We (I) were in such a hurry to get there I put his suit on backwards and inside out. You can see the suit label under his belly button.
There were tons of people on the pier that day and they all cheered and clapped when he took each wave. He got cocky after a while and put his hands on the board and lifted one leg way up in the air as if doing a semi-handstand, making the crowd roar with laughter. Hilarious!!! I'm sitting here pondering surfing tomorrow am really early. Leave the house at 2:30 get there at 4:30. No that's too early. 3:00am, get there just before five get in and surf all out for a few hours then go to work. My self-imposed law states that the driving/ surfing ratio should be at a minimum 1:1, otherwise it's foolish to go. Im pretty spent from the events of the past few weeks, maybe I should just go to work. Guess I'll come to terms with the thought process tomorrow am when it's dark and quiet. As I write this I'm impressed with the change in the way that I feel about myself after surfing for almost four weeks straight. I've lost ten pounds. I can actually see muscles I forgot I had that became defined by surfing Gert, tropical storm 10, Irma, and Jose. I wish I could do this all the time, yet I have work, family, responsibilities, chores (like mowing my way-too-big lawn). To be totally honest, there's not a lot except for my parenting responsibilities and staffing at work that I factor in front of taking advantage of hurricane swells. They are a gift to surfers and rare events that are not to be squandered. As a result, not much gets in the way of my relationship with surfing at times like this (all year long also, to be honest). Get there before the sun, changing into my wetsuit in the dark with only the light of the cab of the truck to go by- who needs light anyway, I've done it a thousand times. When its dark, I don't even use a towel, just changing into a wetsuit with no clothes on in the middle of a parking lot. So weird. I tell my kid "don't worry, nobody cares (but he does). Walk across the rocks and slip into the cold "only at first" water and paddle out through the charging white water to get to where it's safe and sit there for a while catching my breath (never go for a wave when you're exhausted from the one before). Look for waves to catch at the same time admire the bobbing lights on the horizon of the fishing boats supplying New England with their catch of the day. Keep an eye out for the sun. When it comes through the wave, it's the most beautiful sight, something only surfers see. And as I write this (why can't we start a sentence with "and?"), I wonder how many people out there exist without a passion in their life? What is it like to never feel the effects of the life-giving drive I just outlined above, to never feel the invisible and irresistible urges like I'm describing? I hope I never live with that void because it seems to me from this distance it would be like being dead, living aimlessly from one season to the next. I look at it like this- you only live once. Live for as long as you can with some form of extreme passion, and be as happy as possible at whatever it costs you, as long as you don't trample others that get in your way. Find that passion and sink your teeth into it and don't let go. Be great at that passion. That's been my approach for years, but it wasn't until the past month that the pursuit of that happiness by surfing so much has really manifested itself in my awareness that for me, surfing helps me stay really really alive inside and out. .
Holy crap! Six straight hours in waves like this. Huge perfectly formed waves with insane wind spraying salt water for a couple hundred feet behind the wave with the force of a riot control hose. When you get off a wave (or get crushed by it) you gotta swim back to where it's safe, as if it's for your life, or you are gonna get crushed by the next waves in the set. Perfectly formed lefts and rights, many close outs so you had to be careful where you sat. High winds kept the crowd to a minimum. I'm sorry. Ever tried to tell someone how great your dog is? Bet the other person never truly understood how great your dog is after your description so I will not try to tell you about today's waves. My phone can't even capture the essence.
I will however mention a coupla things. I dove down really really deep today to escape one wave and after the freight train passed over me I heard boulders/rocks/pebbles grinding around somewhere from that waves power. Mother Nature is incredibly powerful. I also saw circular swirling clouds rotating around some distant center, and a comorant (I think) deep diving bird resurfaced next to me with a fish two inches long in its beak. It flinched. It shook. It convulsed many times 'till the fish was head first inside his beak. Then in just a few moments that fish was just a memory for me as it slid down the cormorants long black neck- a scaly present for the bird from mother natures grand design. I also saw rule breakers- you know the type from driving on the highway. People who only think of themselves and if they endanger others or ruin someone else's wave, they care not. They are called "KOOKS" by locals because they show their inexperience by doing really stupid, dangerous things. When water weighs eight pounds plus per gallon and waves (tens of thousands of gallons each) are going twenty miles an hour, people can and do get hurt. I think the word "kook" is very generous. When I see such behavior, I leaf through my inventory of insulting names, and "kook" pales in comparison. I guess that is a feather in the cap of the people who surfed before us to be a little more toned down in their critiques of others. Huge dangerous surf all last week, all this week, and apparently for the foreseeable future.
Huge clean waves peeling perfectly left for distances measured with odometers not yardsticks, peeling right into the wind for barrels big enough to camp out in. Long rides=long paddles back out. Torrential rain, dark ominous skies, scary dark mountains charging in from the horizon. Paddle for your life! Im doing housework today resting for this coming swell and this song came on.
Jack johnson for president! |
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