The knowledge that it'd be bigger to the south and likely quite photogenic got me rolling in that direction with my 7'2" and 6'6" and -- well, not the camera, I forgot it at home. Wildly varying buoy readings made me wary of Rincon getting too big to make it outside, so I packed the little squashtail in case I'd have to find a more sheltered spot. Like Shark's, which on the drive-by was looking fun and in the chest high range.

Well, Rincon was big, but not too big -- I did manage to paddle out after about 10 minutes of struggling with the beachbreak sandbar. What immediately followed was four hours of nearly continuous paddling, interrupted only by the occasional wave. A line of us paddling up the point, non stop, and with each set wave one would break formation and surf to the bottom of the line, then pick up again at the back of the line. The rip head atop the point at times got so strong that I could only hold position against it.

With all that, there was a lot of comraderie in the lineup, people cheering each other into drops, even the guy who dropped in on me on my first wave and then had the gall to attempt to push me out the back after doing a go-behind cutback later made a point of apologizing. Big drops followed by relatively cruisy, flat walls until the waves faded away inside the rivermouth. Big waves, but not particularly good ones.

After about 3 1/2 hours of that, I'd had enough and let myself be swept immediately into the cove lineup, which again had sub-par shape with a strong reflected wave rolling through from the rivermouth. The classic ruler edged waves were serrated and unruly, occasionally giving the more talented surfers a split-second barrel, but generally inhospitable. One of those waves was all I wanted and that's what I got, carve and fade, carve and fade, way down to the storm drain.