Thursday November 20, 2008

It is now another day. The wind has gone north and it’s a sloppy mess on this end of the island. Not sure what’s happening over on the Rincon end. Waves are supposed to be rising all day to eight or maybe nine feet. We shall see. David is in a hurry to get organized for his trip to Mayaguez, and wants me to do some more work with the invoices on the computer and I happily comply, tickled pink to be of some actual use to him.

We discuss our options regarding vehicles, and eventually Claudie decides to get a rental car and departs with David, who will drop him off at the rental car place to pick it up.

David departs for Mayaguez and then San Juan and will be gone till Monday.

Claudie returns with the rental car and after getting our belongings together, we drive to Maria’s.

We arrive in the afternoon and there’s cars and people all over the place. Apparently, the word’s out about the waves and everybody is here. First glance at the ocean shows a fair bit of whitewater, north wind, and disorganized-looking waves.

A friend of Claudie’s named Stu has a fancy place right on the beach just about straight in from the takeoff zone at Pistons. Putting-green grass, courtyard, swimming pool. All the trimmings. We park inside and he locks the giant gate behind us.

At the beachside end of the property, a pair of pretty British girls are hanging out and talking with Claudie and Stu. Claudie seems to be giving the less than ideal surf a pass today, and waves me off into the water.

I put on the rashguard, take the board off the car, and head for the surf despite the wonkus look to the waves.

Paddle out and it’s bigger than it looked. Hard north angle and more closely-spaced than usual.

There are people scattered all the way from down at Dogman’s to the head of the point at Maria’s, but it’s not insanely crowded ‘cause they’re all kind of dispersed, here, there, and everywhere. But not too many anywhere.

As I reach the outside, a fairly respectable set pours through, and I just make it over three or four larger ones.

I park myself outside of everybody else at the Piston’s lineup, collect my wits, and begin waiting for the next largo batch of waves.

It eventually arrives and funtime is on, once again at Maria’s. Fuckall if I know what it is about this place, but I always wind up having a blast out here. It turns out that the wonkus look to things was a deception, and it’s actually quite tasty.

The fat ones are a few feet over my head, and between sitting farthest outside, and the strung-out crowd, I find myself able to stroke into all the nice ones I could ask for. There’s a bump on the waves, but with the size, it’s not really messing things up any, and some of them stand up nicely and race downcoast toward Dogman’s, walling up all the way. Gotta like that. The board Claudie shaped me last spring is working just fine and dandy. Flat bottom from nose to tail, tucked rails all the way around, deep low-rake fin set way back, and it’s rock-solid off the bottom even with the bump, and quite fast down the line. Just exactly what I like, thank you very much.

So I surf myself stupid as the sun closes in on the horizon, and wave after wave after wave is the order of the day.

Eventually, the dark is falling and it’s time to come in. The north angle and current conspire to push me well past the normal get-in area, and I find myself on slippery beach rock, dodging breaking shorebreak waves, and striking first one and then another twisted pose in my efforts to keep from getting knocked on my ass, dinging either myself or my board, or both. But luck was with me and I managed to survive my little ordeal and escape to the dry sand intact.

On the beach, Claudie, Stu, and the girls are just wrapping things up as I arrive, grinning from ear to ear and yapping like an idiot, and in short order Claudie and I are back in the car.

Shortest trip in the world, to the Calypso, where Claudie gets out of the car to go hang out and talk story while I stay with the car and keep an eye on the boards. It’s now night time, and Claudie finally returns and we roll back toward our digs at David’s place.

Only to find that David didn’t place the keys where he said he was going to, and Great Drama develops as we try to figure out what the hell to do, with David gone till Monday, and us locked outside.

Finally, after repeated attempts, Claudie gets through on the cell phone and David clues him to the whereabouts of the keys, and all is well.

So now we sit back and relax. Tomorrow it’s supposed to maybe be even a little bit bigger.

We shall see.