It was raining when I woke up this morning. That isn’t enough to stop me from going to the beach, but it certainly makes the roads crowded. The traffic was unbelievable today. It usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour to drive from my home to the beach, but today it took an hour and a half. I didn’t see any accidents it was just heavy traffic. Sheesh. Needless to say, I was tired when I got to the beach. Suprisingly, there weren’t any fishermen at all at the beach today. There was only one surfer in the water. We decided to wait to see if the waves would get better. About 20 minutes or so later, we moved on to Shizunami.
Shizunami was a little better than Yoshida so we decided to wait. While we waited, we talked to the locals about other nearby points and heard that Shizunami was the best place to be today.
Eventually the rain stopped and the waves got bigger. Surfed until the wind picked up. It was so strong that I had to hold my board with both hands while walking across the beach!
I only took one picture today - I thought I took more. Anyways, here is that one picture:
As the title suggests, I decided to do something different today. I would go surfing AFTER work. What a crazy idea - would it work??
A rare appearance by Mr. Fuji - minus the layer of snow. I guess that there will be snow there in the next month or so. This is my first year in Shizuoka so that is mere speculation on my part.
I finished class at 12:10 and arrived at the beach just before 2:00. I had no idea what to expect because I have never been there in the afternoon yet…
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It was raining quite heavily this morning but the wave forecast looked promising. Recently we have been visiting several points looking for suitable waves. Would today be the same?
As always, the first stop was Yoshida but it had only tiny waves - almost flat. There were only 3 or 4 fisherman there. Surprisingly, they weren’t in the middle of the beach. They were at the far left part. I wonder why. It was raining so hard that I didn’t even bother to take a picture. (Sorry) The second stop was Shizunami. There were a several fishermen and a handful of surfers. It was better than Yoshida but we were hoping for better. So we continued to the third stop - Kashima. (Where we surfed on Saturday and Sunday).
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Like yesterday, the search began at Yoshida. Here’s how it looked:
Eerily similar - wouldn’t you agree? Sunny, fishermen staking out the middle part of the beach and tiny waves.
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I’m not a longboarder and I’m not really interested in watching surf contests, but I just happened to be here at the right? wrong? time. While looking for waves, we stopped at Shizunami. The parking lots were really full - it’s not summer and the waves weren’t big at all so that could only mean one thing - a surf contest.
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I knew the waves probably wouldn’t be too good today but it was going to be warm and sunny. So I didn’t want to miss a nice autumn day of surfing (winter will soon be here I’m sure). I was determined to find some place with some waves!
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Now that school is back in session, my free time has been reduced drastically. If I am organized well enough, I can squeeze in a few sessions during the week. On Mondays and Thursdays my first class starts at 10:40 am so it is possible to surf before work. That’s what I decided to do today.
I woke up at 4:45 and managed to get on the road just after 5 am. Here’s what I saw at 5:50 - just 10 minutes after sunrise:
What a great view! I quickly suited up and was in the water at 6 am. I surfed for 2 hours - the first 90 minutes or so were quite productive but the final 30 minutes involved more waiting than surfing. In fact, 3 or 4 surfers also decided to call it an early day.
Today is the first day of a new month. It’s hard to believe that it is already October. Typhoon Number 15 is on the way. The locals were speculating that or tomorrow would be a good day for surfing.
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Here’s what it looked like at Yoshida. But word on the street said that Shizunami was pumping. Surfers are infamous for saying “You should have been here yesterday” or “You should have been at <place 1> instead of <place 2>” so I was skeptical to say the least. However, it is only a few minutes drive from Yoshida to Shizunami and I hadn’t put on my wetsuit yet…
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Here are a couple of blurry pictures I snapped in the rain:
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