I love my surf familia.
Frank Paine, kind king of the surf crew, and Boris Vishnevsky met me in Redondo Beach today for a little bit of surf and a quite a lot of silliness. As soon as Frank and Boris flew up in Paine’s iconic green VW bus, the “that’s what she said” jokes started streaming out in every other sentence, and we practically had each other on the floor in fits of laughter. After goofing around for an eternity, suits came on, boards were in hand, and we marched down to the beat of crashing waves.
Sapphire, to the right of the groin (fun fact – a jetty is actually 2 long rockpiles separating an inlet, a groin is the correct term for a single line), was small, and Topaz to the left was bigger but with an extremely heavy Sunday crowd. Boris, who had a bone to pick with Sapphire, stayed on the right to come to terms with his arduous surfing past there with Frank while I veered left to paddle through the masses of floating boards and bodies at Topaz for a few fun ones.
After three straight times of falling, losing my hat, finding my hat, and losing my board, I rejoined the family on the other side, eager for some fun and easy little waves after being a rag-dolled in what felt like a washing machine. Boris seemed to be finally at peace with Sapphire, catching wave after wave We smiled, laughed, and danced across a few more sparkly waves, then headed back up the stairs and reconvened at the burrito palace, Brother’s Burritos in Hermosa. We hit the nail on the head with a few more thats-what-she-said-jokes, and with full bellies made our way home, stoked to start the day with good waves, good food, and good company.
