longboarding in the sun with dolphins

two straight days of sunshine in lima after five straight months of fog. only small waves poured into the bay on saturday and sunday, so i dusted off my longboard for the first time in a year and went paddling. i pulled off the outside fins and rode it with just the big single fin, hoping to get a looser feel in the small surf that the charts put at 4.5 feet. the rides at punta roquitas lasted for what seemed like an eternity, and you if you caught the right, instead of the sharper left, you could walk up the board, put a knee down, grab a rail and just squeeze yourself into the sweet spot while putting an arm up and thinking to yourself "jesus, i feel like i'm in a powell peralta skateboard video from 1984." fish were jumping out of the water. birds were hunting and, on sunday, three dolphins swam by the break to say hi. one of them was so enamored by the sunshine that he caught a wave. they are amazing swimmers, big, powerful and muscular. i know of no capital city other than lima where you can surf with dolphins and pelicans...

update 1: a kind reader wrote to say you can also surf with dolphins in capetown. now that may be, but the dolphins in lima aren't surrounded by sharks as they are in south africa...