It started with a 3:45 a.m. wake up to drive from Orange County to Pt. Dume to start the car shuttle at 6:00 a.m. I arrived at the same time as Dublin Dave O'Connor and John "Caveman" Desbrow, who are also from Orange County. Dave and John carpooled, so for the shuttle, we stacked three fiberglass kayaks on my truck for the drive to CIH.

Arriving just before us at CIH was Bryant Burkhardt of Redondo Beach and Clark, a New Zealander transplanted to LA. They didn't want to do the whole 24 NM, so they car shuttled from Leo Carrillo.

We launched at 7:30 a.m. The weather was nice the entire way. The wind, waves and current were pushing us the direction we were heading the whole time. Once the morning haze burned off, we had beautiful sunshine. Some dolphins even showed up a few times.

Right after Bryant and Clark pulled out at Leo Carrillo, the wind picked up, and we had some breaking waves quartering us from the right rear for the last 2 1/2 hours or so, but the conditions were not difficult.

Despite the summer crowds, we were able to find a spot to land without swimmers at Pt. Dume. The surf was three foot. I was able to ride a wave in a bit, pull back off it before it broke and then follow it in. Dave and John were hit by waves but braced, so there was no surf carnage to report. There were no hassles from the lifeguards either.

The paddle took under seven hours. After shuttling the three kayaks back up to CIH on Dave's truck, Dave, John and I followed the Ventura area kayakers (where were they?) tradition of eating at Daddy O's.

    Duane Strosaker