California was great. This is a photo of Nate Kaufman. We met Nate on a cold stormy afternoon in Point Reyes National Seashore Park. It's about 45 minutes North of San Francisco. This beach was surly and looked pretty intimidating. The wave sets were really disorganized and frothy and we were sure that it could not be surfed. Lo and behold, two minutes later we see this guy run down the beach and put his board into the foam pile and begin paddling out. The light was fading and we thought for sure he was going to be hammered by the snarling water. We watched as he tried for about 30 minutes to paddle out and get some reprieve from the onslaught of breaking monster waves. Finally, exhausted and spent he came back ashore. It was a brave (crazy!) try. We headed down the beach to see if he was ok and say hi and he told us that his dad had passed away last year and this day would have been his birthday. He had come to scatter his dad's ashes in the pacific and he showed us the film canister he kept tucked in his wetsuit with the ashes. Nate is finishing school and then thinking of going on an extended surfing holiday in the South Pacific before deciding what he "wants to do with his life".  He was cool enough to shoot some photos in the surf and some portraits in the parking lot up on the cliffs. I like this photo especially with the gravity of what this day was and the significance of his dad's birthday. Funny, because had we left the beach two minutes earlier we never would have met.