Once my brother almost threw me overboard for calling line rope.

   I hope I am wrong, but it looks like something is wrong with the mussel population down there. Last week I took a walk at low tide south of Moss Beach and saw no mussels. I did not go way out on the reef, but still it looked like something was wrong. The only barnacles were tiny. Sea anemonies and periwinkles and  little brown seaweed were plentifull. Some limpets. No more little crab. No mussels. Can't blame poachers because nobody goes where I went. Got back to the harbor and the tide was still out so I went out to Pillar point. The tide was coming in so I could not go out far. Not one live mussel. Lots of mussel shells.
  Like I said, I hope I am wrong, but as far out as I got, I'm pretty sure there used to be lots of mussels.
  Earlier in this thread somebody posted a pic of a random large clump of mussels. It might be more evidence of a problem. There used to be docents or volunteers at the Fitzgerald Marine Preserve. Maybe if I go by on a weekend I'll stop and see if they have any idea. Last time I talked to one they blamed the urchins for killing the kelp. They did not know urchins disappeared from this same reef years ago. It's just south of flat rock.

    Didn't mean much there, but it could another time. There was a sand bar right in front of you, you can see from the bubbles. You had unlucky timing with the set that came in. If you did not have the paddle in you may have just gone straight in balancing maybe ruddering a little back and forth. Paddling hard would have helped, on the back of the waves.
  When the boat decides to turn, it's counter intuitive, but you lean right into the wave with the paddle bracing into the foam. Keep the elbow in to not hurt the shoulder. Its called side surfing.
  CCK and HMB Kayak do those classes. I know somebody who took the class a long time ago about five times at CCK. We used Looksha Sports.

  Hey man, I don't know my way around down there, but somewhere off Santa Cruz down to Aptos there's been observations of fucking schools of  10' GWS. Just peacefull fish doing what  fish do. they nibble on kayaks quite a bit.  The bummer is that increases our odds of  bad shit. Good news is the odds go from in a million to one in 100,000. My
 bullshit numbers. Trying to say it's still a long shot of getting bit.  Maybe try to splash less and no fish blood  in the water.

Channel 19 on sf coast. Put 67 68 69 19 on scan.

  Bill Tinkey. Just moved to Rancho Cardova. Taught  plmbg at a Jr. college. Nice normal fair guy. Don't know if he fishes, do know he surfed. should be able to find him online. Let me know if you can't.

   The bait shop there knows what you need. The skippers wife is behind the counter half the time, all you need to do is find her.  Time it right and she will even show you how to tie knots. My point is if you want to know where to find the dabs, she knows. They have good inventory and prices too. I would call ahead and see when she's there. The Eel man is around too, if you see him, he could sum it up in a couple words.

 

  Originally very nice boats. Mega Cyclones. One was owned by a world champ from Santa Cruz named Big Wave Dave. Pretty beat up. One can paddle now with a slow leak. The other is a little worse. In north Oakland. I surf on a ski now and am in Pillar Point Harbor about three times a month if that is better for anyone to pick up.