Surfing Santa Cruz

It has been such a long and difficult Summer of climbing, that Wes and I decided to take a little vacation and head down to Santa Cruz, CA for four days of surfing.  It was well worth it. 

We left San Francisco, which was fantastic and deserves it’s own post, at about 7am in order to make our lesson in Santa Cruz at 8:45.  We rented some 9ft soft top boards and some cold damp wetsuits and made our way to the water with our group lesson.  The initial lesson itself was somewhat useful, they told us how to paddle, how to stand up, and what to do once up.  Once we got in the water, the teachers were mainly there to push you into the waves.  We both caught our first wave at about the same time, and I’ll admit, surfing can definitely be entertaining.  I wasn’t quite prepared for the insane amount of paddling you do, and after 4 hours in the water we were both exhausted.  We checked into our motel and passed out. 

Over the next 3 days our surfing definitely improved, though the waves stayed mostly mediocre.  The best waves I saw were at the break by 41st street in Capitola.  It was just set after set of beautiful 3-5 ft waves.  I took the above picture there.  Apparently though, you need to be pretty good to go out or the locals will give you a hard time.  With our 3 days of experience we didn’t quite cut it.

Looking South from 41st street.

We spent a our last night out in Santa Cruz.  Our surfing technique had improved the point where we weren’t completely exhausted by evening. We went for a walk down the pier and then continued on to the Carnival/Amusement Park on the shore. 

We finally got to see the Sea Lions we’d been hearing while we surfed.

I even found Wes’ counterpart Sea Lion, off by himself, away from all the ruckus.

There were a bunch of penny pressing machines along the pier, and Wes indulged himself.  He even recruited a small child to help him.

I wanted the burgeoning pressed penny collection to be properly honored so I threw down for a booklet.

The Amusement Park was pretty legit, but after months climbing in the wilderness, that amount of neon can be deadly.  So, after an hour or so of wandering around the Carnival like cavemen in Tokyo, we retreated to bed.

We are currently in the car on our way back to Yosemite and Bishop.  We’ll let you know how it goes.