"What country are you from? I was surfing in YOUR country before you were f'ing born."

I have reinforced my previous conclusion about surfing here in Southern California: there's a bunch of dickwads. My philosophy and genuine impression of surfing is that it serves as a release for tension. It presents a relaxing opportunity to peacefully reflect on life while having a flipping fun time. Unfortunately, apparently sad, depressed people who live compacted lives in the 300 ft2 basement of their parents house (at 30 years old) think it's the perfect opportunity to be asshats to other people. I thought that's what the highways / bird fingers were for, but apparently the corruption has spread.
Apparently short boarders in Malibu don't like paddle boarders. Oh well, get over it. The ridiculous reality presented is that the paddle boarder was being one of the most courteous surfers I have seen here in Malibu. If anything it's short boarders who drop in, cut off, and are the general a-holes. This has been both my experience and my observation. The truth is that the paddle surfer was the first on the wave, the short boarder drops in on him, then flips out. I have had this same instance of unwarranted aggression and anger directed towards me, and the emotions it draws out are unquestionably unpleasant. It really makes you want to slap the other person and tell them to stop being a disrespectful douche and if I didn't have to yell over twenty other surfers, I probably would have. People are cocky. People think they are always right. People are wrong. This aggression against "lazy paddle boarders" brings to mind an article I unwittingly read yesterday about that very subject. Here's the link: Battle of the boards... and no I don't read Christian Science Monitor, it was linked from fark...

So, on to actual surfing! Friday was a beautiful morning, sunny, warm, windless, absolutely glassy. The only think I could have asked for more of was waves...and I would have loved less tides, but in the end I really can't complain. Started out at County Line with AJ, I was using the Dove. Once high tide hit the waves really got smashed bad, truly little came though. Got quite a few nice lefts, mini tubes here and there, nothing fancy but certainly fun.
Malibu was beautiful too, the relatively small swell/undesirable tides held up here far better than at County Line. Had one beautiful shoulder high right, breaking perfectly, perfect spot, perfect bottom turn, cutback, straight shot, and whacking the closeout. I scared the other guy off the wave (who decided to drop in on me) without doing anything, so maybe there is a little etiquette here! But it's a weekday, so really probably not so much. Plenty of waves, and not too many folks. A ridiculous amount of people (150+?) at 1st, but only 20-30 between 2nd and 3rd. Maybe I'm understating it a bit, but the reality is pretty much every wave that I wanted to catch, I did. Oh, and there were a few dolphins toodling around, so basically life is good. I'm tossing up the possibility of buying a $100-$200 crappy old longboard too, just to throw some variety in there. Also so that I don't have to loan people my expensive boards and have them ding them...which makes me very sad indeed. In short, the waves were better and the crowds fewer than I thought. Can't argue with that!
Summary:
County Line, Ventura County
6'1" Al Merrick White Dove
6:30AM-9:00AM
2-3ft, ~15sec
Glassy beautiful, mad high tide
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Surfrider, Malibu
7'6" Al Merrick M13
10:00AM-12:00AM
2-4ft, ~15sec
Mad glassy and beautiful, medium tide