Many decades ago when I was in high school, my friends and I would sometimes skip the afternoon classes and head on over to Padre Island if the forecast was for good waves. Hope those truant officers aren't still trying to track me down.

The last time I went to the beach for good waves was when Hurricane Alicia roared ashore just south of Galveston in August 1983.

Yesterday the Internet forecast for La Mesa where I live was for "a beautiful sunset," so forgetting that there can be a significant difference between weather 14 miles inland and coastal beach weather, I headed on over to the pier in Ocean Beach to watch "a beautiful sunset."

Ocean Beach is San Diego's eclectic community that seems to be caught in a late 1960s-early 1970s time warp. Notwithstanding that, it is a lot of fun to just walk up and down Newport Avenue to see the rather interesting folks who hang out in Ocean Beach and make it their home. There are also lots of unique restaurants and bars, just like in any great beach community!

Unfortunately, in a sense, the "beautiful sunset" was virtually nonexistent. I did,, however, get the biggest waves I've seen since Hurricane Alicia. I don't know if it was just the highest high tide of the year or if they were the result of some big storm out in the Pacific somewhere. Nonetheless, the waves were beautiful, but some of them did cause the Ocean Beach pier, the longest on the West Coast, to shake under our feet.

If the slide show here doesn't work on your computer, click on "View All Images" to watch it at slide.com.

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