My 22nd season of skimboarding began and ended in 7 days.  True, I have been on my skimboard many times in 2009, but those were not skimboarding sessions.  This may seem unfathomable as one of the main reasons I moved back to Florida was to once again skimboard on my beloved Sunset Beach, the place I love most in the world.  This is testament to the challenges returning to the U.S. after a 9-year sojourn have inflicted upon me.

It does pain me to think I had only two skimboarding sessions all of 2009.  Yet I sit at my desk now in fulfillment, for this late afternoon I had a skimboarding session like I have not had this decade.  Last Wednesday’s first official skimboarding session was marred with way too many people on what is normally a deserted Sunset Beach, as well as a number of other factors.

However, this Wednesday was glorious:  deserted beach, sunshine, and waves!  I can count the number of times on one hand that I have seen waves the size at Sunset Beach today–a steady flow of 3 to 4 footers.  This may sound small, but for the west coast of Florida, they are huge.

I could already sense driving to the beach that I would have a powerful skimming session, and indeed I did.  I knew ahead of time I would skim today like my life depended on it.  And I did.

I strode across the length of Sunset Beach toward my rightful strip of it.  I could feel the power of the large waves rolling in, and I quickly went through my stretches and grabbed my faithful Sander skimboard.  It was not hot today, and the Gulf of Mexico is cooling, yet I donned no wetsuit, wearing only my faithful Tavaru surf shorts.  I was never cold, for the warmth of excitement came over me right away.

So dominant were my skimboarding skills in the 90s, and so well did I know Sunset Beach, that I never wiped out for years.  Yet, sometimes I would get a scrape from some hard sand contact.  I would feel proud though and think to myself, “if you aren’t bleeding, then you aren’t skimboarding hard enough.”

As I mentioned earlier, I set out today to skimboard as if my life depended on it.  Soon tearing down with the wind to the right, I had an unbalanced mount onto my board and dragged my right knee into the shells that lie just beneath the water’s edge.  Blood began streaming out.  I paused not.  Down to my ankle went the blood.  I felt proud.  I knew that I had already been skimming hard enough.

The photo of my knee was taken only at the end of my skimboarding session, some hour later, still bleeding out.

Two rides after I suffered my proud cut, I had my best ride of this decade.  I immediately called it in my mind, “The Golden Flair.”  The ride went thusly:  from high up on the shore bank, I leapt down toward a large wave coming in, a perfect mount onto wet sand started me at great speed, and then the crest of the wave loomed before me, the sun descending toward the horizon, and I pushed into a huge front-side flair sending a cascade of sea water over the setting sun glinting the water gold-sparkling to my eyes.  As my board turned back toward shore and I dismounted, I let out a “whoooo!”  I knew I just had had the best ride in a long, long time and that I had FINALLY officially returned to Florida.

No matter what disasters have come to pass in the past 9 months, I successfully returned to Florida because of that ride.  I came full circle and literally thought to myself, “I have now done enough in this lifetime.”  They certainly tried, but they could not stop me on this occasion from once again returning to my beloved Treasure Island and proving that the Sea and I are still capable of being in Harmony.

I had more good rides, but I knew I would have none better than the “Golden Flair.”  I did not need to.  I was at the spot I want my ashes spread when I finally pass from this lifetime.  I was at the spot that was my home for Saturday nights in the 90s.  I was with many sandpiper friends.  Some of them sat next to my stuff on the shore, others paced me along the outermost lip of the tide.

Then, as is my custom on my final ride, I ran as hard as I could, another fast front-side flair, and after dismounting I paused, looking thrice to the jetties, the waves, then the horizon.  I walked toward the shore, dipping my hand in the Sea for my final taste of it this year.

And that is how I concluded my skimboarding season for 2009.

******************

• all photos with an iPhone 3G
• music listened to:  Elliot Smith’s “Speed Trials,” “Punch And Judy,” “Angeles”

What you see in the above photo is a mysterious rock out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  It is the symbol of Chigasaki.  I have no idea how it was formed or what it really is.  Despite skimboarding this place for the past six summers, I never investigated its meaning.  And I do not want to know.  I always imagined it as a great shark’s dorsal fin.  The rock is very mysterious, for as you walk further from it, the stone actually appears closer to you.  Such is the scene of my first ever skimboarding in Japan back in June of 2003, and my final session in October 2008.

