Actually, a lot of his customers also hit the OBP Cafe on a regular basis for its eggsmachaca and lobster omelette. So does Frank, for that matter, a good lobster omelette (okay, any lobster omelette) being a difficult thing to come by. So if there’s one right next door, you tend to take advantage of it.

But not at 4:15 in the morning, even though the OBP Cafe is open 24/7. Frank just polishes off his sandwich, parks his van, and walks out to his shop. He could drive out there-he has a pass-but unless he has some equipment or something to bring in, he likes to walk. The ocean at this time of the day is spectacular, especially in winter. The water is a cold slate gray, heavy this morning with the ominous swell of an approaching storm. It’s like a pregnant woman this time of year, Frank thinks-full, temperamental, impatient. The waves are already slapping against the concrete support pillars, making little explosions of white water burst into the air below the pier.

Frank likes to think about the long journey that the waves make, starting near Japan and then rolling all the way across thousands of miles of the North Pacific just to break against the pier.

The surfers will be out in force. Not the spongers, the wannabes, or the kooks-they will and should stay onshore and watch. But the real guys, the gunners, will be out for these swells. Big waves, thunder-crushers, that will crash all along the old spots and breaks, which read like a litany in a surfers’ church service: Boil, Rockslide, Lescums, Out Ta Sites, Bird Shit, Osprey, Pesky’s. Both sides of the OB Pier-south side, north side-then up along the coast-Gage, Avalanche, and Stubs.

Frank gets a kick just reciting the names in his head.

He knows them all-they’re sacred places in his life. And those are just the breaks around OB-go farther up the San Diego coast and the litany continues, from north to south: Big Rock, Windansea, Rockpile, Hospital Point, Boomer Beach, Black’s Beach, Seaside Reef, Suckouts, Swami’s, D Street, Tamarack, and Carlsbad.