Month: February 2022

Early mornings aren’t my favorite time of day, but if it means I’ll have a long fun filled day, you may find me setting my alarm before 8 am. This wasn’t the case for this morning though. Since I was up at Sombrio yesterday, I had to wake up at 6 am the morning prior to today, which meant I wasn’t going to set my alarm once again (especially on a weekend) before 8, even if that meant missing out on better conditions for surfing at Jordan River. 

It was a struggle to even get out of bed at 8:15, but I managed. Jordan picked me up at 9:15, and after picking Katie up, we were off to our third consecutive Sunday surf session. It started to rain on the way up, but that didn’t stop us from wanting to surf. Once we showed up, we noticed the tide was extremely high, with large logs floating about, stealing our waves. We saw a few people surfing in spots we had never surfed at before. We discussed whether or not to get changed into our wetsuits, but after seeing a couple of people catch some great waves we thought we would give it a go. 

As soon as we got into the water we all looked at each other since we had never surfed in such deep water before. We had to paddle out, for real this time since we didn’t have the option to walk with our boards. We felt like ‘real surfers’ which was a total blast until a wave actually approached me. I screamed, saying they were big and scary. I had no idea what to do with myself as usually I would push off with my feet and hop over waves, but with no ground to be felt, I felt trapped and nervous. I thought I’d give a few waves a go, but didn’t catch one. As we were paddling around, I noticed something catch my eye about 25 feet away. It was a seal saying hello! I waved, it didn’t wave back. It then stared at us for a good 20 seconds before it dipped back under the surface, where I feared it would swim under me, or as Jordan said “nibble [my] toes”. New fear unlocked! As more sets came rolling in, my fear of getting smashed by one grew. “We’re out of our league right now!”, I yelled. Katie and Jordan agreed, but we were all ambitious to catch a wave. This ambition quickly diminished after seeing skilled surfers catch the waves coming our way. 

1. We didn’t want to be in the surfers way 
2. We were pretty sure we weren’t going to catch any waves
3. They were larger waves than we were used to, backed up by a strong current and high tide

After contemplating, we decided it was best to abort and have a little swim in the ocean, body surfing the waves instead. Once we got out and changed back into our clothes, the logs had moved from our usual surfing location, but it was too late. 

There is always the chance of the waves not turning out the way they are ‘supposed to’, and that’s a risk we have to take every time we drive an hour and a half to get up there. Unfortunately, the conditions weren’t perfect for us, but we knew there was a chance of this when we left in the morning. Although none of us caught anything, we came a step closer to becoming ‘real surfers’ by taking that risk, and trying. 

Overall Confidence : 2/10

Conditions: 6 foot swell

Busy: No

Best Wave of Session: n/a

Length of Best Wave: n/a

Session Duration: 45 minutes

Another Sunday dedicated to surfing. At 10:15 am, I headed out towards town with the SUV loaded with my gear to pick up Katie. Once again it was a foggy morning, and the forecast showed a promising mid-day surf session. We got onto the highway and headed toward Sooke at 11:00 am, making one wrong turn. Good music was playing, I had a bag loaded with snacks, a car filled with good vibes (and expensive gear), the sun was shining and therefore I was feeling good. After about 40 minutes of driving, we came to a halt. Over the course of the next 40 minutes, we would move inch by inch, being inconvenienced by road work up ahead. After over two hours, we reached Jordan River! The sun went behind some clouds, and the beach was infested with families camping. 

The waves were looking a little small, but we got out there anyway. Neither of us had much luck within the first little while, and we weren’t entirely sure where to position ourselves in the ocean as the waves were choppy and irregular. A wave would come and knock me off my board from time to time, shrinking my confidence. After not being able to catch a wave for a while I was feeling a bit defeated and my confidence in the water was standing at 4/10. After about an hour, and catching a few small waves later, we moved closer to the river mouth. From there, the waves started to get bigger, crashing down on our heads and pushing us forward. We were determined to catch one good wave before leaving though, so there was no backing out yet. When a big set would come in we would look at each other screaming “look at THIS one!”.

 We knew we had to go back to shore soon, as the more advanced surfers made their way towards us, catching those big waves. Katie caught a good one and headed back into shore, keeping her promise to go in after a decent wave. I struggled to continue surfing as I was now alone in the water. A small non-crasher approached and I knew I had to get it so I too could get out and return to warmth. I paddled hard, then caught it and stood up long enough to feel ok with my decision to go into shore. It may have not been the best session ever, but we caught the sunset on the way home and felt accomplished knowing we had gone out on our own, and had spent the day in the water. 

Overall Confidence : 5/10

Conditions: 6 foot swell

Busy: Yes

Best Wave of Session: Very small non-crasher

Length of Best Wave: approx. 5 seconds

Session Duration: 1 hour and 30 minutes