I started surfing on a ridiculously short short board. That's because I was kinda ass-like when I didn't listen to the kid at the surf shop.
An employee of mine introduced me to surfing in the early 90's. He was once ranked 14th in THE WORLD in body boarding. Pretty cool to surf with him- Lifeguards at Jones Beach on long island would get off their stand to go talk to him when he got out because of his abilities on waves- exciting to watch him do his magic, even for experienced water men like those guys. When I body boarded, the fins cut into my ankles and I would bleed for days afterward so I decided to try surfing instead. I went to a surf shop with the wrong attitude, thinking that I was above advice for some reason. The kid said "well, if you are just starting, I would suggest a long board because it's easier to learn. I smartly said "I'm a quick learner, I'll take that one," pointing to the little red 5.5' wafer staring at me. I will say conservatively that I never did well on that little board- couldn't catch the wave, couldn't surf. Years later I bought a longboard for $900 and that was when I truly started surfing. It was really easy to catch even the smallest wave, I was comfortable enough to look around, I competed efficiently (really) when going for a wave. Time went on and I realized that I didn't want to have a long board as my primary board so I bought another short board, and I had a lot of difficulty with that one also. I couldn't compete for the waves with better surfers, they always won. Board was too...short, thin, narrow. Everything was wrong with either me or that board. Just not a good relationship. So I called up Lynn Shell from OBBC on Cape Hatteras, NC, and told him my height, weight, surfing ability, where I surf, my experience level, and my goals. He took all that into consideration and made me my own board that was a little thicker up front, a little wider, but still 6.5' long with a swallow tail. Surfing on that was like magic, turning on that board was like skating on sharp ice skates. But above all, I could catch any wave offered to me, and competed well with the best (limited only by my fear of huge waves and late take-off aversion). I'm on my third one made by him now. My point in telling you this: walk in to a great surf shop and tell them the truth about your surfing ability. If you pretend to be the greatest of the great, you are just screwing yourself and delaying the point in time that you will really start to enjoy this sport. Take it from me, it's the truth! I know three Hawaiian islands really really well: Oahu, Maui, Kauai. Waves there average larger than our epic swells, almost on a daily basis so their surfers are definitely extremely competent athletes. Its amazing to watch them. I am extremely confident about my abilities in the water yet when I go to Hawaii, I know to be aware and when to say UNCLE! I've almost died there twice and never ever want to live through that again. It is not only humiliating on a deeply personal level but also embarrassing. I did not need to be rescued by anybody, it wasn't like that, but while it was happening, part of my brain wondered if I was going to survive. Hawaii is a very dangerous place if you are not careful and aware.
Incident 1: Late 90's at sunset beach. I paddled out with about three or four other guys already out. It's easy because there is a really strong rip current to the left of the wave. Take the rip out, surf back. Easy, right? I, at that time was a great surfer (in my head only), and had a 7' board and little experience. I waited for a while and watched as other guys took waves over and over. I decided to sit a little more on the inside to catch the waves that those better surfers did not want. As soon as I got to where I thought I wanted to be, a larger set came with the first wave about to land right on top of me. I ditched my board and dove as deep as I could (there was nobody behind me for my board to hurt). The too-short 6' leash was ripped out of the tail of the board leaving me in the turmoil at Sunset beach with no flotation device. I paddled up to get air after the wave passed by, an extremely difficult thing to do when the white water is 60%air and 40% water. Hands paddling mostly air just doesn't get you anywhere but tired. When I finally got to the surface, I saw that there was another wave looming directly over my head. I grabbed three really quick breaths and dove as deep as I could to avoid the freight train. Same thing happened- when the wave had passed, I struggled to get back up only to find yet another wave directly over my head. This happened four or five times. The fear, fatigue, breathlessness all added up to my saying to myself "this is the last one, I can't go down again, I'm just gonna stay up here and let the wave hit me. When I got back to the surface after the last wave I looked up anticipating a huge ugly wave face to be roaring towards me but all I saw was blue sky. I swam in to the beach and crawled up onto the pristine sand really really really glad that that experience was behind me. I grabbed my board that I couldn't use any more (because of the leash attachment having been pulled out) so I had to go buy