20 degrees, 20 people

This morning by 10 am there were at least 20 people out in the lineup.

It's February. It was 20 degrees.

We were all wave-starved, it was sunny, there was not much wind, there was a favorable Surfline forecast the night before that alerted the nonlocals, but still: 20 degrees.

I know I posted before about a 20 degree day that didn't faze me, but there's some kind of math that goes on between air and water temperatures that makes not all 20 degree days equal. Maybe it's air temp plus water temp plus wind speed. Does anyone have the equation?

Today the water was in the 30s. That's about as cold as it gets here. It was goddamn cold.

Yet I managed to stay out for over two hours, which is what I do in summer!

Why, you ask? Is it that I was having so much fun?

Hell, no! It's that I wasn't---and then I was like, I'm out here in frickin 20 degrees, I better be having fun! So I kept trying, but for at least half of the time I was really so cold it affected my surfing. The waves were a tad challenging, but not that big and not that hard. It was the freezing my ass off that threw me.

The more I froze, the more I kept trying to have fun. Finally, I had to say, This is not worth getting hypothermia.

Nothing that happened out in the water could compare to the bliss of a hot shower immediately followed by crawling naked into bed under a down comforter, nestling into pillows warmed by the bedroom radiator and the afternoon sun.