Photo: Michael Cunningham
My phone buzzes from the alarm I neglected to turn off last night. Today is not a workday, nevertheless, time is of the essence. To my right, my wife and young son are sound asleep. Outside the bedroom window to my left, the pine trees are still, not a breath of wind. No need to check a surf report, I know there’s a bit of swell leftover from the past few days, of which I missed entirely due to adulting.
A swift roll and I’m out of bed without disturbing the innocent. I throw on clothes, brush teeth and slip quietly into the garage. My winter quiver is already stuffed in a bag so I’m out the door by 6:40.
There’s no time to waste waiting on the defrost to kick on a truck that’s rapidly approaching 20 salty years of service. I roll down the window and Ace Ventura it to the old watering hole to get my fix. In the 30-degree air, my windshield is mostly still frozen when I pull up to my usual spot.
No one out yet. One other guy is having a look at the meager offerings. I don’t know if it’s the air temperature, the sub-40 degree water or the recent glut of quality surf, but he doesn’t take long to decide to pass. Hot coffee sounds pretty good at this point. But when you’re a fiend, you’re a fiend for life and you take what you can get when you can get it. There is no rehab for this type of addiction, only quick hits to stave off the withdrawals.
Photo: Michael Cunningham
I pull out my surfmat. No craft is better suited to my current modus operandi. A modern surfmat allows lines to be explored that are fresh powder runs, untracked by foam spear and three fins. Even a log would struggle to find speed and connect sections on a morning such as this.
Small peaks briefly stand up on the outer sandbar, barely breaking before fizzling out into deeper water separating the outer bar from the inside shorey. Mostly unbroken, disparate lines meander towards shore until hitting the shallow inside shelf, where they quickly wedge and spin miniature gold toward dry sand. Much too small and too fast to attract attention from the handful of people that stop to check it.
Far from groveling, a mat relishes these conditions. At low inflations, the modern ultralight surfmat takes every ounce of available energy and adapts to surface tension changes to fly frictionless across the water. Not too dissimilar to the graceful, low altitude trim of a pelican gliding across unbroken swell lines. When guided by an experienced hand, the mat offers an escape hatch for those looking to squeeze every ounce of juice from a lemon.
Quiver shot. Photo: Michael Cunningham
