Somebody please remind me NOT to surf 1st Beach anymore this summer

[stoneaxe]

I smell like friggin red tide soup. I should have head south from work instead of hitting Newport on the ride home....to hell with convenience. Actually anyplace but Newport would be OK. There are a couple of as convenient spots that don't get it.

I figured I'd paddle out offshore to avoid the nastiness that I know is in the cove. I did that but it wasn't really big enough for that spot and the waves were so shifty and weird that 15 minutes out there resulted in one short ride. So I paddled back in and surfed the soup....yuck. And not only does it stink but you get that shit in your shorts with little scurrying creatures in it and it makes things interesting....I think people on the beach probably thought I was masturbating in the waves a couple times. Some bizarrely pre-historic looking little arthopods mixed in with that stuff.

To top it off I saw two man o' war go sailing by when I was outside. I love looking at them...amazing colony creatures but I've been stung before....not fun.

Gotta go wash everything to get the smell off.

[SUPcheat]

Guess a few great whites floating around Santa Cruz ain't so bad, after all.

[spookini]

One arthropod to the other arthropod:

"Remind me not to swim at 1st anymore ...anywhere but 1st.  I'm out there today, minding my business..  Some big guy on a SUP paddles out and I get sucked in between his butt cheeks... yuck.  Had to swim home and wash it all off."

[PDLSFR]

Awe come on at least the soup makes the water warmer

[supthecreek]

Surfing for convenience.... hummmmm, well that should put up a flag right there.

I haven't surfed 1st beach, since I had to, in an ESA contest there in the early 70's.
Where you normally have no tan under your baggies, would be a red rash. That itched. And smelled.
It was in my hair, wetsuit, all over my board. Yuck. And the wave was crap. No contest there? No surf there.
Plus the stupid crabs would bite my feet.
Convenient? Not. 
Does that help?

Call me.... I'll give you options that are sort of on the way home... in an indirect fashion, but not further away.
and take PDLSFR with you.... he has earned an upgrade from 1st

[stoneaxe]

One arthropod to the other arthropod:

"Remind me not to swim at 1st anymore ...anywhere but 1st.  I'm out there today, minding my business..  Some big guy on a SUP paddles out and I get sucked in between his butt cheeks... yuck.  Had to swim home and wash it all off."

That's the spook we know and love....

The water was warm and I didn't see any sharks but there was a massive school of something just outside that had some good sized fins breaking the surface. They looked too big to be stripers and I was wishing I had a rod.  Might have had some Poki for supper.

I know Rick, I know....although convenience is sometimes a requirement for those of us that aren't retired.... . I will say I've caught some amazing surf there at times. Outside its a whole different animal. The day free and I were out there reminded me of DH. The thing that kept me from heading south really was not having any reef shoes. My feet are still healing from the last time down there. I thought the wave outside would be good but there just wasn't enough guts to these for it to work. I know of some of the spots that are sort of on the way home but would appreciate the share. As you get deeper into the south coast though the islands start shadowing SE swell. I figured any further east would kill it.