Surprising dawn session at the harbor

Pulled up to the harbor at 6:30am expecting to see some stormy conditions after yesterday's rain. Instead I paddled out into clean, up-to head-high fairly hollow waves with only a few people out. Stoked!

Here's the post-sesh pic. I surfed North side, but South side had a great right peeling off the jetty.

Plenty of hollow rights coming through closer to the North jetty.

The left coming off the South jetty was pretty consistent and didn't get crowded until about 10am.

Spent most of my session right here. No reason to go anywhere else.

Another South jetty left. Fairly soft take-off that walled up a bit for some speed sections.

Joey caught his share on the blue Brownfish.

Snapped this one as I was paddling back out.

Every session I snap at least one gem of a shot that comes out fuzzy. This wave was too good not to post.

Who knew swell forecasting was so difficult? This "huge" swell that was hyped by nearly all of the usual surf forecasting websites never amounted to much more than chest-high 'funnables.'

This was one of the rare occasions when there was less than 10 people on a wave. Don't believe me? Look below...

Taking this photo almost got me killed. I can dodge 1 or 2, but when you're working with a half a dozen or so it gets a little sketchy.

Fuzzy glide.

$125 for a kids wetsuit and worth every penny.

Catch me, daddy!

The swell that all the forecast sites were hyping so much earlier in the week was late in arriving and way smaller than projected. Still some fun ones at the reef. Tomorrow should be bigger.

This dude caught quite a few. This is about as big as it got during the dawn-patrol sesh.

This guy wasn't very good, but he sure caught his share.

Clogged lineups up and down the coast. Typical Southern California morning.

Tide was super low causing a tide pool to form on the inside.

My son couldn't believe I took a camera in the water. Crazy dad!

Swell should hopefully show up in full force tomorrow morning. More goodies to come...

First attempt with the water camera

I picked up an Olympus Stylus 1050 sw for Xmas and finally got it in the water January 7th. I traded off with a buddy and we took turns trying to figure out how to use the damn thing. We didn't grab any wall-hangers, but I'm pretty pleased with our first attempt. There will be many more to come...

Small knee-high mush was all we could find this day.

J finds his way into a tiny left.

Pretty empty this day. Were were basically the only ones willing to freeze for small mush.

J calls it a day. Taking the easy way back to the lot.

Here's a shot J got of me just after the sun set.

The view from the water is much, much better.

5'5 Rusty Modfish is my go-to board for days like this.