HMB @ Jetty, 28 March 2009

I met up at the Jetty with L and some of his Coastside Surfers Meetup crew. There were a lot of other familiar faces in the dirt parking lot and on the water, since it seemed that was the place to be on the Peninsula coast this morning, although conditions weren't the greatest and the water was c-c-cold.

With the crowd and a southward drift, I lost the rest of the group within half an hour. I had some success catching the waist-chest high waves on the fish, but kept stalling the board on the lip and slipping off backsides. The waves were slow moving, and I think perhaps I needed to push my weight farther forward right away. Next time.

Halfway through the session, I had an unfortunate encounter with a blind surfer. At least, I assume he was blind because when I was paddling back out, and he was far enough away to avoid me, he took off on a wave and aimed right at me with a slight turn. I could swear we made eye contact and I paddled like hell toward the whitewater to get out of his way, but he didn't bother to change course and ran his fin across my leg. Dude then tried to blame me for the collision! Hello?! I'm grateful for the protection of 4mm of neoprene, since the damage was limited to a couple big bruises, which I'm icing as I write this, and some surface cuts in my wetsuit. Nemo also took a superficial scratch. My leg's pretty sore and is going to look a little scary when I do Swim 4 Life next week, but it could've been worse.

I didn't know the GoPro Hero camera was capable of special effects.