1/5/23

We knew something was coming but we didn’t know what. The buoy chart was predicting 20ft at 18s from 280. If you were to make up a massive perfect swell here, your parameters would be something like that. But there was so much uncertainty with it; a storm front stretching from Mexico to Canada, a shifting wind forecast, and inches of rain set to fall whenever it wanted. I opted to work in the morning thinking it would be stormy then, and try to get some waves in the afternoon when it was supposed to clean up. 

I could see waves on the cams while I was trying to learn how to draft a topo on auto cad 21’, and it was getting hard to focus. Learning land surveying software programs has been the most difficult thing I’ve ever tried, and I don’t have much confidence in myself for it. Nonstop phone calls and texts from friends did not help me focus.  At one point while on a call with my coworkers I mentioned that I shouldn’t be the one to do the final version of the drawing, since it’s probably going to suck if I do. “It will if that’s your attitude” was the response. 

At noon I couldn’t take it anymore, and I frantically made lunch and threw my stuff in the car. I drove straight to Ledbetter beach, where my brother was about to paddle out. I got a phone call from Decker, who was checking sandspit from the pier.  He gave a play-by-play as 4 people consecutively came out of barrels. The waves were bigger and more lined up than they were earlier, and the tide was rapidly dropping. My brother was ready to go, so he went out to Sandspit. I got changed and started to walk down to the spit with Decker when some people convinced us that paddling out from the beach behind the spit was the best way to get out because the current was sweeping so hard. By the time we set down our stuff at Sandspit and walked up toward the yacht club, my brother was already running back with a snapped board. He was gonna grab his other one from the car and paddle out right behind us. 

The sets were getting bigger and more consistent, and they were breaking way out on a reef that normally gets more action from fisherman than waves, and were reforming into hellish explosions in waist deep water. A friend positioned atop the sand rampart (which would be gone by the following day) that protects the parking lot gave me the ‘ALL CLEAR’ signal and I was able to squeak through the shorebreak and start moving down to sandbar safely. Halfway there, a grom was caught inside in between the break wall and the waves. A guy was trying help him, yelling in a thick South African accent. The kids leash snapped and he was able to swim out past the waves. A pair of old friends were on a jet ski nearby, and I was able to get their attention and have them come pick the grom up. They're both Firefighters and have been EMTs and lifeguards in the past, as well as standout surfers in big waves. You couldn't have picked a better rescue crew. 

Everything was nervous, frantic energy. There was no mental preparation, no slow breaths, no confident self pep talks. It was show up and go, with only half confidence in what I was doing. We went from months of flatness to a week of fun swell to the biggest waves anyones ever seen around here. I expected some size from this swell but I was not ready for what I found.  I didn’t feel ready for what was coming to me, and I did a poor job of planning my approach and intentions for the session.

By the time we had spoken a couple words, the saffa and I had drifted into position at the corner of the break wall, and a set was coming. 3 ft high backwashes slammed 10ft walls ripped by sidechop from the wind and current. I went for one, hoping to take off a little further in from where the turbulence was, but I wasn’t ready for how fast it lifted me. I blew the drop and came up 50 yards in from where I took off. The saffa got the next one, stomping the drop and making it clear he was competent in solid surf. I tried paddling back out to the top but never even made it. The sweep was so strong that even thinking about turning for a wave made you lose ground. I caught a burger on the inside and walked around. I was able to jump in from the corner of the rocks at Sandspit and make it out, and after 20 minutes of paddling as hard as I can to get into position I caught a wave. It was an ok one, but pretty mushy. I did one turn off the top before it flattened out into the harbor channel.  I cut back around the green buoy that marks the safe channel for boats.

On my walk back I found my brother seated down at the end of the spit, a quarter of a surfboard hanging from the end of his leash. He told me he tried to paddle out from the beach break right after I did and almost drowned. He took 4 of the heaviest waves he’d ever seen straight to the head, and got caught inside in front of the rock breakwall. He bailed his board on the first, a mutant 10 footer, and came up with a sliver of a board. After the second, he wanted to swim in toward shore but was already in front of the breakwall. He took two more before he was able to get out past the waves and flag down the guys on the jet ski, who are childhood friends of his.  He didn’t know what would’ve happened if another one had come, but it would’ve been bad. 