a new one. I would say that if I wasn't the swimmer that I was and wasn't in the kind of shape that I was in at the time, It might just have been curtains for me. It does happen there, though, with less fortunate endings. One time I was staying there, there was a surfer's collection to get enough funding to send a young Ecuadorian boy's body back to his country so that his mother could bury him. Nobody knew what happened, they just found his body on the sand at sunset beach. Incident 2: I don't know if it was the same trip as "incident 1" or if it was on another trip but this incident also occurred at sunset beach on Oahu's north shore, some time in the late 90's. I had been on the master's swim team for ten straight years, and I was in excellent shape. The surf report was really great, with the waves growing to 15' Hawaiian size throughout the day. I hopped in to the rip which zipped me out to the wave in seconds. That riptide was like the Niagara river after ten straight days of rain, violent choppy water. I sat in the lineup watching the other surfers take these enormous waves, and when the wave would pass under me, I would look back behind me at the guy who was surfing that wave and I realized at that time just how big these waves were. I felt like I was sitting on the top of a telephone pole looking down, that's how big they were. At that point, I realized that I was never going to surf any of those waves, they were just too big and mean, so I decided to paddle back in. To my left were the violent waves crashing toward the beach, and to my right was the Niagara river rip current. In between there was a strip of water about six or ten feet wide that looked swirly with no apparent current. I started paddling in and soon realized that I wasn't moving anywhere. I started to get concerned about how I was going to get back in. I couldn't go to my left because the white water was just way too violent, I couldn't paddle against the rip, and the water in between was not getting me anywhere. I remembered that the waves were growing all day and that's when I started to get a little panicky. I looked to my right and saw two girls paddling toward shore on their longboards (much easier paddling experience than my little short board. They had the very same looks on their faces that I must have had. All of it added up to "you're in trouble now, David!!!" I paddled my ass off as if it was for my very life in my six foot wide strip of water, and it must have been about half an hour later that I reached the sand, happy to be alive. During that half hour, I wanted to stop two hundred times, but I didn't, knowing that any stopping would result in loss of recent gain. I guess I relied on my swimmer's training to keep going. I dragged my almost lifeless body up onto that beach for the last time, and never went into the water ever again at sunset beach! Many of these scenes are shot on Maui at a state park right next to “Mamas restaurant” east of the airport. Jaws is right around the corner from mamas. HUGE waves all the time. The wind surfers get the wave from noon on because that’s when the wind is at its best, surfers get it in the morning. This is a big big wave with a shredding coral reef inland- you gotta paddle a channel to get out or you’ll be de-skinned, then come back in the same way. Ive seen these superior athletes soar 40’ up off the wave- incredible! I’ve also seen them get crushed with their rigs reduced to trash by the huge surf. Nobody seems to windsurf anymore. When there is nothing to even look foreword to, you gotta put out!!!
At home, at work, in your relationships, work extra extra hard to put out- be the very best worker. Be the most productive, efficient worker in your company. Be top dog. At home, do whatever is necessary to keep the place working smoothly. Pay it forward as they say. Be 110% efficient. Go the extra mile in everything that you do so that when good surf comes along again nobody could possibly give you a hard time for the time you need to take off. When the next swell comes, you will have positioned yourself well, and the time away from work and home will be well earned and everyone will know it. That’s the way I look at it anyway. She is leaving before getting here, musta been something I said. So much for having hope for more surf.
Ophelia, if she comes closer to us, breaks a 100 year record! I guess fall of 2017 was the best year of surfing for over 100 years according to NOAA, yet they didn’t surf back then- so I guess it’s safe to say “ EVER.”
We saw nothing surfable but did see a seal in this video, second one I’ve seen here in the water, how cool. Visible to the right of the rock I always hit when paddling out in big surf. Drove all that way for nothing, was mostly optimistic rather than cerebral about this trip. We then tried out a beginners beach: Ive gone back to surf here but not for years. I’d have to be really desperate to surf here again. Usually close outs but sometimes surprisingly big and nice especially in the fall with warm water, blue skies, glassy waves. Not today though. My son and I waited for two hours then drove home with our tails between our legs- impatient warriors with no war to wage.
