I hear a lot of people say a lot of things about surfers. Some good, some not so good. I grew up surfing, in my opinion, we are good. Most of us anyway.

Today I had the good fortune of scuba diving near a group of good surfers. Not necessarily good in how they surf, but good as in good people.

One of my regular weekend scuba groups met for a beach dive at Nicholas Canyon, north of Malibu. It was one of those days that promised to be great. It’s 90 degrees in LA today. It’s also March 14th. That only happens in LA…

I planned to try out some new scuba gear, an Atomic Aquatics Frameless II mask. As I was just entering the water, I was in the process of pulling the mask down around my neck so it wouldn’t be pulled off and lost to the Pacific, and of course a wave came and pulled it off and it was lost to the Pacific. I looked for about a minute or two and figured no way as I going to find the mask. Angry? Yes. Did it blow my day of diving? No.

Lesson to all divers…carry spares of whatever you need in order to dive. It was brutal to run back up the steps in my full suit, but I had my spare.

We did the dive, which turned out to hardly be worth the time or effort due to pretty low viz, but getting wet and logging a dive is always good.

So what does all of this have to do with a good surfer?

As I surfaced at the end of my dive and started back towards the beach, I notice a surfer paddling out wearing a mask with a bright yellow snorkel…my mask with a bright yellow snorkel. He paddled straight over to me and with a big smile said “any chance this is yours?”

What more can I say than thank you? Not sure who that was, but he definitely shared his stoke today. I doubt you’ll ever see this post, but if you do…thank you!