Talk about a horribly on-shore, windy, 1'-2' foot "victory at sea" style day... I was at 11th street in Del Mar, California. The Birds were having trouble flying it was so damn windy. I was out with some friends, all of us miserable in the dreary, cloudy, meager surf... wind whipping the little waves into submission. After about an hour into this masochistic session my friends had had enough and went in... I guess they were tired of every little wave closing out into weak heaps of mush.

About 30 minutes after they left, it was like a biblical movie... the skies parted and a ray of sunshine shot down right where the excuse for a peak had been spawning the irritating little closeouts. The wind died and suddenly all was silent... I looked around thinking someone was playing a joke on me but there was no one to confirm or deny my apparently loose grip on reality.

Then as if to confuse me and test my sanity little rippable peeling waves started stacking up outside the little peak. I barely got there in time to catch the last of the set and work it all the way to the inside. It was like waves from another day/week/year/swell had fallen through a black hole in time and hit 11th street by mistake. They were about 3-4' and thicker with a lot more push.

Scratching my head I paddled back out to be greeted by yet another set, this one 4-5' and thick with little barrel sections and peeling all the way to the sand.

OK, i know what you thinking but wait it gets better, butterflies started flying around my head and the peak, I could smell summer in the air (it was, I think, late january at the time) and the sky above me was as blue as anything I'd ever seen, everywhere else... rolling thick dark storm clouds, like the end of the world.

I stayed out for over an hour, as happy and content as I could remember when without warning it all just went away. The sky closed up, the wind started screeching and stinging my eyes and the waves just disappeared into the ocean.

Suddenly cold but completely satisfied I called it a day and went home with a huge smile on my face knowing no one would ever belive me, and not caring.