First weekend of summer

The craziness has begun; it's the first weekend here that's really felt like summer. And I mean summer: 95 degrees and sunny.

That means, after a year of nonstop hard work, switching my brain into summer mode. It als means crap waves and crowds. Actually neither was too bad this weekend. And my streak of successful surfing continues. It's almost enough to make me think I won't slide back again. Saturday, even with only choppy sections to work with in the afternoon, I got good rides that other people noticed and complimented me on. I was as surprised as they were. And Sunday, on better waves but with much bigger crowds, I made all or most of my popups and got good rides as well. A lot of people were just congregating and socializing in the water, "having tea parties" as my old surf camp instructor put it ("You cannot have tea parties in the water!") which is fine for a hot Sunday afternoon; but I was all the way over at the jetty---Queen of the Jetty for the day---getting waves and rides. If I didn't know better, I'd almost think I detected a touch of respect in the lineup. Nahhh. Well, at least only one guy, who I don't know, snaked around me. My biggest enemy and one of the hood's top 3 assholes (read back a year for his name) stayed on the other side, five feet away but never paddling around me.