Surfing Ruined My Life

I am going have to postpone this week’s UCB a day or so to write about a “most excellent adventure” to quote Bill and Ted. I was lucky to survive the whole ordeal actually, as my captain put it “if _________ happens you probably wont survive”.  This may take more then one part.  I literally have only been on dry land for a few hours and still feel like I am on a boat, not to mention the fact that I have had in the last three days a total of 10 hours of sleep and being it is my roommate’s last night living in Lisanti Land I promised we would go out to the Wild Cat tonight.  I am going to need a beauty nap at some point before that happens.  We will see how far I get.

A Sailing Trip, with a little bit of surfing and way too much drinking

Being temporarily unemployed is a wonderful thing.  Sure not having a ton of available cash is a bit of a bummer, but having oodles of free time is priceless.  Actually I have been putting a few applications out all over town and have gotten a bite or two, one being very prestigious for an aspiring chef.  I even have some cash work going at the moment as well, but those are blogs for some other time.

Wednesday morning I got a text from an acquaintance of mine who incidentally has a boat and owes me a tad bit of money for some ding work (what else is new, the ding repair business never changes).  “Are you free the next few days” the text read.  I have gotten these texts before and that means one thing: Island trip.  What am I talking about?  The Channel Islands of course, those south swell blocking curses of land that span the length of the coast line of Santa Barbara keeping it flat all summer long.

Those Islands don’t just block the swell they also funnel it in and enhance it at certain surf locales.  This person whom I am going to call Captain Intoxication, Cit for this blogs purposes knows the place like the back of his hand and will stay anonymous as will the actual location where we surfed.  This is to both protect the spot and keep either one of us from being banned from going back.  Also there will be no photos either for the same reason.  Sorry folks, but to make up for it I will try and be as descriptive as possible.

Captain Intoxication (Cit) and His Almost Sea Worthy Vessel

 I have been on stand by all summer long for one of his voyages.  Each time I have been bumped for his regular first mate he has been cruising there with for years.  Finally when I got the call I jumped on it.  I had to move a few things around, but I was not about to let this rare opportunity slip from my grasp.  Cit I found out has a kid on the way in November so life may not grant him the freedom to cut away as much in the future.

Certain influences in my life, those I value rather highly warned me more then once to stay clear of Cit.  I hate having a negative predisposition towards another person on behalf of a third party.  Cit has always been decent to me and never really given any reason not to be trusted.  I needed a pick ax for my garden and he lent me one. I have fixed boards for him and he almost always paid up front.  As far as I was concerned I was willing to entrust my life to him despite the misgivings of others.

After getting to know Cit over the last 48 hours I must say I found him to be an alright guy and I am proud to call him an acquaintance no longer in exchange for friend.  I pulled up to his slip at the docks with two boards (5’11 J7 round pin/5’10 J7 short board), sleeping gear, food for at least 5 meals (frozen chop meat/chicken breast, angel hair pasta, sauce, olive oil, canned vegetables, cookies, granola bars, 4 plums, bacon, dozen eggs, swiss cheese, 1 tomato, garlic, bananas, which went overboard cause of bad luck, a loaf of slice bread and two cloves of garlic, I was after all in charge of the galley), an old, but freshly sharpened santoku knife, 2 gallons of water, two wetsuits and my warmest cloths.  In addition I took along a change of clothes, a camera (never left my bag for fear of Cit throwing it over board), Oliver Twist (yes I am still reading it, I have been busy so get off my back), a bottle of merlot and sun block.  I don’t know why I felt the need to jot down the contents of my provisions, but it may prove beneficial later on in the story.

The Boat

 She floats, was the first thought that came into my mind and truth be told the 25-foot sailing sleuth was although beat up far better then anything I expected.  Once a few years back some friends and I stupidly believed we could get to the Ranch from Gaviota State Beach in an old beat up rubber ducky that was supposedly “water tight” with an electric motor that barely clocked the little boat 4 knots an hour.  This is definitely a good blog for some other time, but long story short we ended up deflating about 5 miles in and had to paddle the vitiate craft in on our backs.  It was a mistake I did not want to repeat again, but left me with low expectations for his boat.

The mast looked solid, the jib was good.  It had a small but adequate two bunk cabin, new radio, GPS, an out board motor, rescue skiff, a small two gas burner range with a sink and life jackets.  She needed a coat of paint, but besides that was more then sea worthy and in the harbor looked rather impressive.  Let me tell the reader that 25 feet is very small when you’re in the open ocean taking swells over the bow.

We stowed all the gear, tied up the sails, battened down the hatches, filled the water and gas tanks and shoved off.  Look for more on the voyage there and adventures from the island in Part II.

The Channel Islands