A college buddy of mine, Jay Jaeckel, was vacationing in Ukiah for a few weeks and we had arranged to do some tourist things in Mendocino County. We took a ride on the Skunk Train, went to Glass Beach, Cabrillo Lighthouse and admired the bridge over Russian Gulch Beach. I was doing the driving on this trip and had my Pirouette river kayak on the roof of my truck. So the last thing we did on this day was stop by Caspar Beach so I could do some butt surfing (AKA kayak surfing).
We drove past the beach earlier in the day and the waves looked pitiful. I had expected this since the tide was low. There was a pretty large swell at sea, 10 to 12 feet and I feared that this was not making it into the beach at the end of the cove. But when we arrived at the beach a second time around 4:00 PM the tide was approaching the high and there were a bunch of board surfers having a good time in pretty large waves.
I promised Jay that I would get exhausted in only an hour of surfing and would not abandon him on the sand for long. I timed things well the first time and made it out through the impact zone without getting very wet. I knew that I would be timid and afraid of the waves until after I had gotten thoroughly wet, so I practiced a few rolls to get that over with. Then I started getting great rides!
Butt surfers often get razzed by board surfers for always going straight down the wave instead of surfing diagonally across the face. A kayak has a strong tendency to end up sideways to a wave if you let it turn even slightly to one side or another. This makes going straight down the easiest thing to do. Kayaks designed to surf have "hard chines" that are supposed to make going across the wave, and many other tricks, easier. My Pirouette is an old river boat with a "displacement hull" that is round and smooth with no chines so I may have little choice but to go straight down the wave. However, I notice that hot-rod butt surfers tip the boat way over into a turn and use a high brace to reach up and create a pivot point to spin the boat around. I have learned to steer with my hips and the blade held in a low brace position like a rudder. Steering with the hips requires tilting the boat away from the direction you want to turn and took some getting used to. On a few waves I tried to break myself of this habit and edged the boat the other way while doing a high brace. So far the only result has been for the boat to spin away in the wrong direction and loose the wave. I managed to stay upright every time and only went upside down when practicing a roll to cool off from all the hard work. I mean play!
Despite my promise to Jay that an hour would wear me out, I was pretty tired after 30 minutes in the surf. But I forced myself to battle my way back out through the impact zone a few more times and waited for the illusive "one more good ride" before heading in on schedule. I told Jay that I was "pleasantly tired", a phrase that he says is an oxymoron. Jay had spent his time on the beach petting dogs, an activity that he says made this a pleasant outing for him.