Sunday - a golden day, incredible weather for early Spring in Norcal. The ocean is glassy smooth, the air is warm, the whole earth is happy and alive. I get to the beach late, and there's a quiet, toasty glow to the late afternoon. The walk through the meadow is gorgeous, fragrant, quiet. From the cliff, the peaks are empty - there's nobody out, and the sea, for once, is deep blue. It looks like I'm going to get a solo session, with a head-high peak, gentle offshore winds and the sun going down behind me. Incredible.

The paddle out is cold. The quick transition from warm late-afternoon air to Norcal water temperature is a jolt - I can feel my head clearing, real life receding behind me, left on the beach. I move around the back of the peak to get positioned for the left. The wave pitches and barrels on takeoff - bright blue, bright white. For once, I allow myself to anticipate a perfect session. I sit and wait for the first wave.

I notice a flock of birds diving into the sea about 200 yards down the line. They're very active - looks like there's a shoal of fish down there, and it takes my attention for a few moments.

And then there's the fin.

As usual, my first gut response is a very quick minor panic, followed by the relaxing thought: "oh, no worries, it's a dolphin". The problem is that, as the "dolphin" thought persists, the fin refuses to look like it belongs to a dolphin. It's way too big, way, way too big, and it doesn't have that gentle drifting motion that a dolphin has. It's chopping around fast, in the middle of the flock of birds. Whatever is attached to the fin is moving quickly and not messing around. It takes about two seconds to figure out whether I'm going to stay out and coexist with the fin - I'm not. I'm by myself, a quarter mile off the road and nobody's going to come and call the helicopter, even if cell phones worked around here, which they don't. For a brief, brief second, the Addicted Surfer in me pleads helplessly - it's sunny, glassy, empty, perfect! What are the chances of the thing actually BITIING you! Zero! Pissant! Wuss! Stay out! Then I get a quick vision of what a shark attack might be like, and I'm gone, paddling like a freak.

A set comes, I head for the peak, miss the first wave and crazily thrash into the impact zone so the next one is guaranteed to hit me. It does and the white-water takes me to within ten yards of the shore. I can feel the fin bearing down on my legs! A little more frantic paddling, and I'm standing on the beach feeling both wildly happy, and like a complete dork. The Addicted Surfer is sure I've imagined it, made the whole thing up just to mess with the session, so I turn and look hard at the flock of birds. The fin shows up straight away, jerking and whipping around. Nope, it's there all right. Good decision. We're gone.

An hour later, I get a few waves at a mushy point up the coast and stagger home.

The next day, I notice a picture of fins sticking out of the water on the front page of the local paper. "Orcas Feed at ****** Beach" it says. I don't know anything about Orcas except the next two words are generally "Killer Whale". Perhaps they don't eat surfers. Maybe I could have had a perfect session after all. God! Two hours of glassy perfection screwed up because of a little Killer Whale! A big fuss over nothing. Wuss. On the other hand, I can still walk and don't have a helicopter bill to worry about… There's always next time...

Postscript: so now I know a little more about Orcas. Here are some Orca links (although I wouldn't recommend relying on your ability to distinguish a Great White fin from an Orca fin to decide whether or not to finish a session early):

Yahoo category
An Orca Homepage
The Orca Network

There are many more...

(My email is: jdj@pacificwaverider.com)