First, thanks to all those who have been supportive of realsurfers.net in its inaugural year. Thanks to those who have written back (like Corky Carroll, just to drop one name- and I plan on bugging him for any photo of James Arness at San Onofre for a future story), and those who have found my site, and, kindly, connected their network of friends. And thanks to anyone who, maybe surfing around the internet, came upon real surfers.

That some of my stories featuring wonderful characters (real people, actually) have touched others who knew these surfers better than I did in my brief encounters with them touches me.

I realize the whole site appears dis-organized. Maybe my memory is like several competing big ass storms at sea, a little too close. Each story leads to another, others, and there are sets of stories. I get interrupted by some rogue thing, some new adventure I just have to write about.

It has been a great joy for me to work on this; and I’m still in the drop-in, line-up phase, not free-falling, but hoping to catch an edge.

Thanks for dropping in.

What I’ve picked up on is just how many wonderful people I’ve had the pleasure to share a few sessions with in my lifetime obsession with this splendid distraction. While I continue to find new adventures, meet new real surfers, I also miss so many of my early surf compatriots. We were lucky to surf and to come of age in a time that now seems magical.

Oh, it all seems magical to me; and the magic continues; out there, lines on the horizon, a first wave showing on the indicator, lining-up, raising, steepening. Swallow the lump in your throat, turn, partway, set, paddle like you mean it.

My we all have even more magic for the next years.