It was early in the afternoon on a Wednesday when my teacher called me up to the front of class. I was in 5th grade at Vieja Valley, circa 1998. My teacher, Mr. Larsen, asked me to grab my backpack because my Dad was there to pick me up. I had no clue what he was talking about, but I was stoked to be getting out of school early. Dave was just outside the classroom, and as I exited he shared an awkward exchange with Mr. Larsen - the two of them looked eerily similar and my friends always commented on it.

As we walked toward the parking lot my Dad let me know that we were heading to the harbor and he needed my help sailing his friend’s boat down to Newport that evening. They were getting ready to sail in the annual Newport-to-Ensenada race that Friday, but had to get the boat from Santa Barbara to Newport Harbor first. Needless to say, I was stoked. Playing hooky mid-week to go for a long sail down the coast sounded alright to me.

We arrived in the Santa Barbara Harbor a little while later and walked down to Marina 1 to meet up with my Dad’s friends on the boat. If my memory serves correctly it was Charles Browning’s boat, though I can’t remember the name of it or who else joined us for the sail that evening. After some brief shuffling around getting the boat ready, we pulled out of the slip and were out beyond the breakwater in no time. It was a beautiful late April afternoon in the Santa Barbara Channel and we had some nice wind to help start our voyage. We raised the main sail, then the jib, and finally Charles cut the motor. We were off.

Before long all the adults were cracking beers, and I got my pick of soda from Charles’ ice chest down below. I remember some good tunes playing as we made our way down the coast - Credence, Santana, probably some Stones. I was 10 years old hanging out with three or four 50-somethings for the evening, and while I was mostly just listening, they let me shoot the shit just like I was one of them.

Soon enough somebody spotted dolphins nearby. A few of us set our drinks down and walked up front to watch them surf off the bow as it cut through the water. As cool as that was, it was something we were all lucky enough to have witnessed before. But then something truly strange started happening. We looked up from the bow as the water was starting to froth and boil all around us. It took us a moment to realize that the splashing was actually from more dolphins that were surfacing all around the boat. It took another beat for us to comprehend that there were dolphins surfacing for as far as we could see in every direction. Most were just breaching but some were leaping high out of the water. It was truly mesmerizing and surprisingly loud.

The whole encounter only lasted a few minutes, though it seemed longer. Eventually our heading took us away from the middle of the pod, and there were less and less dolphins around us until there were none. It may have been the middle-aged sailors influencing my 10 year old brain, but I remember thinking to myself “that was really fucking cool”. I know now that what we experienced was sailing through the middle of a dolphin megapod - when thousands of dolphins come together to socialize and chase food. It is something I will probably never experience again.

The sun sank lower as we continued sailing along, still with several hours to go on our journey to Newport. Somebody heated up some chili down below and we all enjoyed a bowl full after all the dolphin excitement. Then Charles broke out some cigars for the adults to indulge in. They hadn’t been smoking them for long when the wind completely died on us. We had to fire up the engine if we wanted to make it to Newport that night. I’m not one to get seasick, but between going from the peaceful flow of sailing to the more rigid ride of motoring, and the combination of cigar smoke and diesel fumes, it didn’t take long for me to turn green and lunge for the rear stanchions to empty my stomach full of chili and soda into the ocean.

I don’t remember too much about that sail once it got dark. Eventually we got into Newport Harbor late, sometime around midnight. We de-rigged the boat and called it a night. Jan came to pick me up the next morning, and all the guys stayed to prepare for the main event of racing to Ensenada the following day. But I’ll always remember that day my Dad surprised me at school to take me on a sailing adventure down the coast with his buddies.