Two day’s forecast with “normal” bumps peeking their measly heads above the oceans SURFace with weakling 6-7-8 second period waves. Don’t get me wrong, they’re really fun too. In fact, I’m going today with my kid (it’s Columbus Day- no, it’s “Native American day.” I’ve wanted to eliminate Columbus Day from my vocabulary for ten years). No school today so we are going surfing even if it isn’t the best conditions. The pitiful hurricane Nate is causing these waves, he went over land, lost his MOJO. Swirling off the coast of Africa is tropical storm 17, though, some eyes watching it for waves ten days from now. Not getting my hopes up though. I’m finally resettling myself back into my normal life after the best surf month in history. Everyone runs when they see me coming, afraid that I will tell them (AGAINNN) about surfing last month.
My favorite surfing rock proudly sits on the kitchen table, refusing to be put with the others. One solid five week period of continuous world class surf conditions right here on the east coast. UNHEARD OF!!! Everyone agreed that nobody had ever seen it before-so good for so long. So big- never before. Surfer's lives filled with yesterday's stories, living today's, looking forward to tomorrow's. No end in sight. And when one is in the middle of such endorphin drug-fueled drama, there's no thought to what happens when it's all over, just living like a kid in the moment. When the endorphin drug is all used up- no more waves. No more exercise. No more surf. What now? Back to life. Certainly what we surfers lived this past month wasn't normal life. It was out of this world excitement of the rarity of Mother Nature at her finest/meanest, living totally immersed inside her. Where can we go to live inside her again? Can we go back to living our normal lives and be happy ever again? Or do we have to go on with our normal lives always thinking back to the fall of 2017, wondering what could have been if we as younger people found a place in the world where we could live this kind of life more frequently? No surf for the foreseeable future now. I equate this empty surfing feeling with the analogy of finding a sexy girl who was as excited with me as I was with her. Spend time with her even if it was for just one night only to take her to the airport for her flight back to her native land, never to be seen or heard from ever again. Tears in my eyes as I walk back to the airport parking lot to find my car. Remember those days? One could also draw parallels to alcoholics or drug addicts who are out of their chosen supply...eyes closed, dreaming of the good old well-stocked days. There must be much more to athletic passion than athletics and physical efforts- there must be deep seated psychological addictions as well. Unknown chemical relationships between extreme physical passion, nature, exertion, etc. Whatever. All I'm saying is that it has been really hard to get back to my life and there has to be more to that difficulty than meets the eye. That visual of that lost love is pretty much why I took this picture on the way home last Thursday. Maria was being pushed away from us, never to be seen or heard from ever again. No more Irma, gert, Jose, or tropical depression 10. No more surf until the little crappy 8 second period waves visit us for a few hours sometime soon. So sad! Moral of the story: enjoy what you've got when you've got it because when it's gone, you don't want to look in the rear view and have any regrets! I have zero regrets about the past month. I stayed in the waves each day I went to surf for continuous 6-7-8 hour periods, took every single wave I had the strength and the balls for, pushed my limits, attacked. Got better, crashed a lot. Obeyed strictly the surfers rules! Got worked... and lived my life to the absolute fullest extent possible. Love of one's ONE LIFE does not get better than that! Leash broke on 9/26/17, biggest day of surf in recent memory ever in my favorite spot. I omitted this story from the entry about Tuesday because it was a non-event, actually, overshadowed by the gigantic endorphin-fueled excitement of that day's other events.
I contacted custom X about what happened to my bicep strap saying that it was probably not designed for such conditions but within a few hours, they wrote back and were sorry that it happened to me, said they had never seen it happen before, and offered to give me two to replace the one that broke. I also work retail, and I'm just puttin' this out there: rarely have I ever seen such prompt, polite, human-oriented customer service in my life. Their products are of the highest quality, but their customer service is of an even higher quality. I am now a customer of theirs for life. You can mail order their stuff or get it from OBBC Surfing products in cape hatteras, NC. Lynn Shell is the owner, and you can find em online!!! I met a guy on the ledge before I got in Tuesday morning and he gave me his card. His rig was grounded because of poor visibility but he did manage to get these three pictures.
You absolutely cannot get any idea of the bone-crunching power of these waves from so high up and at these angles, but you can see the period between the waves is abnormally immense, focusing all the power of the innumerable tiny waves into one enormous one. Brian will, for a fee, go with you and record you surfing on clearer, less windy days. |
Archives
September 2022
Category |