By eight, the mob had arrived. Rising and falling with the swells, we appeared as mere flotsam on the surface of the ocean. No one talked, just an occasional nod of the head in recognition. The sky was a dull gray slate and the air motionless. A heavy presence lingered in the atmosphere like a forbidding premonition. Buoy twenty-nine had reported eight feet and building the night before.
We were there to greet the swell and watch it grow. We surfed meaty overheads for a couple of hours then the take off points began shifting further out towards the point. Half the crowd went in when the swell reached, somewhere, around eight feet with double overhead faces. Then the waves began shifting and backing off as the tide receded into deeper water. The surfing became less and the paddling more.
It wasn’t long before newer, healthier sets began to define the horizon. When the first of these waves came through they moved as if under steam, the tops hissing down at us as we paddled up their solid faces. A few surfers hung around to catch these beauties but still larger stuff appeared outside. My mentor and surfing buddy, who everyone called ‘the Buddha‘ because of his experience, saw them first and led a small group of us out.
Someone yelled to the inside group but I knew it was too late for them and as I paddled towards the cresting waves I just hoped it wasn’t too late for me. Five of us made it out, three of us on long boards. Three sets later, we sat looking seaward but saw nothing. No swells, just ocean that heaved and undulated. We sat and waited wondering what was going on. The Buddha was becoming uneasy and began to, slowly, paddle out searching the distant surface. I followed, the other three strung out behind me.
We were about five hundred feet off the shore and a couple of hundred feet off the tip of the headland. It was here that we paddled into the brownish white foam of a rip stretching out like a river on the ocean. Caught in the rip, off the point, we were soon paddling hard seaward to escape its’ relentless pull. Being no stranger to rips, I knew and hated that period of time in the zone where you appear to go nowhere. Wondering if the rip is stronger, you start looking around to see if you’re losing ground. It was at this time, with the five of us strung out with twenty to thirty feet between us, that I noticed the dark line on the horizon. I would not have seen it if I hadn’t been trying to stay with the Buddha who was leading the pack. I couldn’t keep my head up any longer and was paddling staring down at my board and grunting with each stroke. My air wheezed in and out through clenched teeth. I glanced up and saw the Buddha had distanced me and was looking outside with his head held high. It was then that I clearly saw the wave. I could feel the adrenalin course through my body. Fear or excitement? I didn’t care. Psycho boggle had pushed me into the outer realm.
I paddled out of the rip quite easily and headed straight for the growing line. The Buddha must have been tiring because I caught up with him in
moments. He looked over at me. A strange smile twisted his face and he just shook his head in the universal sign of wonderment. I was grinning from ear to ear. My cheeks began to ache. I was thrilled and scared beyond belief.
” Come on, Buddha, ” was all I could muster.
The dark line was taking form. Beyond it was the rest of the armada. The swell was officially in and expected to increase during the day. I paddled hard, my feet over my but. With a hundred feet to go, my arms were turning to noodles. They, more or less, flopped over my head to splash into the water. I had to roll from side to side to pull the board forward. The Buddha caught up, now staring straight down at his board, emitting rhythmic snorts as he pulled through the water. I tried so hard to match his strokes that I almost fell off my board. Time slowed down as the wave rolled in. I had no idea if my board was moving forward or not and I had nothing left. The Buddha was fifteen feet in front of me when he began crawling up the sixteen-foot wall. When he went over the top, I was just entering the trough. I clawed at the face and just before I punched through the lip I heard, ”Ah, shit!” from behind me. The Buddha and I were the only ones to make it out. Neither of us turned for any of the waves. We paddled slowly among giant swells feeling the rhythm. We knew that, whatever happened, it wasn’t going to be crowded.
