Surfing and Hiking

Original photo by mnapoleon

Thursday the 18th of April, I had the day off because my dad was supposed to be flying in from Tugun, Australia. Dad missed his flight, thinking that it was a PM flight instead of AM. Thankfully, $200 USD later, he was able to get on Friday's flight at the same time.

Since I had the day off and it was SO beautiful, I took the opportunity to go surfing on my Meyerhoffer Lemon Drop.  I had a good time.  I set the board up as a tri-fin thruster; I liked it.  It definitely worked for the day. The waves looked a lot like the ones in the picture. There was a heavy off-shore breeze and the sets came in with nice little A-frame peaks.  It had a lot more hold than the quad set-up I usually run.

Unfortunately, I didn't have my GoPro Hero 3 Black Surf Edition hooked up yet.

As I was surfing, the usual dolphin pod was at play in the waves. There was a picture on SUP The Magazine's facebook page that shows the very dolphins I'm talking about jumping out of a wave around a girl on a SUP.  I showed my girlfriend and made the comment that I see them ALL the time and have never had them THAT close before.

Well, ask and you shall receive: as I sat between sets, I saw the dolphins.  Sure enough, a pair of them swam right at me!  I was a little freaked out because they're pretty big up close and these are wild animals.  I pulled myself up onto my board, but I could have reached out without any effort and touched the both of them as they swam on either side of me!  SO COOL!!

I probably rode a handful of really fun waves that day.

As I was leaving the water, there were more scallop shells than usual on the beach.  There were quite a few big ones, and in really good shape, too.  So, I'm walking along like a little kid picking up all these shells while carrying my surfboard in my other hand.  Then to add to my awesome day, I found a starfish and a sand dollar.  SO COOL AGAIN!!  It was quite the morning.

After getting a fun surf session in: I came home, rinsed off, hung everything out to dry, ate some lunch, and went on a hike with my girlfriend.

We went down to Laguna Canyon Wilderness Park again.  I forgot my Garmin Edge 500 this time, but here's the previous data when we hiked it about a week ago.  We did a different route this time, longer, but less overall elevation gain.  It was BEAUTIFUL.  We saw lots of animals, plants, birds, bees, etc.

Pretty good day.
I slept like a baby to say the least.

Clayton