those so we can end on happy notes :)
The first with potential, I got my feet tangled on the leash and went off the back like a bag of bricks. I'm sure it was hilarious, and truly wish I could've seen my own face. Oh well. The second wave was actually a learning experience. I caught a HUGE wave...(Massive aside: I was going for lots of huge waves! Yayyy progress! I was probably only doing it cause even though they were big they weren't breaking that meanly...I got tossed a few times off the big ones but it was never awful. This was probably because they were all corners, it was near low tide, and closeouts weren't happening all that often. Aside, over.)...and I was looking down a seriously steep face when I realized that I was not getting any purchase in the face and nosedove hard. Board went into the ocean and I pushed myself off the back. BUT, as I was falling, I looked left and realized that I was right at a steep corner. So, if I had just turned as soon as I took off, I might've made it onto the face instead of pearling (another term for nosediving). Good to know. Next time, I'll take off at more of an angle on the bigger waves.
Now, for the good news. I caught the best wave of my life! I caught a medium biggie, and ran straight down the face, but then as I was waiting for the whitewater to catch up to me I saw that the wave was reforming, so I turned left right onto the face! I rode left for a ways, then down the second time, then left again, and by this time I had SO MUCH SPEED!! I was totally exhilarated and actually a little scared since I was going faster than I ever have, far faster than I'm capable of running in a dead sprint. I almost lost it in the fast section, but I got my balance back and rode down the last face. At this point I was probably 40 yards north of where I had started and basically at the shore. It was the most incredible ride of my life. That's all I'm working for now. Rides like that one. The guys didn't see it, but some stranger on the beach did and told me it was an amazing wave. YAY!
So, as if that weren't enough, there was a time when I was out waiting for the big breaks when all out a sudden a big set rolls in. That means that waves break, in this case, 15-30 feet deeper than they had been normally. Since the waves had already been pretty big, these were HUGE! So as the first wave comes at me, I started paddling like hell toward it, so that I can clear the wave before it bowls me over. As I do, I see, IN THE WAVE, at least 8 dolphins! I hear Bryon behind me yelling, "Do you see that?! DO YOU SEE THAT?!?!" (He knows of my love of dolphins) He and Lee paddled in toward shore to get safe while I paddled straight at this group of dolphins each of which was either vertical in the wave or looking straight at me! It was a mix of the following two pictures, and it was the most amazing thing I have ever seen (none of the dolphins were breaking the surface though).
The whole time I was paddling I was just repeating "Oh my God, oh my God..." because of the size of the wave, the fact that I was SO CLOSE to dolphins, and for fear that they were about to run me over. Most beautiful thing I have ever seen though, and the dolphins went out the back of the wave and I made it though alive. I also survived the next 3-4 big waves, only having to turtle roll under one of them. Bryon later claims that I missed the dolphins swimming about 5 feet from me on their way into that wave, and I have no idea if his depth perception was treating him right, but that's a cool idea too :)
I feel like it doesn't sound that amazing in writing, but in real life, there are just no words for the mix of beauty and fear and power in the situation. It was incredible. I will have and cherish that mental image for the rest of my life.
And then I didn't catch a wave for the rest of the day, but it didn't matter. Best wave of my life and wave full of dolphins? And then we went to our new favorite breakfast place in Manhattan Beach? Amazing day.
And it was the BEST DAY OF SURFING OF MY LIFE!
So we went to El Porto, Bryon, Lee and I, and the waves were looking pretty. As soon as we got there we saw a HUGE pod of dolphins a little ways out, probably 12 or more of them, which is always a good start to a day of surfing. As usual I was on the QoW, which was perfect for the day since the waves were mostly a little slow breaking. To be honest, I only caught two waves, and only one of them was good. There were also two waves with great potential that I messed up. Let's start with those so we can end on happy notes :)
The first with potential, I got my feet tangled on the leash and went off the back like a bag of bricks. I'm sure it was hilarious, and truly wish I could've seen my own face. Oh well. The second wave was actually a learning experience. I caught a HUGE wave...(Massive aside: I was going for lots of huge waves! Yayyy progress! I was probably only doing it cause even though they were big they weren't breaking that meanly...I got tossed a few times off the big ones but it was never awful. This was probably because they were all corners, it was near low tide, and closeouts weren't happening all that often. Aside, over.)...and I was looking down a seriously steep face when I realized that I was not getting any purchase in the face and nosedove hard. Board went into the ocean and I pushed myself off the back. BUT, as I was falling, I looked left and realized that I was right at a steep corner. So, if I had just turned as soon as I took off, I might've made it onto the face instead of pearling (another term for nosediving). Good to know. Next time, I'll take off at more of an angle on the bigger waves.
Now, for the good news. I caught the best wave of my life! I caught a medium biggie, and ran straight down the face, but then as I was waiting for the whitewater to catch up to me I saw that the wave was reforming, so I turned left right onto the face! I rode left for a ways, then down the second time, then left again, and by this time I had SO MUCH SPEED!! I was totally exhilarated and actually a little scared since I was going faster than I ever have, far faster than I'm capable of running in a dead sprint. I almost lost it in the fast section, but I got my balance back and rode down the last face. At this point I was probably 40 yards north of where I had started and basically at the shore. It was the most incredible ride of my life. That's all I'm working for now. Rides like that one. The guys didn't see it, but some stranger on the beach did and told me it was an amazing wave. YAY!
So, as if that weren't enough, there was a time when I was out waiting for the big breaks when all out a sudden a big set rolls in. That means that waves break, in this case, 15-30 feet deeper than they had been normally. Since the waves had already been pretty big, these were HUGE! So as the first wave comes at me, I started paddling like hell toward it, so that I can clear the wave before it bowls me over. As I do, I see, IN THE WAVE, at least 8 dolphins! I hear Bryon behind me yelling, "Do you see that?! DO YOU SEE THAT?!?!" (He knows of my love of dolphins) He and Lee paddled in toward shore to get safe while I paddled straight at this group of dolphins each of which was either vertical in the wave or looking straight at me! It was a mix of the following two pictures, and it was the most amazing thing I have ever seen (none of the dolphins were breaking the surface though).
The whole time I was paddling I was just repeating "Oh my God, oh my God..." because of the size of the wave, the fact that I was SO CLOSE to dolphins, and for fear that they were about to run me over. Most beautiful thing I have ever seen though, and the dolphins went out the back of the wave and I made it though alive. I also survived the next 3-4 big waves, only having to turtle roll under one of them. Bryon later claims that I missed the dolphins swimming about 5 feet from me on their way into that wave, and I have no idea if his depth perception was treating him right, but that's a cool idea too :)
I feel like it doesn't sound that amazing in writing, but in real life, there are just no words for the mix of beauty and fear and power in the situation. It was incredible. I will have and cherish that mental image for the rest of my life.
And then I didn't catch a wave for the rest of the day, but it didn't matter. Best wave of my life and wave full of dolphins? And then we went to our new favorite breakfast place in Manhattan Beach? Amazing day.
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