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You know what's so irritating about the fin chop to the nose of my board? It wasn't even crowded. It's not like this guy had nowhere to go. No, that's not the case at all. There was no one to the left of me. There was no one to the right of me. I was just there, standing on some of the submerged rocks, waiting for him to ride by so that I could paddle back out. I knew that if I started paddling back out when I first saw him, I probably would have been in his way. Again, I stood there waiting for him to surf by. But guess what? He didn't surf on by. The wave started closing out in front of him. What did he do? He turned toward me, and then he fell toward me, and then his board shot out . . . AT ME. Since the water was up to my shoulders, I ducked under. Nevertheless, I still heard the thud when his board hit mine. I knew immediately what my board was going to look like. I've heard that sound before. Once I came back up, he was apologizing profusely. His first concern was my safety. He asked if I was okay. I said I was, but my board was not. Then we both looked at the nose. Then he was apologizing even more. Whatever. I'm not happy about the fin chop to the nose of the Tyler. However, I take things like that in stride. It's just a surfboard. I'm glad it wasn't my head. I probably could have cursed him out. But that's not me. Even with my funky mood, it's still not me. I simply got on my board and paddled away. I didn't even get out of the water. I caught a few more waves and then left. I was neither mad nor sad. I kind of chalked the whole thing up to the weird karma I've been dealing with of late. As I type this, the board is sitting at Aqua Tech. Since they were going to fix the fin gouge, I told them—at Soul Brother #1's urging—to fix every crackle on the board. The Tyler will look pretty damn good when I next see it.

How was the session? Well, the place was firing. The problem was the wind. The choppy conditions aren't much fun even when a spot is firing. I got a wave that some might say was the wave of the day (at least in the spot where I was surfing). I didn't think much of the wave. When I paddled back out, people kept talking to me about it. I wish I'd seen it. Oh well.