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The above picture was taken just before 6 am this morning.  I was surprised that I was able to take this picture without any surfers.

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Like I mentioned in a previous post, days that I can see Mt. Fuji before going to beach seem to be good surfing days.  It’s a little blurry but here’s a picture of Mt. Fuji at 4:45 am today:

The big question is - Would the waves be as nice as yesterday’s?

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Recently the winds have been strong, so we decided to meet a little bit earlier than usual.  When I stepped out of the apartment, I glanced to see if I could see Mt. Fuji.  Surprisingly, I could see it.

For some reason, I think it is good luck to be able to see Mt. Fuji before going to the beach…

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Today was my seventh time to surf at Yoshida - not bad considering that I was quite busy with work during the first part of the official beach season.  (FYI, the official season is from the last weekend of June until the last weekend of August).

Typhoon 11 has completely passed by Shizuoka now, so I figured that it would be just a regular day at the surf office today….

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It has been quite some time since a typhoon passed close enough to make some waves in the Shizuoka area.  Here’s what the wave forecast looked like for east Japan this morning:

Even without knowing exactly where we live, you can see that most of eastern Japan was expecting some larger than average waves.

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We decided to go to Tatadohama.  It is in the middle of the Ubon holidays, so we didn’t know what the traffic and the crowds would be like.  We left our house at around 11:30 pm and arrived at around 2:30 am.  As expected, the parking lot was almost full - we got the last parking spot - lucky!  It was a good spot near the edge of the paved parking lot across from the beach.  We tried to get a few hours of sleep…

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On a usual Wednesday, there are 5 or 6 cars parked at the beach when I arrive at around 7 am.  When I arrived at around 6:30 this morning, the narrow farmer’s road leading to Kashima was lined with cars.  Here’s what the lineup looked like. Lots of surfers - there must have been at least 50 people on the beach and in the water.  I was surprised - but if I expected good waves the locals must have known that good waves were in the mix.  I wasn’t disappointed - the waves were a good side. Had a good session - probably my best outing of the season. Looking forward to the next session!

The wave forecast didn’t look too promising, but I decided to head to the beach anyways. It was pretty windy as well. When I arrived at the beach at around 7 am, there were only 4 surfers in the water. Not a promising sign. As they say, a day at the beach beats a day at the office! Caught a few waves, but nothing to write home about - good enough for a blog entry though. Forgot the camera again, but found this picture on the website of one of the local surf shops.

If you look real closely, you can’t see me.

For the record’s sake, here is what it looked like yesterday (when I wasn’t there).

Check out the guy posing like a bird on the tetrapods.

On Saturday, we made our second visit of the year to…

We left at around 3 am, but decided to take the route along the ocean instead of driving through the mountains. It is an extra 20 kilometers but it certainly is an easier drive - especially in the early hours of the morning.

The forecast called for a 30% chance of rain, but it turned out to be mostly cloudy. I actually got a bit of a sunburn on my head and face. I will wear my surf hat next time.

How were the waves? At 6 am, the waves were pretty good, but as the tide went out, the waves went with them. Here’s a picture of me playing in the soup at the end of the session…

Last night I was quite tired and didn’t feel too motivated to make the long drive to the beach.  Although classes don’t start until next week, I was tired after spending all day making handouts for the first week of classes.  The weather report predicted overcast weather and a 30% chance of rain and on top of that, the wave forecast didn’t look so promising.  To make a long story short, here are some pictures:  (I think you will figure out what I did today)

That’s right.  I went to Tatadohama.  Went by local roads - left at around 3:30 am and was in the water just after 6 am.

How was the surf?

If you look closely, you can see a big grin on my face!

Was the water cold?  You betcha! I estimate that about half of the people out there this morning were wearing boots.  I stayed in the water for around 2 hours and that was enough for me - for some reason, I seem to lose a lot of body heat through the top of my head.

Was the beach crowded?  At 6 am, there were 10 or so surfers in the water.  This is what it looked like just before 9 am.  (Just for the record, Kazumi took the two pictures of me, and the picture below was stolen from this website.