>Now my real question is how do you get out beyond the breakers? I would think >you would just punch through them, but I can't see how you would make much >progress.

Most days and on most beaches you can find channels that are not breaking with as much power or consistency of your points and sandbars. In that case you ride where it is breaking big and paddle out the channels. Still you are punching through them. Now on big days the channels will be breaking and it will make no difference. On Saturday morning the tide was very high and the swells were 15 to 18 feet. That gives you 20+ foot faces possible. 5 guys tried to make it out and nobody made it even half way to the shore break. The large waves you see Dave riding is an outside break that only breaks on the largest swells. When Dave went out the tide was low and the swell had dropped. Still it took him 15 to 20 min. to make it out the first time. His first ride he got caught in the soup and it carried him all the way to the beach. He then fought for at least 15 more minuets to make it back out again. He reported that by the time he made it out he was too tired to do much on the waves. The basic straigy is to hold as close to the shore break as you can and wait until a lull comes and then try to make it out before the next set comes in and lands on your head and hammers you. Most of the people had high performance surf kayaks, less than 9 feet. Dave had a longer boat. With a longer boat it is much easer to punch through the soup.

http://24.224.149.218/daves_carnage.wmv

>My other question is, I'm not interested in building a fesignated surf kayak, >as I live in PA, but how succesful do you think I might be going out in a >Guillemot L in the Atlantic Ocean? I realize it wouldn't be like your movie, >but I still think it might be fun.

Where in PA. I lived in Philly for a while. For a good swell the Jersey shore is not to far to drive, and not like my movie look at this!

http://boatertalk.com/forum/SurfZone/508249

As for you going out in your Guillemot well;

Take lessons!!!! Look for a company that has at least three levels of classes. You need a first strokes type class this will teach you the basic handling of your kayak and wet exiting and assisted rescues. Then you need an open ocean class this will teach you basic ocean skills and introduce you to self-rescuing. After you have these skills down you are ready for a surf zones class. Your sea kayak handles much different than a surf kayak although an advanced kayaker would have been able to make it out through this surf, even an expert would find a more sheltered landing spot to land unless it was life or death witch it could very well be just trying to land a sea kayak in this type of surf. Landing a sea kayak even in small dumping surf can break your boat, paddle or your neck. You really need lessons before you try to tackle the surf.

Now having said that harbors and bays let you access the open ocean without having to brave the surf, and are interesting paddles themselves.

Sage