I was discouraged from paddling out at the beachbreak, so when my friend Joel showed up we tried to jump in at the corner of the rock jetty at Sandspit. Joel’s from Hawaii and hasn’t surfed this spot much so I was trying to show him the paddle out technique, since I had just successfully done this a few minutes earlier.  I was showing him that the swell had exposed a rock I’d never seen before, which would break the surface only when the water surged out before a wave. You have to get a running start and angle out past it before you head toward the horizon. Without paying much attention, I saw a small break in the waves and ran for it. I jumped in and started to paddle wide toward the shoulder when I felt the pull of a wave dragging me out. It sucked me straight across the top of the rock that I had pointed out to Joel 5 minutes earlier, my hand and board making hard contact with the jagged jetty rock. The wave that sucked me out then broke on my head, and since I just had been smashed on a rock I couldn’t really duckdive it. The wave pushed me back across the top of the same rock, then washed me up to the sand. I landed on my feet in the exact same spot I started, 10 seconds later. My black beauty (with pin lines instead of thick black bands of course) was gashed from rail to rail across the bottom, and my hand was cut up too. I stood there for a second, dripping blood and disbelief and embarrassment. 

I went back out on my busted board. I managed to punch through the whitewater at the jetty corner and started to work my way out toward the takeoff spot in the nuking current. I swerved as far out to sea as I could, paddled as hard as my arms would let me, and after about 20 minutes I made it out past the end of the breakwall over toward the takeoff spot. A large set loomed from the horizon.  As it got closer, I could see the jet ski boys lining it up.  Tucker was driving, and swung Spencer into the second one, a proper bomb.  After negotiating the backwash, the face cleaned up and started to rise, so Spencer clung to the top of the hook with both arms.  I paddled over the crest to the image of him stalling there, nicely slotted in the pocket, but not barreled.  Maybe it was jealousy, but I did not hoot.  I caught a medium sized wave maybe a foot taller than me, and straight lined it all the way to the vortex of current at the bottom of the spit. The current somehow moved against you no matter which direction you went, meaning you had to fight constantly until your feet were on dry sand.  Luke Davis and I both got washed around before finding our footing.   I walked back up to the rocks, exhausted. 

Back at the corner of the rocks where the hoard of intermediates waited to jump in with their egregiously incorrect equipment, I ran into my friend Dylan.  We used to work together doing surf lessons, so we know each other’s abilities well-- he’s always been able to outwork me, outdo me one way or another.  Plus, Dylan loves big waves, so today was disneyland for him, but becoming sort of a purgatory for me.  He convinced me to walk back up toward ledbetter and paddle out, so we can drift back along the breakwall and try to catch a good one at the top of the spit.  I walked with him most of the way, and the place was thick with people I knew.  We finally made it to the pile of sand in front of the yacht club parking lot, which the rising tide was starting to erode away. Groups of my friends were milling there, all wanting to stop and chat, and it was starting to overwhelm me. I saw my brother, who tried to discourage me from paddling out.  At this point I lost track of Dylan, but I walked down to the water to try to paddle out anyways.  I saw what I thought was a break in the waves, paddled a short distance, and watched a set break way outside.  I duckdived a couple, and then rode one in when I saw that the waves would continue.  

I was discouraged but still wanted to give it another go, since the waves were improving significantly with the tide rising and the wind going offshore.  I took the fins out of my fucked up nice board, and set up my back-up, a grey epoxy 6’1 Stretch, which I like better than the channel islands anyways.  I should've just been on this the whole time, I thought as I strolled back toward the jump-off corner.  When I got there, I looked up to see a guy air dropping into a solid one.  It was jacking right in front of the rocks but didn't get a full hit from the backwash, so the guy got a clean entry.  I looked down for a second for whatever reason, and looked back up when I heard the hoots.  I saw a goofyfooter straightening out of the barrel, and as he got closer I recognized the green gun and long black hair swinging in the breeze.  I threw up my hands and claimed it for him as he jumped off, “Fuck yeah Dylan!”  I was so psyched to see him get that one after seeing how determined he was earlier.  It wasn’t until later that I realized that if I had been as determined as him, and stuck with him, we would have made it out together and I probably would've had a chance at a wave like that.  

