Endless Session, Day 316: Never Turn Your Back On the Ocean
Maybe the smallest wave that came through on Day 316. Photo by David Olive
David Olive and I sat under Tower 12 at Doheny yesterday, watching as the water filled with bodies. A board shot away from its master, and like a fiberglass rocket with a dangerously sharp fin, propelled towards two waders on the inside who were facing the shore and not the powerful incoming walls. I ran toward them, ignoring the sharp rocks under my feet, screaming as loud as I could “TURN AROUND, TURN AROUND!!” and they spun just in time to duck down deep, narrowly missing a concussion or much worse. As I sank back in my beach chair, David shook his head and muttered, “You never, ever turn your back on the ocean.”
Today the sets were bigger, the water was liquid silk, and it had enough size for the outer reef to intermittently be breaking, which makes it possible to get an extra long ride on the reform to the inside. After a few hours between boneyards and second spot, I paddled 100 yards into the sea, past everyone to that oddly-breaking reef, where every 10 minutes a wave was heaving up.
I sat by myself, legs disappearing under the murky water. And I waited. And waited. 10 minutes went by. Then 20. Then 30.
Impatiently, I turned around and started slowly knee paddling in. Stroke, stroke, look at the green glimmer on the surface, stroke, stroke. Something behind me caught the corner of my eye. I twirled my neck and saw the looming wave coming in at mach speed, then flipped over and held my breath and my board underwater as the freak wave broke right on top of me. Flipping over, I caught a gasp of air just in time before the one behind it hit me hard.
I managed to hang onto my board and set my course for shore, and you’d think I would’ve learned my lesson. I stepped my feet onto the rock laden beach, and didn’t care to look behind and time the shorepound, falling over and shouting loud expletives when the explosion of water on beach sent fist sized rocks pelting into my now bloody heels and calf. White hot pain merits a description.
I clambered to the parking lot and sat in my car for an hour in a daze, shoulder a bit strained and feet throbbing. David knocked on the window and fed me some ibuprofen, and my all day adventure got cut a few hours short — I sped home, salty, gross, bleeding, stoked on the fun waves, and David’s wisdom ringing in my ears.
Photo by David Olive