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Long story short............I saw a new swell on the horizon so I got ahold of visiting Welsh national Keith Usher and arranged to meet him with the boat at 9am for a run up the coast to see what we could find...What a blast. I'd never met Keith before but we peppered him with questions as we planed north, and he was a fascinating guy to spend the day surfing with.

The surf was fun if nothing truly epic.................but none of that mattered. Just fun to be out in the warm California sun, riding decent waves down into a little glassy cove, basically having a nice, boutique point break pretty much to ourselves. I joked with Keith that in the design space between his small'ish foam board design...........and my out-sized Mega Platter....there might be enough room to fit every other paipo design in the world. We got a good laugh out of that one. Keith is a highly skilled paipo enthusiast, with an extensive world travel resume and lots of larger surf experiences. He was literally tearing this place apart, spinning 360's at will, ducking in and out of numerous tube rides at various spots along the point, and all of us out just found it a treat to watch him in action and soak up yet another of the myriad approaches one can have to this surfing thing we so love. European politics, various heinous wave venues, design details...............all of it was grist for some great conversation that went on till the end of things, when we dropped him back off at the pier.

Thanks for making the time for the get together, it was a pleasure to have you onboard. Next year when you're back, we'll have get something similarly planned, and hope for a bit of a bigger swell...!

Lucky guys!!!

More Monday fun, but a few weeks further along than the above posting..............and the location was slightly different. Boards pictured are my L41 6-3 x 2p" quad, and my buddy Steve's PHD 5-6 x 24" twinnie. Was this the last swell of this year's Winter? It's quite possible...........but time will tell.

All fun stuff. A nice little point break, dropping tide, and a small crowd all made for a nice morning's session.

More uncrowded fun - keep it coming.

Maybe you mentioned this elsewhere, but on those "big" boards do use mostly arms, mostly legs, or what paddling out and around and catching waves?

I've found that while just paddling around the lineup area, I keep the board out in front of me and either rest my fingertips on the tail of the board, or maybe move up a bit so that my entire forearm is on the rear of the board? That's just proven to be the most comfortable, ergonomic way to get around while in the water. As I watch old films of Greenough paddling his kneeboard around the lineups, it seemed like he used the 'hold onto the tailblock area' method as well, so my guess is that this a pretty universal and comfortable way of doing it.

As for the surfing part.........I position myself for an incoming wave, and at the last moment, when the wave is maybe 6' or so behind me, with a kick of my Da Fins, I pop up onto the top of the board, the wave slides underneath me.............and I use my arms for paddling and kick my fins to propel myself into the wave. After many years of experimenting, this system has proven to be the most comfortable, ergonomic, most successful way to get around and catch waves on my boards.

Coincidentally, these photos were taken on 'another' Monday, so there must be something to going surfing on that day? I'm loving the new board, but I had the designer take out 'half' the tail rocker on this one versus the previous version, and I think that I'm now feeling that this was an error on my part. I'll not only put it back in on the next one, I may even add some additional. I would have never thought that this singular dimension was as important as it now feels, but that's the beauty of the ocean, she always wants to teach you something if you just take the time to listen.

You certainly caught some good ones on this Monday day

Sorry late to the party!

Thanks for the kind words.

I got to cross something off the bucket list that day, Jeff is a fantastic host.

And as he said we truly found there are more than one way to build and ride a paipo!

Great pics!!!

This was the last wave of my california winter, not a bad way to end.