Session 18 - OB dolphin patrol

This morning I rolled over in bed and checked the surfline report on my ipod touch. 3-5 poor-fair. Nice. Snoozed a few times, and finally got out of bed and wrestled my way into my still-damp wetsuit. Ran down to Kirkham, and it looked decent, if a bit soft, definitely more organized and an easier paddle than yesterday. There was a team of high school kids running and training on the beach, and a seal playing around in the water, but other than that nobody else out. Getting out took a bit of duck diving and strategizing, as the sets were actually a little overhead and the waves were pretty relentless. All in all it only took me 5 minutes to make the paddle, much easier than yesterday. Since I had to get to work for a meeting, I didn;t have much time to surf, so I made a point of paddling for anything rideable that came my way. Unfortunately most of the larger waves were closing out. I pulled into a few, kicked out before the closeout, and on a few occasions just pulled into the barrel and punched my way through the back of the wave.

I saw 3 dolphins playing in the surf, diving into waves and gliding down the faces. It's hard not to just sit and watch them, but I made a point of still riding waves, despite the dolphins playing in the vicinity. A nice shoulder high right hander lined up, and I took off. I was pumping down the face of the wave when out on the shoulder a dolphin was doing his/her thing. I rode a wave with a dolphin! We're like a tandem team. Awesome. After that the dolphins seemed to continue south down the beach with the current. I caught a few more closeouts, and my last wave was a decent walled up one where I actually made it past one of the sections before it closed on me. Rode it to the beach and still made it to work by 9:25.