10,407 days

Dale WEBSTER, the 55-year-old Sonoma County man profiled with his beach ball-size wad of used surf wax and heap of holey neoprene in last summer’s documentary “Step Into Liquid,” on Sunday will pass a milestone: 10,407 consecutive days of surfing in sharky Northern California waters. Why such an odd number? It falls on the fifth Sunday in a February, an anomaly that occurred in 1976 and stuck in Webster’s mind as worthy of repeating. With only a few sessions left till the big day, the “Daily Wavester” reflected on his purely arbitrary but long-professed goal.

What’s so special about Feb. 29?

I started Sept. 3, 1975, so on the 29th it will be 10,407 days. Eight leap years. And five Sundays in a row -- twice. Sunday’s always been considered this religious day of rest, of giving thanks, and I wanted to be a person that surfs religiously.

Why not just go for something obvious, like 25 years?

Well, I’m not surfing against anybody. I’m surfing against myself. And I’m challenging the calendar. If somebody wants to break my record, start today and surf every day, and in 2032, on that Feb. 29, that’s when someone can break my record. Do you think anyone will break that record?

Probably not. Do you hold a Guinness record now for surfing the most days in a row?

Yes. In the 2004 edition of the “Guinness Book of World Records,” on page 247, there’s a record: 10,000 days in a row.

But if Guinness has already recognized you, what is there to prove?

On Feb. 29, you can say with a smile that dreams can come true. If you set yourself up for a dream, no matter how impossible, how ridiculous, you can accomplish that.

And on March 1, you’ll quit?

It would be a good idea, but I probably won’t.

-- Matt Walker