Definitely was a fun time!  Here's my version:

I was running a bit late, in 45 minutes I flew up 101 to 780 to 280 to Brotherhood Way, cruise around Lake Mead and crest the dunes to see fans blowing off big peaks way outside.

Its feeding time and the monkeys chirping is easily heard from the lineup.  I meet the gang at the edge of the dune.

Tim is, understandably so, a little hesitant about paddling out here, so am I as my quiver doesn't have a tested big wave board at the moment.  First he needs to find a board.  He finds one and comes back saying we're going out here, sweet!  I have the choice of a 7'8" big boy shortboard, an 8'6" hybrid and a 10' longboard.  I can still duck dive the 8'6" so I grab it.

I stretch on the "black" sand beach, dirty really, low tide after the big surf of past weeks stealing clean sand off the beach.  I watch Jeff paddle out fairly easily.  Though at beach level its much more intimidating, you can't see much
beyond the inside shorebreak.  I follow shortly after and make it out easily.  It was just a long, long paddle but once
beyond the inside section, I didn't have any waves to deal with just a long distance to cover to the outside peak.  Lloyd
and Dave had different experiences and were caught and beat up a bit coming outside.

I started paddling south towards the peak Jeff was at, when a set wave swung wide to me.  The light to moderate offshores were blowing and I was stroking hard to get into the 10 foot face.  I felt that little push behind me and stood up on my 8'6" hybrid, but was promptly blown out the back.  Hmm, maybe I need the longboard after all.

We found Tim, Dave and Lloyd after a few more minutes and the pack stayed together after that.  A strong south current kept us paddling most of the time and the waves were a little slow to come in.  But as soon as I snagged my first wave, I got into the groove. I asked Jeff and Dave what size boards they had, both had 8'6", so did I.  But there's were gunny boards and weighing 100 pounds more than these guys means I was a a little undergunned with my own 8'6" hybrid, but it was working well for me though I stuck with the smaller set waves.

I ended up with close to a dozen waves, lefts and rights, mostly big drops and bottom turns before you hit the channel, there wasn't any opportunity for cutbacks or carving on any of my waves but I saw some other rides that had more wall to it.  The drops could be perilous but very thrilling.

Tim found out about those tough drops.  Everybody was having trouble snagging the big rollers, Tim especially couldn't seem to get into any waves. Eventually he got fed up enough to fully commit himself...to an over the falls journey!  I snapped a pic of it, hopefully it'll come out.

Dave B had some good rides including his first  right in front of me :)  Lloyd scored ja few but I saw one sweet drop and cover up off the takeoff, very nice.  Jeff had a typical sesh, scoring lots of the bigger set waves.

The last hour of the 3 hour sesh, the winds let up and the current stopped but soon the lineup got a little more crowded with 10 to a peak.  I had lots of fun, probably my best sesh ever out at OB (out of 4 or 5) and there were lots of hoots in the lineup on various waves.

Gioni_PasquinelliDate: Sun, 09 Dec 2001 05:17:05 GMT
From: Gioni Pasquinelli <g@scsurfers.com>
Newsgroups: alt.surfing
Subject: Re: Maddux at Ocean Beach SF