Session 5078: Monday PM, Local

On Mondays, I am volunteering to take water quality monitoring samples to the San Mateo County's environmental health as a Surfrider volunteer. So I sometimes cannot fit in surfing on Mondays in the morning, but this day started out with two unusual things. When I arrived at Montara, there was a policeman like person writing a ticket for a family of fishing people, most likely they did not have a fishing license. It turns out that the policeman was from the Department of Fish and Games. But I have never seen this being enforced in all the 3 years of surfing. Got the samples and moving onto the next spot which is the Gray Whale Cove. As I was descending down the stairs, I have seen something I have not seen. Something like the color of a dolphin jumped straight out of the water, and it was huge and right in the cove. In just a few moments, I understood that it was the magnificent scene of a Gray Whale jumping like what I've seen in some animal TV program. We lived on the cost for more than a dozen years, but this is also another one of the first I have ever experienced.

Surfing requires a lot of dedication to become familiar with the water surrounding myself, and through this, I have really learned a lot more about how the ocean behaves, and surfed with harbor seals, elephant seals, otters and dolphins. Come to think of it, say if it was skiing or mountain hiking, if you encounter these large mammals weighing the size of a small car, you'd either run or you'd be eaten or injured. But in the ocean most mammalian amimals are more so much friendlier. Seals and dolphins typically come close by and check surfers out, and dolphins can also surf with you. Otters in Santa Cruz are just out there minding their own business in the line up and when surfers come by, they just skillfully duck.

So, with all the stokes, I decided to head down for a per-dinner session near my house, and I had more fast and steep take off practices. There were bunch of local high-school level surfers out and these guys were good, taking off on the stuff that I still could not most of the time, but I am making a very gradual progress.

Stoke 7.