Endless Session, Day 295: Whale of A Day
We didn’t plan ahead, I swear. Photo by Mike Siordia.
I’ve never seen Mikey run so fast (or run at all for that matter) to closed out beach break.
Clouds draped across the sky held back the sun, but they didn’t hold back the excitement of meeting surf coach Mike Siordia and Jason Newling, CEO and surf team manager of Aloha HR’s beachside Hermosa digs for a mid-morning board meeting. Jason, South Bay born and raised, built his human resources company from the ground up starting with headquarters in Vegas and went on to open locations in Hermosa Beach and Hawaii, and tries to meld his company with the bustling surf community here as much as possible. He puts a lots of Aloha into local competitions in the form of sponsorships including the South Bay Boardriders and the Hotdogger Championships, and has a surf team comprised of a couple lucky loggers — Siordia and I.
Mikey, one of the more talented longboarders along the California coast, is usually a bit picky when it comes to waves. He’s seen and surfed it all, so the near perfect to beyond epic days are what pulls him into the water, and I have had to nearly beg him to go out on mornings that I swear looked insanely good. So when Siordia skipped, then ran down the beach, excited to surf low tide, wind-chopped, closed out, funky beach break, Jason and I looked at each other like these might be our last moments on Earth, because something clearly wasn’t right.
“The waves are bad but the company is good,” he smiled and said, after dropping into a few 2-second rights. Jason and I shared a less than perfect wave, but carved back and forth to the beach smiling the whole time.
He’s so right. The right company and some happy undertones can make bad waves totally joyous. I like this new side of Mike.