Dawn Patrol 4: A farce with a surprise meeting

Again, I hit Head of the Meadow before 8 AM. The waves were probably the worst I've ever seen; worst as in teeny, weeny ripples. But, if one cone equipped with an 11 foot paddleboard, even these minuscule heights are achievable. The trick was to get closer to shore than I prefer and pick up the puddle piddles right before they break. I was getting twenty, maybe thirty-foot rides. Pretty impressive, right? Yeah! Then I'd have to jump off the board to avoid digging in my fin.

Surprisingly I wasn't alone. I surfed for a while with a father who was teaching his son the basics of probe surfing. We chatted and joked about the tiny waves. The father said it was a real test of skill to get any sort of ride, and I laughed.

Afterwards I surfed with a man -- ooh, I forgot his name... Conner? He was a sixth grade English and social studies teacher and a pretty neat guy. He was teaching his nephew on an old 10' Bic longboard. We chatted and talked shop for a while as his red-haired nephew attempted to get done sort of ride, exchanging book titles we liked to teach. Sometimes we'd get four or five okay waves in a row, okay for the lousy conditions this morning, then there would be a whole lot of nothing.

We threw in the towel at about 9AM and paddled for the parking lot, the nephew following along on the sandbar. We said our goodbyes and I schlepped my board up the beach.

There were still schools of fish in the water and occasionally the water looked like it was boiling from all the jumping fish. I paddled over there once, ignoring the fact that the fish were jumping to escape predators. Had to be seals, right? I saw some blues too.