WindAndSea has one of the prettiest A-frame wave peaks you’d ever care to see. It pops up in this beautiful bowl, head-high to double overhead. It is beautiful. Alas, it is also too crowded for my taste. I have been hit by a surfboard before, and it is not an experience I care to repeat.

For most of the session, then, we hang out a little south of the main peak and ride the shorebreak. There is a unique quality to the waves here; they are thick and they pile up rather quickly and steeply, probably because of the steep bottom contour. If you’re not careful, you can wind up like a stone in a sling, pitched up and over and down headfirst into the sand.

Cautiously at first, I sample the waves. I compose a little mantra in my head to help me stay aware of the danger and avoid the jaws of the rocky shoreline; "Exit early and exit often" I keep repeating to myself. I start to get the hang of it, and begin to enjoy myself quite a bit.

There are lots of other body boards in the water, and so I head a little south from the main crowd. I find a niche between the gaggle of body boards and the pack of surfboards on the main peak. A big hollow bowl pops up; I go for it, and make a breathtaking, arcing, curving drop to the left. Racing along, I swoop through the bottom of the bowl, back up the far side, over the lip, and out. Yes! Yes! Hallelujah!