Hearing the sound of crashing waves from the room, my eyes popped open wide as saucers and I raced down past the cabanas and sleepy security guards to see the grand sight that was well over 10 foot waves rolling like freight trains a quarter mile until blasting onto the El Salvadorian sand.
Last night, just before arriving at Thomas’s house on Punta Roca, the surf trio of Kris Hall, his girlfriend Taylor Stone and I spotted a break called La Paz, just to the south of the main point, and the long soft-looking lines were like sirens calling to our dancing longboard feet. Mellower looking than everywhere else we had seen, we thought it a good idea to book a car to take us here today, knowing from the forecast that things might be a bit rough at Sunzal.
Our car arrived, and driving through the poor town of La Libertad, our driver, who spoke no English, dropped us off and eventually we were able to communicate that we wanted him to stay with us, Pegi and Taylor planning to be alone on the empty beach while we sailed off into oblivion.
So, the waves….
Damn. Not the soft little lines we were hoping for. I sat on the beach and waited for Kris to paddle out, and as he pushed wholeheartedly through the monster sets coming in, I waited, watching Kris work his feet for a while and patiently timing the sets well enough to make it out. I stood up, emptying my head of fear or rationality and giving into nothingness.
But then they came.
I couldn’t ignore it – the short lived lull in the sea came to a resounding halt. They were massive and it was rough and there were so many and it was scary and all I could think about was hoping that Kris was ok and that him and his leashless board made it over the nearly 15 wave set that barreled through. I watched and watched and watched, and when the sea calmed finally spotted a white plank and on top a vested blonde body, intact and knee-paddling in on some softer shorebreak.
“I wasn’t happy. That was humbling.”
Being a little much for the gifted logger, there was no way I was going to go out in that mess. We moseyed back to town, and I skipped the afternoon waterfall hike for some relaxing beach time and a quick dip on the mellower-but-not-so-mellow inside section at Sunzal, getting a ragdolled myself and smashed into the sand by the shorebreak on the way in.  Big wave chargers and Ben and Thomas picked me up shortly after, and we dove into the city of La Libertad and sat amongst all types of beautiful people, creased and cracked with hard work and time, at a small kitchen, and shortly after we went to get some important supplies (Coronas), they took me to steal a few more looks at Punta Roca, now in all its glory, before finally going back to kill the last few hours with the sandy blonde surf trio before the red-eye home.
