Franny's (2005)

Franny's

A high wind and surf advisory was in full effect as we stood on the cliffs overlooking the surf. The wind was so cold that it cut through my cloths as if I was nude, chilling me to the core. The last thing I wanted to do was put on my wet wetsuit on and get into the frigid ocean. I watched with dread as good waves were breaking among the rocks at our secret spot we call Franny's (named after a friend of mine named Franny who fell off the cliffs nearby. I rescued her and she's fine but that's another story).

Franny's is the kind of spot that almost never breaks, so on this freezing cold stormy day I was slightly disappointed to see good waves for I knew what that meant. We had to surf.

I waited for the hint from my comrad Billy that he thought we should go and then admitted that I would go also. Once in our suits the cold wasn't on my mind any more. We ran down the slippery muddy hill towards the surf with enthusiasm. For me, the enthusiasm faded a bit when we got down and saw how big the waves actually were. The wave known as Franny's is a left which breaks in and around a lot of rocks. The big sets that were coming in were breaking outside and in the wrong spot. This combined with the amount of water moving around made the session a little intimidating. Billy charged it out through a set and I followed trying my best to find a window between sets. I was surfing on an old G & S single fin that belongs to Billy and I knew it would be hard to duckdive.

I managed to duckdive pretty well and made it out. I wasn't in the mood to get caught inside so I paddled way out the back where I could watch for awhile without the fear of getting pounded by a set. Billy later told me that he was wondering what the hell I was doing so far out until he saw me duckdive a set way out there.

Billy caught a wave and as I watched him from the back I saw a rainbow over the cliffs where Franny had fallen. The rainbow reminded me to take note of how incredibly gorgeous a spot I was in. Rugged cliffs, cotton ball clouds glowing from the late afternoon sun, a super blue sky, a classic view of the Golden Gate Bridge, offshore winds raising huge amounts of rain like spray off the backs of the breaking waves, and a rainbow to boot. Pretty awesome spot!

Billy caught a few waves on the inside and a few waves caught him inside. Billy thought it would be difficult going in with the incoming tide so he suggested taking one in. As the sets were coming one after another on the outside I was fine with catching one and going in. I saw the right direction set coming, paddled in a bit and caught a truly epic wave. taking off right at the peak I bottom turned and came up into the pocket, not even noticing I was on the single fin, the board worked perfectly and felt so natural for my style of surfing. Dropping down again I bottom turned over some choppy water and found myself up in the pocket of another section. At this time I saw the wave was going to have yet another section so I looked for the rock that sticks up on the inside, calculated that if I surf this wave to the end I will miss the rock, so I committed to the wave until it closed out, jumped down to my belly and rode it in towards the rocks on the inside. It was definitely the best wave I have had at Franny's and the combination of all the factors (outrageous weather, energetic ocean, the single fin, the picturesque rarely surfed spot, the rainbow) provided with me with such a great mental video clip of the whole scene. Such a great image that I had to write about it.