The session last night was decent. The only thing worth mentioning was taking off on a pretty big one and there being a big bump right in front of the lip that I made it over but the wave closed out. Pretty fun.
Had drinks at the Carmen bar right after. Mojito and Cacique shot. Fun. (Cacique is the government-owned rum brand.)
Went to the mall soda and got Casados with Sauced beef which was great. First meat in 6 days.
Got back to Pachamama and hung out with everyone in the rancho. Probably could update my character list.
The night was dominated by the late conversation with Tommy, Emmit, and Jamison about Tommy's work. Pretty darn cool. Will elaborate later. Had a topo chico and stayed up until 11:45 pm.
Felt like death waking up at 5:10 am. Tried to bail, but WhatsApp wouldn't load so I couldn’t tell Pavel I was bailing. So, I sucked it up and walked down to the car. Good thing
Waves looked great at the parking lot and no one was out. Pavel says Thursdays - weekend are lighter because of partying.
Took me a while to paddle out. No idea if it was bad timing with a big set or I am just that tired.
Waves were very large. Probably the largest I've ever seen in the water. Took off on one. massive steep drop and fast. Flew down the face for 2 seconds and then fell off towards my heels. I felt like I skipped across the water before going under bc I was going so fast. Super fun even though I didn't make it.
Then I caught the best wave of my life. One of the biggest waves I saw all morning. Didn't have much fear paddling in, had a slight angle to the right, popped up smoothly, and caught it. Flew diagonally down the face as the wall built to my right. So fast and so much face. I was just going straight down the line and it was getting steeper in front of me, thought I could make it for a second but then right before it started to close out I decided to try to punch through the back. This was my first time ever feeling the urge to do that. I’m interested in whether or not I would have had the urge instinctively or if it is learned from watching real surfers do it. Either way, I think it signifies a significant jump up in the size of the wave when the only option to avoid getting destroyed is to try to punch through. It ended up breaking too fast and I just dove off right in front of the whitewater, and my attempted punch-through didn’t accomplish much. I got destroyed but it didn't matter.
So much speed and such a large wave. I wish I could have soaked in the view and the feeling of having that wall to my right more.
It felt like a "big wave" ride. Like when a surfer catches a wave and a good portion of the "ride" is just making it down the face, as opposed to catching a wave and then the wave being the ride down the line. Pretty addicting. Easy to see why people like big wave surfing.
Was a 6'2 quad fish the right board? who knows.
In the lineup after I told Pavel I would pay so much for pictures of that wave, the local instructor near us yelled over, "I saw it bro. That was awesome". I told him it was the best wave of my life. I asked him how big he thought it was, "5 or 6?" He said "5, overhead". 100% sure the wave was overhead. Next best thing to pictures is a local ripper being on the inside seeing you and complimenting you. Maybe the best thing.
Caught one more, pretty similar, slightly smaller. Don't really remember much.
My surfing has improved so much from when I was in Indo.