What a weekend!!

In spite of big surf, low vis and onery campground managers, we had a most excellent time in Malibu.

The saturday night celebrations were just about as epic as the North Coast Bash, with many of the same people making the journey down for the weekend and several locals coming out to join in the fun, including Maciek, Gina, Ross-O & Beth, Susan, Frank O'Donnell and Seahunt.

Unfortunately, the overhead surf prevented us from going out and getting a bunch of lobsters for the feast, but we were able to put Plan B into action: an ice chest full of bugs that I got during the last week. There were also lobsters from Ross-O and Maciek and, with many other culinary contributions, there was way more food than we could have eaten. The delicacies included fresh abs from the North Coast, an incredible seafood risotto, three or four different kinds of ribs, and pound cake that was so good it made Ross-O cry ;-)

Saturday night's bash went on until 2-3 a.m. when we concluded with some spirited toasting to Eric S, who was sorely missed. (Ironically, our much more muted socializing on Friday night was shut down around 10:30 due to complaints from the RV community. We must have been framed by the rowdy campers in the next site!!!)

Our dive on Saturday was a bit less spectacular. The big swells forced us to rethink plans for Point Dume etc. and fall back to the more sheltered Escondido Creek. Although most people made it in and out of the water without any trouble, a few mistimed their move and got rolled in the surf. The good news was that no one got hurt; the bad news was that those who did make it out were rewarded with 1-2' visibility. Ah, what a year we've had....

A couple of the Northern California visitors were staying over for a few more days so Ross-O kindly took them and me out on the Orion III to PV last night. We lucked out with up to 20' of vis, and encounters with a huge horn shark and a bat ray.

We're already looking ahead to the next campout: We're looking for a campsite with a nicer attitude and we're thinking of centering the weekend around a charter boat trip so we don't get blown out by unpredictable conditions next time.

Hope you can make it!

• Re: Malibu Campout Report! Ross-O 17:42:01 10/10/05 (1)
  • Re: Malibu Campout Report! Jon 20:34:08 10/10/05 (0)
• Nice Report Elaine 17:07:13 10/10/05 (2)
  • Re: Nice Report Jon 17:16:10 10/10/05 (1)
    • let him know we are wishing him the best Elaine 18:52:14 10/10/05 (0)