Trip to California, May 2003 5/22/03

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	In the evening we went looking for surf and the only place it was breaking at all was at Pitas Pt, which is an absolutely gorgeous spot.	Sadly, there was a dead dolphin on the beach and each wave that washed over it carried a trail of blood back. Twilight and blood in the water did not seem like a good occasion for going in.	We went back the next morning, when the Dolphin seemed to havebeen washed away, and Paul joined a few people trying to get up on impractically small waves.	Still, it was good to be back in the water, which was in the high 50s, as opposed to the foot-freezing low 50s we had tried further up the coast.
The next three images are left-to-right views of part of the line up at the famous Surf Beach at San Onofre State Beach, an hour or so south of LA	There must have been 300 surfers in the mile or so of beach, but there were so many opportunities that people still seemed to be getting rides.	The gray sky is the typical Californian coastal fog - half a mile inland it was bright and sunny. The water was in the low 60s F here	We had four days here, during which we checked out most of the coast between LA and San Diego. Surfing is a prominent part of the ladscape all along here!	The Surf Beach definitely had the best conditions. We did have a session at the other part of the S. O. State Park, the various Trails that offer access to some great, lonely stretches of beach...
...but at least when we were there it was a long, hard paddle out, so we didn't go back.	'Visit California' tourist poster?	Another foggy morning at San Onofre. Paul peering back at a wave...	...catching the wave...	...and falling off :-(
For this part of the trip we stayed in a cute motel in Capistrano Beach with the rooms set up like little cottages.		By tradition, we had a fire at the beach on our last evening.	We saw one of the late surfers coming in being checked out by a sea otter (the black dot behind him and to the right)	This is the best shot I could get of the otter