Secos.

After waxing at the water's edge on a low-tide day with a small southwest running and hesitating to push a new glossy board into the rocks, I lose patience with the mushy reforms off the closeouts and move to the reefs. They're high and dry. Just wait for a good set.

A little bummed going over there -- I can't knee paddle it. Too thin? Too narrow? Too bad.

A wave comes, looks like it will pass the gaps through the rocks. The board glides. Glides! I take some steps forward and laugh. It's hard to keep from shouting. The soft-railed single-fin turns have a smooth, easy feel instead of the hesitating jerk-and-dig of the side fins and hard down rails. Getting to the nose is no longer impossible, and while I do it neither entirely gracefully nor entirely to the tip, I do get up there and ... it glides!

Malibu.

No June gloom but the feeling is still there. Today history hangs thick in the air. Not that I'm creating it, but feeling it under my feet and all around me. The pit crew is long-departed but I still sense something watching in judgement as I take the smaller shoulder high scraps and play with them all the way to the fence near the pier's base.

Smooth cutbacks and awkward shuffles towards the tip. Usually a soft slow ride when beyond the fast section atop the point. There are occasional outside screamers, of which I sample a few. Set up the wall on one of those and get up near the nose and feel the rush as it accelerates into a high speed trim. I'm floating above, feeling like a pelican cruising the curl.

I'm not drop-kneeing the stalls and cutbacks, but just a simple kick-stall turn is smooth and a lot of fun, engaging and disengaging the length of the board. Already my limbs are responding and I'm swaying to adjust my center of gravity to perfect the trim-up. I can feel the function of the style. It feels good.

Rincon.

A magical June NW swell with glassy conditions and a light crowd. One of those perfect days that you don't expect, blowing by on the southbound highway only to throw a hard U-turn, hoping nobody else notices your sudden direction change to northbound and looks back also.

Steep and sometimes hollow waves crank over the sandbar at low tide. The Yater backdoors the smaller peaks with ease. A quick stall and rush to the nose. Seems easiest to get there with the board motionless. Then its off to the races, either on a high line across the walling face or sometimes a little lower, deeper, and behind the curtain. No funny business happening back by the tail. The rolled rails hold on the steep face, not releasing or skittering as my modern log did.

Even did some small hip-wiggles to climb-and-drop the small windswell peaks as the waves piddled out over the big low tide sandbar on the inside. My old board would have bit and snagged on the chop, but here I never lost control.

C Street.

More gliding, this time through whitewater. I instinctively brace for the impact of a ball of foam as it rolls towards my rail, hopelessly behind the section, but it merely washes over the deck. I continue forward unhindered. Through the chop of this moderately blown out day and through the wave's many sluggish sections.

I can no longer contain the shouts I held inside on my first session as I ride through it all unscathed, like a Greek God! I am King Neptune! I raise my hand over my head and bellow in triumph, holding not a trident but a spoon. The mortals on the beach drop their margaritas and scatter before me in fear.

5 exuberantly fun sessions, and instead of wishing on every wave that I had my 6'6" under my feet to throw more spray on that turn, I wished for a better cross-step, or a little more spray coming up over the nose. The shortboard only wandered into my mind on occasion. This is a board I can surf any day, any time. I needn't hop or grovel for an ankle-high wave, and needn't get bitter or fat when it's a little onshore or a little mushy. I am unhindered by the trappings of the modern longboard. Join me! Dare to set your surfing back 30 years, it'll do your perspective on small waves a world of good.

And when the waves are good? I needn't the longboard at all. Fear not, those of you who are concerned I might suddenly become one of "those" longboarders taking all your good waves or spraying you from the shoulder, for while I paid for the board with a swipe of plastic, the cash I got for my old log went into a deposit on a new roundtail triple-concave Channel Islands thruster. More on that board, later.

It would be remiss of me not to throw in a link to Yater's page at this point as I sign off. And yes, I know that it's actually the grey whale that makes its yearly migration along our coast, not eating, and it's the humpback and blue whales that come to our channel to feed, but I'm allowed to fudge it a bit. Trust me, the whales don't mind.