Day 8 -- Malibu

Saturday, Aug 18, 2007

Here's a shot of the Malibu pier when I arrived and got a good parking spot at 5:50 AM. Remember to click on these pictures, since they look a lot better at their full size.


The contest wasn't scheduled to start until about 10, so I had plenty of time for surfing. I wore my wetsuit since it was so early, and I watched the sun rise over the hill you see in the background as I was waiting for my first waves.

There were only three other guys out there -- probably would have been 50 or more if the waves were larger. I got a bunch of good rides. There were some three foot waves at the start, but size decreased over time. The waves were just perfect, though, and could be ridden for a long way. Again, it was very shallow and I had to be extremely careful to fall flat.

The water was clear here -- much clearer than any of the earlier spots. On one wave, I could see a large (15 inch?) fish fleeing in front of my board as I rode in.

I surfed until 9:30, and stopped because I was meeting "Yakers," an Internet buddy from the Early Retirement forum, and his wife at 11:00. I needed to shower off the wetsuit rubber smell, and do some errands (e.g. daily ice run).

I had a fantastic lunch and visit with Yakers and his beautiful wife. I'm disappointed that this picture doesn't do her justice, and doesn't show off the dimples she has when she smiles.


The restaurant was the Paradise Cove Beach Restaurant.

Yakers works for NASA at the JPL in Pasadena, and his wife is a retired school teacher. I enjoyed hearing about their vacations, and future trip plans. In a week or so they'll be off to the Burning Man Project.

Here's a shot on the way home to give you a feeling for the many beaches in and around Malibu:


After lunch I drove into Santa Monica to update the blog at the public library. My sleep deficit was catching up to me, however, so I saved my energy for the commute back to the campsite, and only worked for an hour or two.

For dinner I had two of the fish tacos from the lunch.

The parties continued that night, but without my dose of caffeine, and my 33 decibel earplugs I got a good night's sleep, getting up at 6 AM so that I'd make a possible rendezvous with Ronin (a surfer from the ER Forum) at Bolsa Chica beach (just south of LA) at 9 AM. See tomorrow's blog for details.