Sailing, surfing, fishing

Pat invited me to join him on the Koni Loa's first voyage of 2009 and I jumped on it. This is the boat I sailed across the Gulf of Alaska on and have become fond of. The chance to go surfing for the first time ever, and try out my new made-for-surfing-in-cold-water drysuit, and be out of town for 3 days was all I needed. The only problem was the concept of being on a boat for 3 days while I'm halfway fit and still trying to keep in shape for near-future mountain trips....oh well, no worries.....

I didn't take many photos - I was pretty burned out from lack of sleep for one reason or the other and the slower pace than normal for me put me in a bit of a sleepy trance. After troubleshooting and solving a problem with the water system (my experience starting up water treatment plants came in very handy!), we motored (no wind whatsoever) to Bear Glacier, scouted around, and found the surf break we've been talking about all winter. What a beauty! There were 3 other guys there. We anchored and Pat flew into his wetsuit stoked to get some rides in. I took my time dealing with the new drysuit and was soon off on my first surfing mission, stoked and nervous! Short story: the waves were in the 8-10' face range, way too big for me, so Pat staked me on the outside and I played around, getting used to the dynamics of the waves, and Boom! I came in too far and got caught inside one of the biggest sets, watching a dark wall of water looming overhead and then start to break. Pat yelled "look out Dan" and I instinctively dove into the wave and came out pretty OK, but then the second one came and I dove again but got bonked on the head by the board and barely made it through. The waves intimidated me thoroughly so I stayed well outside for the rest of the 45 minutes. Pat caught a couple waves but the tide was coming up and the waves were no longer ride-able so we paddled back to the boat and called it a day.

But the day refused to quit. We motored over to a favorite fishing hole of ours, dropped line, and Pat came up with a ling cod and a sea bass within 10 minutes! We then motored into Bulldog Cove, dropped anchor, cooked a FINE fresh fish dinner, and went to bad very happy and quite pleased with ourselves :-)

The next day dawned just as bluebird as the others. Lounging around after breakfast:







Pat felt a bit sick, I was still a bit intimidated by yesterday's waves, so be decided not to return to Bear Glacier but check out a break near Fox Island. On the way out, I took a picture of a little skiing project for next season:



What a fine weekend, and a very unseasonably warm start to summer, in stark contrast to last year's rainy summer!