Back at the corner I was having the same problem as the beachbreak, where it was essentially impossible to pick a solid window to paddle out in between the relentless sets.  This is not the problem you normally have around here.  Frank Curren and I paddled through one foamy gap, only to find a 4 wave set behind it. We gave each other a look of surrender before catching a whitewater in and heading back up.  It was starting to get dark and I knew this next attempt was my last chance.  The waves had cleaned up and were much smaller and more approachable than the roughed monsters earlier, so I just wanted one more.   The pressure made me nervous, but I felt at least more determined than I had the whole day.  I jumped off in a questionable gap, and had to duckdive a few medium sized waves that washed me halfway down the point before making it out the back.  The current was not nearly as bad as earlier, and I was able to paddle out to the takeoff without too much issue.  Other guys were able to as well, so I had to jostle through a few sets as guys took waves that I would've liked.  Finally one swung wider than everyone sitting deep could catch, and I was in the spot.  I guess my fatigued paddles and naively aggressive positioning weren't enough, as I got one foot to the deck before I was airborne with no chance of making it.  I was pissed but knew I had to give it another go.  I did the paddle-around from the middle of the point to the top one more time, this time cutting in early--before the end of the jetty and slightly underneath where the current shoots straight out from the corner of the rocks and swirls in a giant whirlpool.  I waited for a clean one and finally got a chance.  It looked like it might tube off the drop, but my exhausted legs kept me hunched at the bottom before straight lining through the section.  I did a couple weak cutbacks and finished it at the tornado at the bottom of the spit.  

That was it and I knew it.  All that energy spent, seen, felt, and that's what I was left with: 3 waves.  I walked back up the point with Jacob Atwood and we discussed whether the whole day, the frantic chaos, the ridiculous danger, and the absurd amount of paddling were worth it.  Neither of us were certain one way or the other.   I felt disappointed that I didn’t get a good barrel.  I thought I was a much more skilled and proficient surfer in conditions like that, and this was a day I’ve literally dreamed of.  To come up as short as I did, to be denied, humbled, and washed on the rocks made me realize that I have a long way to go before I'm ready to dominate in conditions like that.  It stung a little more knowing that I’ve spent my whole life surfing this spot and waiting for a day like this.  Looking back on it now, it's clear to me that my attitude determined my outcome, though.  My failure to plan my approach before each go-out is what made the whole session feel frantic and like I was trying to catch up. Even from the start of the day at work, I had a negative attitude and low confidence in my skills--whether it was autocad or duckdiving it doesn't matter.  The risk of failure is significant on a day like that, but still feels small compared to regret.   Next time I’ll be ready. 

In the days following the swell, we stayed busy chasing waves around town, and saw clips and moments emerge on social media and the news.  Dylan got an iphone clip of his wave and it honestly ranked highly among all the clips of successful waves from pros and whoever.  The honor of ride of the day was presented to a guy named Simon, who was out on a gunnish board and managed to paddle one of the taller sets.  He jumped the backwash and held his line high, letting the high-and-tight frothing lipline cover him for a second before dropping back down, running over a lobster trap line, and falling.  His quote ran in the Surfline Instagram the next day, “For that one day, surfing wasn’t individualistic. It was Communal”  He got it very right.  I felt the tightness of my community in all the familiar faces every time I walked back up the beach.  I was even excited when someone I didn’t know got a good wave, because I knew just how hard that was to pull off.  The lineup itself was not crowded; anyone who wanted a piece of one of those waves could find their space out there and get one.  It turned out that I didn’t want it as much as I thought I did, which is both a bummer and a lesson for next time.