February 24th, 2024

Somewhere in Nicaragua

John chose to pull into this barrel likely knowing that it would close out. But sometimes you have to go on the rounder / square ones for the adrenaline and rush.

He got some good travel time through this pipe, but there was no exit to be found.

It’s good for John to practice his backside barrel riding technique some now, so that he can give me a better run for my money when Colorados wakes up and surf season begins.

Yuji-boy was loving the conditions this morning as well. Ideally it would’ve been a bit more consistent, but he was still sending it on late under the lip takeoffs as seen above.

One thing I’m still having to learn about this specific peak is that you *always* have to pump if you takeoff deep, regardless of whether or not the wave looks like it will corner off. When you’re deep here, the wave always accelerates on you as it feels the sandbar. Taking off wide is a different story where you sometimes need to fade the takeoff and stall hard straight away.

The lefts are a different story. They don’t tend to run as fast as the rights do, so you often times need to hit the breaks as John did here.

Spot X is predominantly a right-hand tube, but today the lefts were trading at par with the rights.

Yuji weaving through a crispy clean insider. I’m glad we all got some tube time as it looks like the wind will pick up some in the coming days (still offshore though).

John repping our hometown shaper’s boards, Action surfboards. The Firebreather model is the best surfboard shape I have ever ridden, especially for barrel riding at Colorados. The way the rail bites into the wave-face while in the tube offers high precision control.

Although Spot X isn’t equivalent to Colorados, it’s a favorable tradeoff since nobody surfs it this time of the year. Whereas Colorados typically hosts a crowd when it does get good. There are always windows for us long-term residents though 🙂 Anyways, thanks for checking in and hopefully the swell blesses us with some more tubes tomorrow at my growing favorite offseason peak, Spot X.