Poseidon's Cannonball

Surfing is very fickal.  The waves, the reactions of 'local bruddahs', the tide, my personal abilities, etc...Read on.

(I know what you're thinking, but this isn't actually a picture of future old man Dallon.)

Recently, somewhere in the North pacific, silly King Ægir and his Goddess Ran hosted a raucous sea party and invited their friends, Poseidon, Amphitrite, Ophion, Oceanus, and Tethys. The godly party got so out of hand, and was so disruptive that they churned the seas into a titanic storm of Armageddic proportions, particularly out of control was Poseidon's giant cannonball! Thousands of miles south in the dead center of the Pacific ocean, on the most isolated island archipelago in the world, the residents of Maui reaped the sublimely powerful benefits from Poseidon's cannonball in the form of Double Overhead!  Alas, the past month here on Maui has been almost as bad as last January when not an inch of frozen bliss fell on my beloved Wasatch.  Not a wave bigger than a boat wake to be found...If I had a ski boat, Lake Pacific would have been perfect.  I don't have a ski boat though,(Santa dropped the ball on that one) and the glassy conditions have been rather dull and depressing.  There was that one little hiccup that hit the bay a few weeks ago.  Which resulted in Dallon getting his first tasty treat out of the Honolua bay candy jar.  It was oh so delicious.  But, back to the present.  Along with the cannonball swell came a small bump up from Land of the Long White Cloud sent to us by our Kiwi friends.  And for the first time that I have ever seen, my little breakwall got hit with a double swell.  Which made for some interesting and beautiful waves!  Here at breakwall they weren't quite overhead like they were up north, but still of a size to break boards and take off bikini tops.  So I had to decide between ripping my longboard or training on my shortboard.  I choose to shortboard...  

Tangent:  I like hockey, it's probably one of my favorite sports to play.  But, I learned how to ice skate well before I started playing hockey.  I learned to skate by going to public skating sessions where all skaters are told to go in the same direction around the rink in a circle.  Back in the good ole days no one had yet come up with the technology that enabled us to switch directions at the half way mark, so...to this day I am REALLY good at left cross overs (turning left).  I am not nearly as comfy turning right.  Think Mario Lemioux, Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin when I'm going left, and Billy Madison when I'm going right.  (Be careful when I'm turning right, I might stab you with a skate...)  Which has also translated into my skiing.  I'm more comfortable turning left.  I guess I'm an amby turner. 

The point is, here at breakwall where I live, the waves break in a way that makes them rideable going left.  (looking at the beach, you paddle, then go left)  Since this is where I learned how to ride a wave, I'm really good at going left.  Also I'm a goofy foot so going left is just a little more natural anyway.  Today however, thanks to Poseidon's northern cannonball, the waves at Breakwall were breaking right.  I have surfed rights before, never with a whole lot of success though.  Until...wait for it...today!  I rocked it!  Well, I coraled it! (as in coral reefed it...try to keep up) Ouch.  Coral is pretty to look at, not to wrestle with.  Did you know that as an adult male approximately 60% of my body is water?  Well it is.  I know because I just googled it and everything on the internet is true.  But what you can't google on the internet is how the other 40% of the soft gooey and hard stuff that my body is made of reacts while getting pounded by thousands of pounds of liquid fury.  Imagine this: You are a piece of public restroom toilet paper (you know, the "gross!  I just wiped with my finger!" should have tripled up, crappy, falls apart TP) and you have been sitting in the toilet getting all water logged for about two hours.  Then you get flushed.  What happens to you?  You get sucked into oblivion and you break up into tons of little fragments.  Ok, so this is how I felt today.  Every wave that hit me forced me to swallow so much water that the parts of me that are all H20 decided they wanted to return to the great depths leaving the other 40% to fall apart and crumble to pieces.  Right, so now you understand that waves are strong.  Very strong.  Add a 6 foot long piece of fiberglass and styrofoam and tie it to your ankle.  Just one more blunt object for Dallon to hit his head on, or..errrr, other things.  Anyways, for the first hour I was out of my league.  Have you ever seen a cat in a wash machine?  Neither have I.  But I bet that's what I looked like.   The second hour I finally figured the take of.  On one take off I lost my balance and when I steadied I was heading right and ended up having a sweet ride, so the third hour was when I gave in and just started going right and got hit with the enlightenment rod of "hey dummy going right is easier on a shortboard for goofy footers".  Light bulbs appeared!  Then got smashed in a wave.  I got about five great rides before I was too waterlogged and sore to paddle anymore.  So for the fourth hour I just inconspicuously floated next to a bikini clad hottie!  She never lost her top.  Regardless though, it was downright spectacular day.  Thanks Posiedon!