Late last night, he made plans to see some friends today and also wanted to see a movie with my wife that they both knew would not interest me. Since it was already late, I knew I would not be able to get up early to paddle with my normal group even though they were planning on doing one of my favorite trips.

I sent an email to Len Goodman to see if he could paddle later today. We made plans and met at Channel Islands Harbor at 11:30 and were on the water by noon.

Conditions were good for a paddle. According to some kayakers who were just coming in, the winds had just started and were only about 10 knots. Len and I launched at a very leisurely pace (we both like to talk, you know), and we headed east into the wind. We paddled over to the Hueneme Buoy and noticed that the population of sea lions is definitely increasing on that buoy. There must have been 25 juveniles waiting in the water because there wasn't a square inch of clear space left on the buoy.

About 10 of them started to chase us. We realized we were a little close and paddled away. It looked like we were the Pied Pipers of the ocean as we paddled with 10 sea lions cavorting in our wakes. They were jumping out of the water and just having a grand old time.

After a short break, we paddled towards CIH, and noticed that there was a rigid inflatable that was marked Naval Security, just outside Hueneme Harbor. We paddled over and talked with the two young sailors. I asked if they were out because of the increase in the threat level today, and they didn't even know about it yet. Len joked with them about how we were an old Army guy and old Navy man. I replied that in Len's day, the Navy was still using sails.

After thanking them for their service, we paddled on. The wind picked up a little and changed direction so that we had a 10 - 15 knot headwind. The swells had become about 5 - 6 foot but were just gentle rollers under us until we approached the breakwater at CIH. At this point, a 40-45 foot cruiser came in under full power and threw up an extremely steep, 3 foot wake. As the wake approached us, one of the larger swells joined up with it and the formed a new wave that was in the 8 - 10 foot range and it was starting to break. It hit me first and got me quite wet and then it went after Len. As he disappeared behind the wall of water, I shouted a quick warning to him. In his usual style, he handled it with grace and we kept paddling as a few more swells kept coming in with the remnants of the wake.

Having missed his opportunity to capsize us, the captain of this boat decided to do a 180 and try again. The wake didn't get amplified by a swell this time and we paddled on. If he turned again, I was going to call the CG --either he was drinking or he hated kayakers.

Len and I then paddled into the pond and played around in there while at the same time we regaled each other about what had been going on in our lives since it had been at least a month since we saw each other.

We landed back at the harbor and found that the tide had dropped even more. There was a lot of soft mud and we watched a couple in an open canoe trying to land. Since both the man and the woman were wearing ordinary street sneakers, it was fun to watch them trying to get out of their boat while staying out of the mud and water.

Len and I managed to gracefully exit our boats without falling in the water, so we were able to be a little smug about their lack of waterproof foot gear.

We then cleaned the boats, loaded them, and headed for home.

As Mike Brown said, this was the kind of winter day that makes Southern California famous.

    Steve Holtzman