The ocean was like an uncaring god, endlessly dangerous, power beyond measure.
—William Finnegan
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Matt was always on top of the surf report, so it wasn’t surprising when he called to say there was a swell coming in tomorrow and we should go out.
I picked him up before dawn in Belmont Shore and, after heading east past the Alamitos Bay marina, we slipped onto The 405 at the place where it expands to an impossibly wide sixteen lanes of concrete. Sipping hot coffee from paper cups, we didn’t talk much as we drove through Orange County’s anodyne suburbs, past the John Wayne Airport, past the old entrance gates to Lion Country Safari, past Mission San Juan Capistrano.
As the sun rose and the morning sky brightened, we sped through the point where The 405 merged with The Five and, because traffic was light, it was only twenty more minutes from there to San Onofre.