…might be the wiser choice. You’ve faced this situation: The waves are crappy; side-blown, the tide completely wrong for the spot, and bound to get wrong-er for the next two hours; and the wind’s supposed to get stronger, wronger; sideshore, onshore, with a swirling bit of actual offshore just to help convince you that it’s go out, or hang out, or go home skunked and… yeah, you’re there to surf. And, another mind-push, is that you (and by you, I mean me) missed the last window because you had some sort of responsibility you couldn’t get out of, although, to be honest, you/I could have gone later and, as it turned out, scored.

I blame you. Me. Regrets. It totally wrong that sessions, or even particular waves we miss (you and I) are often regretted more than sessions or waves in which we believe we scored are properly appreciated.

Still… Fuck! Despite it being against somebody’s rules, if you have friends who surf, and they score, or claim they scored, and you didn’t… you will hear about it. “Why weren’t you out there?” Fuck! Should’a gone.

WHEN I was learning (should say ‘first’ learning), living twenty miles from any waves, and at the mercy of anyone willing to drive (my siblings and me, friends and me, me), I would go out in anything. Like… ANY THING!

That hasn’t really changed through the years. Even when I lived five minutes or less from waves, fitting surfing into my schedule (other obligations, but, working, mostly) meant hitting it with all the other weekend warriors and after-work maniacs, so, crappy conditions; I thought of it as practice.

PRACTICE. Of all the sessions I’ve surfed on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a very high percentage fall into this category. If riding tiny waves makes one better equipped for bigger waves, choppy waves prepare one for clean ones, YEP, I’ve practiced.

STILL doing the make-my-best-assessment, move-other-schedule-issues-around, and GO!

I have a pretty good story on my latest session, and on why, even though I got a couple decent rides, I should have passed on it. It would sound kind of like whining, so… another time. I challenged tjhe conditions and… next time. NEXT time.

WAIT! I just checked my schedule AND the forecast. Busy, not so good. Please allow me to rethink my most recent session. I mean, I got a couple of decent rides, considering. Maybe… and this is what I would say to anyone I haven’t already reported the truth to… “Yeah, almost no one out! It was… GREAT!

meanwhile, in addition to more work shirked than accomplished on my novel, “Swamis,” I have some art projects I’m working on. More in my retro/psychedelic period. Photos soon.