Surfing with friends always makes surfing better…. Though there may be a limit to how many friends you may want in the water at any given time.

Friday I took off work at mid day. The first sun we’d had in almost two weeks showed itself late morning. I knew there was a little surf so I took off, got my tip tool (the waves were small) and spent almost 3 hours having some fun and spending some tip time.

After an hour or more my friend Donna came paddling out, said hello and introduce me to her friend Rob. The three of us were enjoying the sun and small surf with a small group of other surfers doing the same. Rob would be all smiles as Donna or I came riding a wave down the point while he was paddling back to the line up after a ride.

Rob asked me if I found a new friend when a person dropped in on me at the inside section. Then wondered if I’d just found a new best friend after seeing me hanging on the tip for a couple seconds then franticly back peddling and straightening out, though not fast enough, to avoid banging rails with the guy that blindly dropped in on me as I came flying along. After all, what are friends for?

This morning I went for a bike ride up the beach. I thought it was such a nice sunny morning, besides I wanted to check out how the demolition project was going in the Fair Grounds parking lot. So why not jump on a bike, get some exercise and see what’s up?

I peddled up the promenade through the 2 dollar lot, around the construction work via a detour lane and stopped at the Ventura River. I hung at the river for several minutes watching about 8 or 10 surfers play with the inconsistent but nice clean peaks along that stretch of beach from the back side of pipe maybe a hundred yards up to hobo jungle. I wouldn’t have minded at all to be one of those 8 or 10 surfers.

After day dreaming for awhile about days long past and un-crowded waves I headed back. Down past the 2 dollar lot I decided to see what the surf looked like on the back side of the point and up to pipe.

What’s left of the 2 dollar lot was full. There was a contest at pipe so that added to the amount of vehicles and bodies that wanted to use the short couple hundred yards of beach. And, the number of people in the water, hoping for a chance to catch one of the few waves that came through every 4 or 5 minutes? I tried counting, but stopped at 40.

That’s a lot of friends… I began wondering how many of them actually got out of the water after an hour and got a chance wave? The words survival of the fittest came to mind.

How curious later at home, what my wife called me in from the front yard to show me through the kitchen window. A hawk on the back neighbors garage roof eating what I think may have been a squirrel. Talk about survival of the fittest.

D.R.