Waves? No. Waves in the summer. Never. Well; almost never. I do tell people that if they do a search for surfing on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, they might just find my site.

Now, I have learned not to post names of spots, or photos that reveal exactly where some unnamed spot might be; and I do always stress the fickle nature of the northwest surf, as in, “You’re more likely to get attacked by an aggressive sea lion that score over-knee waves;” but, I did find, and steal these photos from someone else’s two day, mid-summer adventure. The Cloud.

Yeah, I did find some shots of me surfing a secret spot somewhere off the grid. Joking; not about the photos; about the spot. I’m obligated not to name it for various reasons. I’m also not authorized to name the photographer, but do have permission to use them. I’ve decided not to show the shots of me because I put too much sun screen on, and, evidently, it makes me appear kind of chubby.

Chubby?

Here’s the guy, left, who started Lib-tech. I only took off in front of him once.  His wife is in the other two photos.

This is a wave, an eagle, and an unidentified ripper.

This is a super low tide, probably Todd Fischer on a super low tide, former professor, now semi-surfbum, Nick, alias God.

Nick, again, contemplating the variables of tide, swell, wind, lapses of etiquette by chubby old guys with too much sun screen slathered on their chubby faces and heads.

I do have some more photos of people I really don’t know. Maybe I’ll add them.

Just trying to make a determination that there might be waves on the Strait of Juan de Fuca requires checking buoys, contemplating the numbers, and going back through the anecdotal files we all keep.

And if it adds up, and you can take the time; you take the chance, make the trip.

And if you score; and waves were still coming through when you left, and the numbers look so similar on another day, even if you can’t really pull away from you commitments… overthink.

I’d say more on this, but I have commitments I’m thinking about how to get out of.  Thinking, thinking, scheming…

…work.

Then again, there’s flat and there’s small but fun, and, if, like Adam Wipeout on the fourth of July, you get up really early (and know where to go), there might be some ‘butt barrels’ and some offshore wind to hold them up.

And then there’s work.

These are (almost) the last of my saved-from-the-attic, scanned-on-the-blueprint-copier silkscreens from the 1980s.

SWhen I post something on realsurfers, it also gets posted on Facebook and my Twitter feed. I’ll have to check out which image goes on to Twitter. I’d hate to mess up all the name-calling, blatant advertising and political tit-for-tatting with nudity, even faded-out, fairly-tasteful, thirty year old nudity.

Meanwhile, checking the forecasts; always hoping some freak swell might just… yeah, I’m going, going to work. See you.

…I didn’t miss the sun; did miss some waves. I really wanted to do a second surgical strike, a week after my last one… didn’t work out; wind on the waters when the window opened, me waiting forty-five minutes, hoping to see one rideable wave in otherwise perfect (shimmering, diamond fields, lines that could have been waves but weren’t) conditions.

Almost, story of the Strait.

Next time.

Next                                                                                                    time…

It’s one of my (numerous) conceits that, because I’m self-employed, I can arrange my schedule around those small windows of rideable wave availability on the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  It is, of course, not always true. Work almost always comes first.

BUT, I have been known to dawn patrol it, surf, then work late (and tired, and, hey, you must know what it’s like to sweat out the saltwater you couldn’t shower off). AND, particularly in the winter, I sometimes head for an evening session (this can be 3pm when the sun goes down at 4:20 [no other significance to 4:20 intended]), or, around summer solstice, it can be, as it was recently, an 8pm arrival, quickly (for me) suited-up and in the water, hitting some semi-glassy walls, watching the sun disappear somewhere around Neah Bay around 9:14, dressed and re-loaded by 9:50, and home in pretty much record round-trip time.

OH, maybe I’ve made trips in less time, but that would be because I got skunked, didn’t hang around waiting, didn’t check other spots; and, mostly, because I didn’t stop for gas, food, to fill a Costco list, and because Olympic Peninsula traffic is not (usually) the nightmare it is in the Seattle/Tacoma/Bremerton.

