Opening Day Jitters

It’s 3:45 am on a Sunday morning. Every surf/swell/forecasting/weather website from Anchorage to Albany is calling for the first West Coast swell of the winter to arrive today. I know because I’m scouring each and every one of them for some morsel of insight that will lead me to the best spot. Of course they all offer me the same information; they just present it in different colored packages. I browse like an insane man hoping that one website will actually tell me that the sun rises earlier than the rest. Absurd questions run through my caffeine coarsed brain.

“Should I go to Del Mar because the tide is high or …?”

”Is it too late to head for Mexico?”

“Which of my boards works best in high tide surf?”

“Should I wear my polypropylene rash guard…booties?

The idiodacy is rampant at this point; I’ve got the opening day jitters, and it’s too dark to even know if it is truly “Opening Day” today. I re-check the NOAA buoys. Nothing’s changed, but for some reason I’m more excited than ten minutes ago–when I last checked the NOAA buoys. I check the sunrise time again– still rising at 6: 14am. Oh well.

I am now completely maniacal: information overload, coffee overload, bright monitor overload. There is some solace in my knowledge that I am not alone. I know there at thousands of California surfers replicating the same stupid drill that I’m performing. My anxiety is so thick you’d think I was in the delivery room with a build up of sweat between my palm and my camcorder.

I should probably start stretching…and I would except I’ve got to check the tides again.

What was your ‘Opening Day’ like? Tell us by clicking here.