maiden voyage...

a ding in my pod prompted me to try out my new red beauty a day earlier than i expected on saturday. it performed splendidly. i tried it first at caballeros. it easily caught waves and allowed me to get on the wave much earlier and further inside than most folks. with one swift pump it also shot through a section that is normally difficult to make. the second wave i caught there was much larger, around 9 feet, and the board worked perfectly -- eager to run down the line and carve up onto big steep faces. its narrow front is much funner than to drive on steep sections than my pod. the next day took us to puerto viejo, which had a heavy current and was extra fat near the take off zone. i caught the biggest wave of my life there, one so large that i turned white in fear when i got out of the water and got three dunkings on the way in after the wave crashed behind me. on the inside after it walled up, it was easily 15 feet high, if not more. it was so convincingly large that i had the distinct feeling that a shorter board would have simply not caught the wave, or bounced all around the chop, there was so much force in the water. puerto viejo can quickly go from a fat point break to a nasty beach break, and being caught in one of those closeouts, even if you turn toward the beach at the last minute, isn't fun. strangely, when i was on a fat section of that wave, on a face so big that it became amorphous, i cut back to the steeper part only to see a big dorsal fin sticking out of the water. it was my friend the dolphin. not wanting to get in his way, i turned back left only to see two more dorsal fins. they were surfing alongside me. i've seen dolphins at puerto viejo before, but never so many on such a big wave, one that i happened to be riding. talk about a spiritual experience! afterwards, when i paddled out, there were half a dozen of me circling my board, so close to me that i could see them underwater, and they made a point of playing around, as if to say "nice wave, dude!"