I'm sure Kirk will have some suggestions... If you want to come up to Santa Barbara, the reflections off the harbor breakwater are also often quite messy. There is always someone paddling saturdays @9am from the harbor (Sea Landing, specifically), and typ also tue/thu ~5:30pm. Ventura breakwater reflections tend to be worse, though
![:-) :-)](/media/kunena/emoticons/smile.png)
(or is that 'better'?) I'm out of commission for another week due to injury, but I'd be happy to make an appointment afterwards.
If I were to practice alone, I'd get to the end of the breakwater that is downwind and/or down-current so in a pinch I could push past the breakwater swimming or whatnot and end up on one of the sand beaches that flank the harbor. The other thing would be to start relatively far away from the breakwater where the reflected waves peter out and slowly come closer.
Another option might be to time your paddling with one of the island packers boats so you can be a bit out from the harbor entrance, hop in the water right when the boat speeds by and then remount in the wake? Might go by too quick for a real remount, though.
Another option might be to coordinate with ckf folks (
www.ckfkayak.club/). They tend to head out every sunday morning 9am and rescued a SUP fisherman this last sunday :-). They sea kayak, not surfski, but I've spent a sunday morning with them back in Feb and will do so again. There's a rescue practice scheduled for aug 19th which I'm planning to attend as I'd like to know whether/how to help a kayaker from my surfski.
Welcome to the extended neighborhood!