I am leaving Japan early next year, after what will be nearly 6 years of living here.  Being a very nostalgic person, I will have many emotional farewells to my favorite places in Japan (even though Tokyo has driven me crazy in the end).  None though I feel will be as emotional as the good-bye I had to make to Chigasaki Beach.  

Skimboarding at Chigasaki was the first tradition I established upon moving to Japan.  Like other beaches I’ve skimmed regularly, I discovered Chigasaki, thus my great affection for it, despite the beach in reality being little more than a large ash tray with diminishing waves the past few years.  Yet there is nothing in Japan I love more than Chigasaki.  It was my consistent escape from May to the end of October ever year I lived here.  It was my own.  I took very few people there, for few were worthy.  On Saturday evenings when there was no one, there was Chigasaki.  

I took the exact same stuff to Chigasaki each and every time.  In the above photo you’ll see my trusty backpack (from Korea) with my skimboard’s protective sock lumped in front of it.  To the right are my also trusty water and Aquarius bottles.  All of this sits on my very trusty tatami straw mat.  And of course on the far right lie my skimboard and surf shorts.  Each item is as beloved to me as any person.  

My favorite food to eat after skimboarding was kim (Korean dried seaweed) and genmae (Japanese organic brown rice).  After a usual 90-minute skimboarding session I would lean back on my backpack and stare out at that mysterious rock off Chigasaki’s shores, eating my seaweed and rice.  Then a Meiji Black chocolate bar.  

There are so many customs involved with going to Chigasaki, from taking note of every one of my favorite houses along the street to the beach, to watching people play tennis, to wondering why the owner of a small, but nice RV never took it out.  I even listened to almost exactly the same music from my apartment to Shinjuku Station to the beach every time, with little variation, as has long been my skimboarding custom even back in Florida.

How was my 8th and final skimboarding session of 2008 and my last ever session in Japan?  Modest and appropriate and what one would expect of a late October session on a gray but not depressing Saturday afternoon.  

I say farewell to thee, Chigasaki.

FINAL JAPAN SKIMBOARDING SESSION PHOTO GALLERY:

FINAL JAPAN SKIMBOARDING SESSION HD VIDEO:

It  had been quite some time since Aya and I went to a Shonan beach for a proper skimboarding session, and I can’t really that this session at Hiratsuka was that proper.  It barely ranked enough to get session #07 designation.  There were absolutely no waves at first, and virtually no skimmable surface at all.  Still, a group of 5 young j-skimmers were grinding it out the whole time, but it mostly looked like they just enjoyed falling.  Things got a bit better at the last minute.

Once Aya got a few rides in, she went for a shallow swim.  Her standing in the water gave me a kind of “target.”  Trying to skim out to her (and possibly spray her with a well placed wave carve, not as hidoi as it sounds) gave me inspiration to have some decent rides!  Also, seeing her laugh and smile at my failed attempts raised my own spirits.  

In the end I was able to go out on a very good final ride.  It was a huge front-side flair that felt great.  A big, smooth ride like that is always good to end on if one can.  And considering the utter lack of waves for most of the day, I was very content to go out like that.  Before that ride, I had a few nice “over the moon” rides as I call them, that entail skimming in an arc toward the beach, away from the ocean, over wet sand only.  One of those rides surprised Aya and me as well for its length and smooth and speed upon finally entering the ocean.  

SKIMBOARDING SESSION #07 PHOTO GALLERY

I wanted to return to skimboarding at Chigasaki beach this past Saturday for various reasons.  It is the beach I have skimboarded on the most in Japan, by far, and is actually the 3rd most skimmed beach of any in my 21 years of skimboarding.  The other reason was Aya.  I wanted to propose to her, and I wanted to do it at the most familiar, most special place to me in the Tokyo area.  Even though Chigasaki beach is little more than an ash tray next to the ocean, it is still special to me and it is still capable of producing some magic, and it did not fail me this Saturday evening.

Eventually a few waves did roll in, and I was able have some “make something from nothing” rides.  The beach was mostly empty and the rain mostly stayed away.  It was peaceful and calm that evening and I and I enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere, a nice change of the business of Hiratsuka beach.  And now we will both have very lasting memories of Chigaski.

VIDEO: