Birthdays and Canada

Since my last post I have turned 26 and Charlies turned 25, as well as flying from LA to Toronto via Chicago amid a series of delays due to poor weather in the North of America.

The morning of the 8th Charlie obligingly agreed to get up early, foresaking a pancake breakfast, so we could have a chance of making it to Newport Wedge before thw blackball rules meant I’d have to bodysurf it.

Thankfully the traffic wasn’t that bad and we were getting used to the sat-nav ladys voice, so we made it to where I thought the wedge was at about 09:20, 40 minutes to blackball.

Blackball rules vary apparently but Wedge has the harshest of all - between 10am and 6pm all through the summer you can’t use any floatation device in the wedge area - no bodyboards, skimboards or surfboards allowed at all, and having read up on it I believed this was strictly enforced by the lifeguards.

Unfortunately, we had arrived next to Newport beach pier, ts is not where the wedge is, it’s actually further on down the beach, you park in a residential area, if you can find a space, and walk a few hundred yards to the iconic sea wall.

When I ran down to check it I was dissapointed but not surprised to see a handfull of people in the water surfing a 2 foot shoredump and about 6 skimboarders lined up taking it in turns to skim onto the side-wave.

I decided at that point that I wouldn’t bother with my wetsuit as I only had 20 minutes before Blackball time, I ran down and jumped into the line-up, it was friendly and a good atmosphere, I lucked into a few decent waves and got plenty of closeouts onto the sand and a couple of really nice wedges.

I got out after 50minutes or so, shivering from the cold and happily surprised by the lack of lifeguards and quality of the waves, the set waves which wedged were a fair size and it was just as much fun as I’d always hoped it would be since watching “The Inside” over 10 years ago.

Next we went to Seal Beach for some breakfast, Woodys Diner was the choice and they served up a couple of healthy portions of eggs and potatoes with toast and coffee.

Opposite Woodys we found Alternative Surf, the famous bodyboard only store, where I bought some videos and chatted for quite a while with Ron (the owner and bodyboarding legend), about where we’d been on our trip and his terrible injury from a couple of years ago at wedge, he’d broken his back and was slowly regaining the use of his legs, walking with a stick, but he’d never surf again.

After our chat and shopping trip we drove out to a nearby mall where I got my own RSK baseball cap embroidered and we browsed the stores, before making our way North to LAX to drop the car off.

Car successfully dropped, we got the shuttle to our hotel, the Raddison, and checked in after some confusion with the booking reference, all was fine so we checked out the pool, which was outside and not as hot as we were used to, but still a good size and fun for a bit of a splash around.

A short walk up the road to In-N-Out saved us from the terrifyingly expensive room service menu, and we went to sleep happy after my first day of being 26.

The next few days we explored the touristy bits of LA, Hollywood is a dump, Santa Monica is nice, Venice beach is OK but not great.

On to Toronto, we arrived after a long day of delayed flights and bad airport food to be greated by Charlies Uncle Terry, who drove us to his lovely house in the suburbs where we met his wife Donna.

The next last few days have been a blur, we had an all-day BBQ/birthday party for Charlie on the 13th, went to see a Baseball game, which was amazing even though the local Blue Jays lost miserably, and visited Canadas Wonderland, a huge theme park with some truely amazing rides.

Today we relaxed a bit and saw some of Ontarios many lakes and wildlife, and we are gearing up for a trip to Niagara Falls at the end of the week.

It’s all go at the moment and we’ll not really be resting before jetting off for home on the 26th, then only a couple of days before we come face to face with work and reality again.

Must go now, Charlies just cooked a meal of delicacies from our trip, so we’ll be feasting and remimiscing tonight.

Might update once more before we return, but I’ll definitely put up a bunch of photo’s soon.