An hour or so after this was taken, a surfer in the water asked if I have an easy-to-remember e-mail address. “I got a couple of photos,” he said. “Oh, was I looking all fat and old?” He didn’t, evidently, want to be rude (or truthful). I used his lack of a quick response to ask, “was I getting tubed? I’m always in the right spot.” Before I could add, “Or I try to be,” he said, “Oh, yeah, tubed for sure.”

I had met up with Keith, who had surfed these lefts twice the day before, and, when the tide was right, he also surfed the rights. Backside, for once. “It felt kind of awkward,” he said. Having heard that, the day before, the various spots on the Strait were crowded with people who believed the computer forecasts, and having received reports from several other friends who sampled some of the ‘not quite epic’ conditions at, again, various spots, I expected a crowd even before sunrise, when I arrived. The crowd came later.

I do want to thank Will for the photo, and asked him to introduce himself more formally the next time we’re at the same beach. On the beach, preferably, as I’m usually pretty focused in the water; mostly focusing on being in the right spot. I’m going to try to use this photo for the header for realsurfers. We’ll see.

This is a shot Keith sent me from a not-secret-enough spot, taken the night before he and I dawn-patrolled it. Keith had convinced his father, La Jolla High graduate, who claims to have never lived too far inland, to camp out in the wilds of the Olympic Peninsula.

I’m guessing the photo is of Keith, mid-swoop; and, as always, I must add the disclaimers that: The place rarely breaks; it’s never over two feet when it does; the swells that do get her never stick around for long; the currents allegedly carry the nastiest effluent (this is not wealth) from Victoria across the Strait; the… I forgot the rest of the negatives, and anyway, I may take this photo off in a day or two, put it in the file with the blurry photo a friend swears is a Sasquatch, though I’ve a hard time believing Bigfoot wears Carhartt.