I scheduled a day for members of BASK to practice launching and landing through surf. For liability reasons, these paddles do not have “leaders” or “instructors” and we tell people to arrive with their skills intact and practice them at events like this. Often beginners show up anyway and get impromptu and unofficial instruction from others. This time John Somers offered to give some on-the-beach instruction, however he was late and still getting his gear ready when everyone else was dressed and at the shore. So I gave the lecture on how to side-surf a kayak, how to broach and brace into a wave and raise the shore edge of the boat to skim towards shore.
Then everyone jumped into water and there was carnage and chaos. The punishment for failing to side surf correctly is to flip over, exit from your boat, drag it to shore and pump the water out of it. There were people in the water from time to time and I felt obligated to help people out. Konstantin Gortinsky was there and he invited me to come along with him for a paddle out past the outer sand bar break. But since I had invited all these people to come and get banged up in the surf I felt I should stay close to shore with them and keep an eye on them. That’s all right, I get to have my fun in the surf other times.