Around The World In 80 Waves

I chose a quiet residential area to sleep in the car, but am woken by the morning commuters. As I sit up in the car I am greeted by this sight. Not a bad way to start the day.

I drive straight to Rincon Point which is just off the highway and is one of the legendary right hand point breaks I just have to surf on this trip.

The first thing I notice there is that I am the youngest in the water by about 15 years, which was swiftly followed by the realisation that I am undergunned. My 7’10” is a great board but all the wily old dudes are paddling past me with ease on 9’6″ or bigger longboards and keep nicking the epics rights I line up. I still catch loads even if I am missing out on the quality rights that the sea offers up every 20 minutes when a set rolls through.

As a consequence there is an awful lot of waiting around and during one of these lulls I get my latest shock from the animal kingdom when a school of bottlenose dolphins suddenly breaks the surface all around me. I could have touched them they were that close, but can admit to being a little bit disturbed by the experience initially because there was a fatal great white attack in Santa Barbara County where I am surfing just before Christmas and I dont really want to see any big fins around me in the water.

However I get much more comfortable as they hang around me for a while, coming up to the surface to have a good look at me, make a big gesture of snorting out of their blowholes, and one even starts splashing me with its tail which was an amazing experience. I didnt take my camera out today and regret it massively.

Now very aware of the marine life as I sit out back I turn around about an hour later after hearing a strange sound to see a…  Golden Retreiver!!!! I later found out this dog is called Lulu and she belongs to the bloke next to me in the water. She has paddled about 100m out to sea to ‘save’ her owner and clambers up on his board to give him a hug and a lick once she has made it through the shoulder high surf with several waves landing on her on the way out. He tells me she does it a few times each session to make sure he is ok, which is very cute but the poor guy has to keep paddling in to the shore to escort her back missing out on limited ocean time.

Credit to Lulu, I think her duck dive may actually be better than mine. Barking mad in every sense of the word!