After nearly, twenty minutes when the waves took on a semblance of clean form and predictability, the Buddha chased down a large wall. I watched him turn and paddle into a large volume of water. He rose and dropped from sight amongst a great display of windblown spray that was pushed up from the trough as the wave sped toward shore. I watched the backside of the wave and many seconds later he reappeared, erupting from the wave like a porpoise leaping from the sea. After he paddled back to me he told me that, in order to catch these waves, I would have to wait until it looked like the wave was going to fall on me. I knew that I was not comfortable with this idea, but I paddled to the inside anyway. Excitement or fear. Now was not the time to think about it. I turned and searched for my wave. The Buddha watched. I picked the third wave of the next set. I paddled out in front of the first wave, watching the peak and face and studying the face for the entrance. As the second wave traveled beneath me, I knew where I would catch my wave. There was no one around to wrestle for position; the line-up belonged to me. I sat on my board facing the wave while the wind picked up and began to whip around me, stinging my eyes with salt spray. Yes, and my heart was pounding too. This was very much like fear. As the wave reared up in front of me I had a clear picture in my mind of the floor of the ocean shelf squeezing the energy of the wave to the surface, forming this huge mass of water. I couldn’t believe that I was going to try to ride this mountain of sea.
It looked like it was going to break on me so I figured it was time. As it picked me up I felt significantly detached from my body, as though I were watching myself from a distance. Then a loud hiss, sounding as though a giant snake lay hidden somewhere within the lip of the wave and with a roar and a rush reality came knocking. The board skipped three times down the face but the truth was now known: I was too terrified to come un-glued. The bottom turn was easy; I had all day to set it up. I came off the turn, I thought too fast until I saw the wave behind me. I climbed into the wall watching a block long section form in front of me and drove to the top with every bit of rail I could find. With a sinking heart I realized I wasn’t going to make it over the huge lip that was forming two floors over my head. I was caught in between sky and floor with nowhere to go but deep into the ocean.
Continuing to climb, a crazy plan began to form in my nearly frozen mind. If I wasn’t going to make this wave I was going to do so in style.
As I drove the board upwards the lip of the wave was formed, not by pitching out but more like growing a monstrous protruding pout shredding a white spray into the air above it. I intended to drive my board off this protrusion in a shredding back-hand cut back into oblivion. I left fear behind and in its’ place an angry aggressive emotion took hold. All that was left now would be the possibility of regret.
‘How much lighter was the green of the ceiling.‘ I remember thinking in a remote sort of way as the board stalled and the huge, pitching, hissing and roaring lip of the ceiling took me and the board off the face. I took the board in my hands as we became separate pieces of driftwood on the face of a watery world. I wallowed in the lip like it was a cold giant bath before I got the nerve to look down, and then I wished I hadn’t. It was a long, long way down without an elevator or stairs and I couldn’t get rid of the board. The board stayed next to me all the way down and as I was driven into the bottom and pinned I heard it snap with a muffled and hollow sound and then I was hauled along the bottom like a dixie cup.
The next few seconds were spent in intimate knowledge of the rocks as I was drug along the bottom in the relentless surge. I was beginning to understand an all new aspect of surfing. I had only been down, maybe, fifteen seconds but it felt like minutes and my stomach began to suck in and out on its’ owns violation. Finally the surge let me loose and I managed the surface, gasping and sucking foam just in time for the final wave of the set. I knew I was going to drown and just went limp. This time it wasn’t so bad. I just rode it out like a twisting, turning roller coaster ride under water. Then I slowly fought the ebb on top of the broken half of my board into the beach.
The Buddha rode about five waves before he paddled in and talked to a few surf photographers. He was totally stoked to find out that they wanted to use the shots they had taken of him and publish them in the surf magazine they represented. The Buddha couldn’t wait for the issue to come out and when it did you won’t believe who got published. That’s right. Near the center spread was an eight by eleven photo of me clutching my board in the biggest lip ever. I was ten feet out from the wave and on my way down. The Buddha was furious and wouldn’t believe I was trying to rebound off that huge wave.
Like I have always said; heroes aren’t born, they just make the wrong decisions at the right time.
Outside
