Dan's visit

February 18th - February 22nd:

Dan came in for an extended weekend before heading out to Phoenix for a photo shoot. He brought his friend Gillian, whose parents just moved out to L.A., and we spent a lot of time hanging out, but much more time just surfing.

He was here for 5 days, and we surfed 5 days. We hit up El Porto first, which was big but a little poorly shaped. Porto is harder to paddle out in than the more southerly beaches, and for our first time out it was a little daunting. Once we were out, though it was a lot of fun. The next couple days, however, we hit up Hermosa Pier and it was a good bit easier to get out, if a little smaller. The last day, we surfed Manhattan, which was probably the best day we had even though it ended up getting blown out and we had to go in.

Both of us went along the same sort of progression: We started out retarded, slipping off rails, falling off the front of the boards, and Dan even perled once. We got progressively better as the days went on though, and even though it's not like riding a bike where you can just start exactly where you left off, by the end of 5 days, I was doing really well. Like maybe 70% of when I was surfing every day, back in the P.V. days. The Manhattan sesh was really encouraging. I'm definitely gonna have to get back out more often. The new board is sweet....