Sliding In To SoCal On Steinfaths Salty SIC SUP
The salty adventure continues as Peter Steinfath has made his way down the California coastline from San Simeon to Jalama State Park in Lompoc. I received a call from Peter and he was enjoying some of the world famous hamburgers at the Jalama Beach store.
At this point in his journey, Peter had been on the water for 1 month and 4 days! The paddle into the Jalama State Park was clean and glassy with incredible weather, this landing was much easier than the past week of paddling.
Point Conception was going to be the next adventure to tackle, “as long as it’s calm” then onwards to San Miguel Island and a happy lark through the Catalina Island chain.
6/20/2023 County Line Ventura and Los Angeles. One month and eight days of paddling the California Coastline.
As my day was spent chained to my desk and combing through countless spreadsheets while pecking at my keyboard, I was delighted to take a break to answer a WhatsApp call from Peter Steinfath. The first words out of his mouth were “Hermosa Beach, Kammerat”. We laughed and spent the next 10 minutes catching up on his journey thus far.
The story of his journey picked up with him paddling from Santa Monica to Venice Beach then onward to Hermosa Beach. Punctuated in between those lovely and sometimes lively beach towns, Peter took advantage of the conveniences of modern civilization and dropped into a phone repair shop to have a professional have a look at his device. To the technician’s shock, the number of tiny pieces of sand that poured out of his phone absolutely shocked him and he was blown away that it still was somewhat functioning as everything was extremely corroded from almost 50 days at sea!
While in Venice Beach (lead picture), Peter thoroughly enjoyed the boardwalk and all of the eccentric people hanging out there, somewhat ironic that he deemed them eccentric. I think he was quite at home while meeting kindred spirits. He decided to have a little fun once the sun went down and tourists and locals livened the boardwalk with swaths of foot traffic. He would sit there next to his board and call out like a circus carney, “Anyone wants to buy a well-traveled race board?” Smiles would turn into questions and if you have been following this story, there are no shortage of outlandish stories and tales that seem tall to the average person, however, we all know that anything is possible for a Steinfath!
One such passerby was a fellow paddleboarder who mentioned that there was going to be a race in Santa Monica on Saturday and Sunday and was encouraged to come and compete. So Peter ended up reversing directions the next day for a short paddle back up to Santa Monica to add an additional 5 miles of paddleboard racing into his 1000 plus or minus expedition!
While at the race, young Peter was coming into the beach to finish the race and he was greeted by a family friend by the name of Gregg “Koz” Kostan. They enjoyed their reunion and he helped Peter refuel with a dinner and rehydrate with three pitchers of beer, so the stories started to flow like the India Pale Ales in their glasses. I actually received a call from Koz shortly after talking with Peter and Koz told me a zinger that Peter apparently had forgotten to mention! Race Results at the bottom of the post - Top 10 Finish! 
We’re going to back up this story to several miles North as this tale took place in the Catalina Island chain. After Peter paddled from Jalama, he headed toward San Miguel Island and as the miles turned into countless paddle strokes, so did the daytime sky turn into the evening with our daring Dane getting swallowed up into a thick fog bank. He was completely lost and somewhat disoriented, however, he kept paddling until something rather funny happened. Peter came to a very hard stop. As in, he paddled straight to the edge of the island! It’s been said that one might not be able to see the forest through the trees, in this case, one can’t see the Catalina Islands through the thick and soupy fog. We’ll give him an A+ in the navigation department and a high five for absolute luck!
While paddling to each of the islands, Peter’s only dilemma was to find a beach that wasn’t entirely covered in piles of smelly and somewhat territorial seals. He finally found an agreeable landing with equally agreeable seals that allowed him to share one end of the beach for some cowboy camping under the stars, lulled to sleep by grunting and bellowing seals.
When I asked Peter about his memorable wildlife sightings he mentioned an enormously large bait ball of fish at the edge of Point Doom. The clarity of the water was so impressive that he enjoyed the schools of various fish darting in all directions.
At the end of our call I mentioned to him the articles that I published about his journey as well as the large number of people sending him words of encouragement, he shyly and quite poetically said, “Like rings in the water, they slowly spread out.” To know Peter, you will see a young man that has zero interest in social media or fame. He is extremely humble and kind as well as possessing that childhood curiosity of adventure that most of us abandon or forget about as we all get older.
Finally, before hanging up, I asked Peter, what are your thoughts of your journey so far?
He simply said, “Fun in the Sun.”
Paddle on Peter! Stay tuned for the next update. #boundbywater
Read Part one of Peter's story here
Read Part two of Peter's story here
