Surfing in Seaweed Soup

There's an amazing amount of seaweed on and just off the beach at Crystal Pier. It was literally a foot thick in thigh-deep water, which made getting out difficult. Howard the old longboarder and David the sponger were the only ones out on a lovely warm morning. David had bits of seaweed all over his face and bald head, which Howard had neglected to tell him (but I did).

I had a lot of fast drops, some successful before the wave closed out. My most interesting wave had a large mogul in the face; I didn't make it over. There was plenty of energy in the water, and on one unsuccessful duck-dive, a 6-foot set wave drilled me to the bottom as I instinctively grabbed hold of a thick stalk of kelp which failed to save me from rolling against the sand.

Kelp islands on the sand south of the pier