Late Night Ding Repair and My first Barrel.

11:36 pm and doing Ding Repair
Hoping to get a quick surf before work.
but probably will be wiped out from lack of sleep.
Remembering how I used to go to bars every night when I lived in NYC
and then go to work gives me hope that I can do some late night
ding repair and still wake up surf and make it to work.

I want to paint too, and do some paperwork for a job I'm working on.
But Can't do it all. Probably got my priorities in the wrong order.

I remember doing late night ding repair and waking up at 4am in
Brooklyn to do a Dawn Patrol at Rockaway on a Saturday Morning
and people would be just getting home from the bars and clubs.
Took a Subway with my 9'0" and to a Shuttle Bus from hell.
Two wasted african american guys laughing at me because I had a
skateboard and 9 foot surfboard on a packed bus.
Repeating, "How you gonna skate and surf at the same time?" I was waiting for them
to make a move. I didn't say a word. People were staring.

But heck I was the second one out at Rockaway that day with 8-10 foot faces and I got my first barrel
it was so worth it. It was still dark out. And there were bunches of people on the board walk checking out the waves.
I paddled out after looking at it for 1 minute. I had surfed there for the past two years and hardly missed a swell. It took me like one minute to paddle to the jetty point with the low tide.  I dropped in on the first  overhead wave. I was a stoked rookie. I looked up and saw the lip about to come down on me so I bottom turned back up to get closer to the top and the lip went right over my head and I was in a dark brown tube. The wave got silent and made a sound similar to a stomach growl and I came sliding out so stoked and pulled out.

The next set of waves I ate shit.
In fact I ate shit for the rest of my session until I was done.
and then went back to Brooklyn to get ready for a skate contest.
It was still worth it. I was still stoked even though I got my ass handed to me.

On the way home, some dude on the subway asked me for my number and
gave me his card. He said he was writing a book on people and there relationship to the water,
titled, New York Waters: Profiles from the Edge. It came out like 3 years later. I am the surfer in it.
I kept telling him that he should write about my friends, I called people but no one responded.
And he insisted he write about me so it ended up happening- a melodramatic after taste upon reading it.
Got a good full page spread photo and a few pages of words.  Maybe I'll post it sometime.

Good times.
I know some people have a problem with nostalgia.
But whatever.
I better get back to my ding repair.
I'm sure the resin is past ready.
-Manny

Qcell resin was just right.
Sanded, then patched with cloth
12:53 am.
Time for bed.
Keep you posted.
Aloha