Saturday featured one of the better surf sessions I've had in Florida.
The morning sesh out back was nice enough. After that I was futzing around and thinking about a bike ride. Wind was holding offshore into the afternoon though..hmmm. My tide watch said it was high tide...Normally north Jetty on a Saturday with a clean groundswell would be jam packed with surfers but we've had 5 days of swell and I had an idea the high tide might get some more to go home, what with it getting later in the day and all. So I threw my board in the back of the truck and took the ferry over to the the island. Timing was money, tide had backed out enough to drive on to the beach and there weren't many people at all for a Saturday.
Surf was substantially better than out back. Lineup wasn't too crowded, was catching as many waves as I wanted. Ran into one of my neighbors which was pretty cool.
Thunderstorm rolled through. Nasty, violent, but not survival conditions. Wind was so strong the rain was stinging and there was a lot of surface chop. Some of us stayed in the lineup and kept surfing.
Before too long, the front blew over and the sun poked through the clouds. Lineup was weeded of anyone who did not have a strong motivation to stay.
Wind completely died. Water was like sheet glass, and the tide was just right. The waves were a foot overhead on sets and perfect. Not a drop out of place perfect, with a silvery mirror-like surface. Catching wave after wave, taking off deep, driving through the first section, then turn after turn until kicking out in knee deep water. On my way paddling out I would see other people catching waves and surfing them with unconscious flow and style, completely melding themselves with the wave - no layer of thinking between. And so it was, like a dream. A perfect moment in time.
After a time the tide wasn't quite optimal and the waves started to get a bit wobbly, and then the wind started to blow again, and the moment was gone. I caught one in, put my board in the back of the pickup truck, threw a towel down on the front seat, turned the key, and drove back towards the park entrance.
Would have been a good day to have a nice camera.
That morning I pulled out a box of clothes that used to be too small for me. In the box there was the bintang T-shirt I bought from a street vendor at Uluwatu. I put it on and it fit. Comfortably. I wore it in the lineup at North Jetty of course
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