Yesterday, Randy (Surfer Dude) Alcorn, Mike (no nickname yet) Condit, John (horses back to the barn syndrome - or Psycho John) Ernst, Patrick (Capt. Kayak) Martin, and I (Steve-Tilley-Holtzman) gathered at the boat launch at Ventura Harbor. Well actually, all but Patrick. He finally paddled over, because he got confused with the exact launch location and went to Mother's Beach instead. Remember, Patrick's a rocket scientist.

We launched and I promptly stopped to try and recruit, flirt?, etc an attractive young woman paddling a SOT near the boat launch. The rest of the group kept going and I had to paddle like crazy to catch up.

This was a day of firsts for Randy. He entered his boat without any problems from the finger dock at the boat launch--without assistance.

We set off at a pace of about 3 1/2 knots and John commented how this felt like the ideal speed for him. We were passed by two women in an outrigger canoe. For some reason the woman in the back kept barking at the one in front. I'm not sure what that's about, but I sure wouldn't want to upset her.

Upon arriving at Emma Wood, John wanted to land and stretch his legs, while Patrick wanted to continue to Surfers Point and surf. We compromised---Patrick and Randy went to the point, John landed by himself, and Mike and I waited off shore for him.

The surf looked very nasty, and both Mike and I were remembering the last time we were there when it took Peter O, John, and myself 45 minutes to get all of us off of the beach.

John thought the landing was easy, but had an "Oh, sh*t" reaction when he saw the surf he would need to launch through. There were 3 lines of breaking waves to negotiate and fortunately, John finally did manage to make it without mishap.

John wanted to head back so we then talked to Patrick by radio who said he and Randy wanted to continue surfing and that they would meet us back on shore for lunch.

As Mike, John, and I headed back, I turned the GPS back on because I couldn't see anything in front of me and it felt like both John and Mike were off course. What they really wanted to do was to play in the surf on the way back. I finally asked John to slow down, because I could not keep up with his Extreme. He did and I noticed that we were now down to 4.5 knots. That's a very fast speed for me to try and maintain in my boat.

It never fails, as soon as we point John back to the barn, his speed picks up from his "ideal" speed of 3.5 to well over 4 knots.

The swell picked up and all of a sudden I noticed a wall of water and nothing else coming at my beam. I yelled heads up, braced, and everyone else did the same and somehow we all stayed dry and kept paddling.

Upon our return, we all met for lunch at the Beach Grill and we asked Randy if he surfs his boat. When he said yes, we asked how long he's been doing that and he replied "Since Today".

Patrick mentioned that Randy did extremely well with the surfing.

We had good company, good sea conditions, and fair weather for a great day of fun and companionship on the water.

    Steve Holtzman