Rodeo Beach is a junkyard dog of a surf break. It is fast and steep and has bitten me every time I’ve visited it; this morning I tiptoed in, hoping to have a couple joyrides without making it angry.
Only three other surfers were out and they placed themselves in the gunsight of the break, just 20 yards or so from the cliff that forms the beach’s north wall. I floated a little farther south, on the break’s crumbly shoulder, hoping for just that, some crumbs.
An unassuming wave rolled by and I tried to hop aboard. Whoa, I’m up! I coasted the face with an ease and speed that surprised me (I haven’t been out in a while). The beach zoomed up under my feet.
The wave at Rodeo breaks almost right on the beach, as if a successful ride would leave you and your board stuck upright in the sand like a child’s sandcastle shovel. None of that. I jumped off the board and into two feet of water.
I repeated this. Two more times! The mean old dog was snoozing for sure. Wow. Could I head into where the real waves are and take my chances?
I watched a five-foot wave roll through and collapse on itself with a SMACK!
Naw, I thought. Don’t push your luck with a pit bull. Time to go home.
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