February 18, 2004 - Fletcher Cove, Solana Beach, CA

It was supposed to rain later today, so I decided to surf by mid-day. I rented a stupid, crappy, heavy bic at a surf shop named Mitch's. They were definitely not as cool as the other place. They wouldn't rent hard boards and the putz charged me 25 bucks for a half day. That's full day price! So I got a crappy roof rack with it, and I took his suggestion on a location to surf which was right around the corner. It wasn't really a cove, but there were big cliffs around. I checked out the surf from a distance and it looked manageable. So Laura dropped me off and I went for it. Man, it was definitely larger and more stormy than it looked from a distance. It was almost impossible to get out through the constant white water coming and even harder with the bic. I was really getting pummeled trying to get out. I finally got out and it was kind of scary with the wave size and having that size and weight of board. I had to just abandon board several times and try to swim under the wave while the heavy bic pulled at me. It was pretty brutal. There was a pack up people out and off to the right, but I was by myself. I caught a crappy ride in and decided to rest for a while. At this point, I wished Laura hadn't left because I didn't want to go back in here. But I did and had a hell of a time. I caught some ok rides on smaller waves on the inside. One scary and sucky thing that happened to me was, as I was trying to duck under a wave, I fell off the board and the leash got wrapped around my neck and roped me. My throat hurt for weeks after. Overall = not very good.