Pulled up at Leo at about 5:30 to find rock-to-rock closeouts, nobody out in the water and nothing looking too surfable. We moved on to check some other spots; Zeros, Zuma, Latigo, but nothing piqued our interest and the indications weren't good for our planned secondary spot after the dawn patrol.

Went back to Leo and figured we could pick off some of the insiders amongst the chaos. By then a crew of 10 or so had filled in the point, plenty for everyone as the swell was consistent and pumping hard. Magically, the waves began to line up to near-perfection; got several long, solid head high rides bowling off the outer reef and across the body rock, makeable all the way to the stairs. It lasted about an hour before the closeouts began to shut things down again; I got one last small one and went in.

The size looked good for our second go-out; a spot I'd surfed once before this summer and new to Robert. He warmed to it instantly, getting a long ride on his first wave, and playing with the inside sections while I waited for the jacking outside sets that would dredge sand up in huge boils, raked and ripped apart by the offshores and then heave top-to-bottom.

Saw plenty of wipeouts, didn't experience any myself but did get blown out the back of a great wave that I was certain I had. Best wave I got was well overhead, the fastest I've gone in months. Big hard cutbacks across the open faces that sometimes appeared and then all-down-the-line-hard!

Pretty burnt and sore at the end of the day, took a bit of a knock as someone ran straight into me as I paddled wide of a set on the shoulder, left him plenty of room to go off the top and drop into the power part of the wave, saw that wasn't going to happen and ducked as deep as I could... two heartbeats and a thunk and I have a new bruise on my lower back. Took it in stride, could have been a lot worse. A good cue to go in.