December 24th, 2009 by admin
After some how surviving the night with 15 pounds of Christmas Dinner turkey in my belly, Steve and I left Nanaimo around 8:00 heading South towards Lil China.
We got to our destination and were greeted by the parking attendant who told us it was pretty flat down on the beach. We got a little nervous because up until that point we still hadn’t seen a single person in the water. It had been a long time since either of us had been in the water so we didn’t even take the recon mission to see if there were wave we just geared up and began our hike. There were a noticeable amount of big trees that had fallen since my last visit there must have been some pretty big wind storms in the area already this year.
We were pleasantly surprised by the sound of nice sized waves crashing as we approached the beach. We turned the last corner and within seconds saw some pretty descent waves coming in. They weren’t quite 13 feet as the forecast projected but the only thing that really matters is that they were rideable!
We went in just before Rock Piles and stayed there for the majority of the day. The day was absolutely perfect. It was around plus 8 or 9, the sky was blue and the sun beat down on us the entire day allowing us to go hoodless near the end of December. There wasn’t one other surfer out there the entire day. Our spectators consisted of a couple of eagles who stared at us from the top of a tree right off the point and a few different families of seals who got a little to close for Steve’s comfort at one time as he had to shout at it to get out of the way as he was riding out a wave.
January 3rd, 2009 by admin
The craziness of the holiday season is over and I finally got a window of opportunity to get some surfing in. I set out for Jordan River around 8:00. On the drive there big flakes of snow were coming down pretty heavy. I got to Jordan River a little after 9:00 and the waves looked pretty decent, although any waves would look good at this point considering a haven’t been able to get out for a few weeks. The waves were about 3-4 footers and were coming in from the Northwest. There was very little wind. I decided to get right at it, so I suited up and hit the water. Due to the waves not being terrific I had the whole bay to myself.
While I was paddling out the sky opened up and huge flakes of snow began to fall again. There were dark gray clouds directly overhead but the sun was poking through some blue sky and was reflecting off the snow capped mountains on the horizon. I paddled right past a family of 6 seals wrestling and playing around. On the opposite side of me there was a big curious sea lion who had decided to come right up and investigate to see what I was all about. He hung around and watched me surf for a couple of hours. A few times he infiltrated my comfort zone and got within 10 to 15 feet away from me so I’d hold my board straight up in the air and let out a few loud grunts. I don’t know if this was establishing my dominance or if he just thought I was a crazy lunatic either way he never got too much closer to that.
I surfed until about 1:30 the waves pretty much flattened right out by then so I decided to hit the road. I got quite a few good rides in, the waves weren’t huge but as always they were fun.
The time spent out in the water surrounded by nature was absolutely surreal, one of the most memorable trips to date.