That traffic was fresh in my mind; I’d spent most of the day taking my daughter, Dru, over to the Bainbridge Island ferry (always an anxiety-creator; barely made it). Then there was a (planned) side trip to Daniel Smith for some art supplies (some for her mother, Trish), only one mistaken turn (with ten minute readjustment- thanks to Dru’s phone), a quick stop at the Jack-in-the-box (because they don’t have them in Chicago) on First Avenue (with a blond rat cruising the dumpster area), and minimal holdup at Sea-Tac (the usual cars curb-blocking, others trying to make 90 degree turns).

About this time I got a call from Trish saying I might as well drive around as the ferry terminal would be a (bigger) mess. Fine, don’t mind, the fee for the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is collected going the other way, and, besides, rush hour couldn’t start at 3pm.

EVIDENTLY it can.  I now admit I used the carpool lane (by accident- hey, I live in the boonies) to get onto I-5; I mean, once I got in it, I couldn’t move over.  NOW, I had been checking the buoy reading all day on my phone, and it was looking, um, possible. THEN I got a call from someone returning from a weekend with the family on the coast, where, I’m pretty sure, the waves had been minimal and the crowds, well, fun if you like sharing and the whole campground atmosphere.

Above: another silkscreen image from 1980s, retrieved from my attic.

FIRST, I was told I was on speaker phone and the family was in the same vehicle. Yes, his sons didn’t need to learn any more new words. No, he didn’t surf on the Strait, no, the waves had been fun; oh, and he had passed other surfers headed toward the Strait.

SECOND, I have a phone number for one of the surfers mentioned. Somewhere, barely moving, not yet to the water park (which is close to the rest area, which is on the other side of the highway), I gave that guy a call. NOW, no; we don’t call others to report good waves. NOT DONE.

But, I was, according to the sign over the freeway, 8 miles and 29 minutes from the turnoff to Tacoma, low on fuel, and, besides, that surfer was just about to check out the possibility of waves from a secret vantage point somewhere around Port Angeles.

THIRD, the card-reader (or something) didn’t work at the gas station in Tacoma (gas is always higher close to freeways); I had to go inside; the brand new person at the counter (I was third in line, cut off the guy who could have been- counter-hopped him) was showing the even-newer woman how to make the gas pumps work. I asked a local how to get back on 16. “First right, skip over those streets, second left; third right- easy.”

FOURTH, and I don’t know why I started using numbers, there was a big accident at the big curve at Gorst (long called the armpit of the northwest by commuters), in the other lane (thankfully), and the backup went…driving, driving… almost to Silverdale.

OH, I had to stop in Silverdale to bring home dinner. Arby’s. Trish had a list. What’s the fastest route? “Go past Silverdale, take that exit. You have my order?” Yes. “Get whatever you want. It’s dinner.” Fine. I’d already had one of those breakfast sandwiches and the taco Dru didn’t eat, and I had eaten breakfast, but, Classic roast beef and cheddar and bacon sandwiches were on special, two for six bucks.

Didn’t mean to eat both, but, hey, they are way better warm than warmed-up. LUCKILY, the Hood Canal Bridge was not open for a sailboat, submarine, or mechanical failure (or just meanness), and I got home, with too much coffee, too many Arby’s specials heartburn, sometime around 6:25.

“GOING SURFING,” I said. “Really?”

NOW, I passed quite a few surf rigs on my way out; not usually a good sign. No, I didn’t get a call confirming the existence of actual waves; and, when I did get into the water, the guy I had called had already been surfing for four hours, but was willing to go back out for a few more. STRATEGIC STRIKE. Stoked.

ALL RIGHT, I should add that my backup plan had been to go the next morning, and I almost decided not to go, but I had already sworn to a client that I would be on her job the next morning. AND, the next morning, the angle had moved, the swell had dropped.

SO, maybe this is kind of a bit of a backhanded compliment to surfers who have to endure traffic daily, and are willing to take a chance. If I lived near Sea-Tac, the trip, one way, would have been, um, let’s see, 5 hours. Yeah, yeah, a couple of stops.

Something else.

Work? Yeah, got to get to it. I do want to get in some drawing/writing time, and I will. But, right now…

Something else.