Free Ride
FREE RIDE
Labor Day in SoCal means sunny skies, crowded beaches and a gentle 2-3 foot swell kids can play, so we visited family friends in their home in Huntington Beach. In 1963 I was 18 and had not yet seen the Hawai'i already legendary, but I literally crawled into the Surf Laguna Beach when I was six months. I kept the right course, spending my time outside school bodysurfing and diving. Just to keep the beach lifeguards on their toes, I had already "shot" between the piles of each between Santa Monica Pier and La Jolla in eras I do not even remember.
It was ten years until satellite photos, radar images or any kind of prediction of the swell, then my brother Tom and I expected some small shoulders of Huntington while our parents watched their beach chairs.
What we found was15-dumping Closeout foot surf - the largest I have ever seen. Huntington is a long sandy point without interruption - just swells huge dumping outside, the reform of a hundred meters Out of dumping and again hit the beach in a wall of foam strong enough to beat us over the knee deep water.
Merely outside was hopeless, not to mention catching a decent round. young and stupid, we gave it a try.
We have nowhere. In any Obviously, with a swell that big, we needed a break point just to get out - a pause or discarded. This is the best groundswell of our lives, and we would have been at the Wedge.
Back to the beach house, Tom and I lobbied for a drive to Newport .. The only problem Mom knew was that his surfing, and she knew the area. No question, today!
Plan B was to convince Mom Snorkeling in the Corona Del Mar Cove, usually ideal for a pleasant day snorkeling. There is a small spit of sand but beautiful Nestling wharf at the foot of Newport Harbor, well protected inside the pier twice. The other side of the canal is the corner of legend, the greatest, most wretched, strange shore break anywhere east of Hawaii.
Mom has seen throughout our strategy and said that if we went bodysurfing on a big day that we went to Corona Del Mar side. Maybe she can still snorkel.
It was a fair compromise. And we're off.
Thank you for the mothers. Corona was a beautiful 15-tear over pic submerge the foot of the breakwater, deep suck if we've seen rocks that had not seen the air since they built the jetty. The beach was packed with a Labor Day crowd, but only a couple of dozen bodysurfers. The form has been excellent, and out was easy enough. Waves broke big, in many water, so we took some risks, experimenting, and spent the day playing with the tip. Sometimes we caught the field, fell right down the face, made a radical turn and ran down the tubes. When they collapsed, we hid behind, came up against a monstrous wall but predictable. No problem.
Our favorite game is now pitching intentionally falls, headfirst into free fall at the foot of the wave, Tuck, and let us take the momentum from under the waves just in time for the surface in the line up the next wave.
It was something like a 15-foot "water" on a river, except that we had to work to stay in the ring. We played like that for hours.
By early afternoon, the lifeguard was happening with his megaphone nuts until caught my attention. He showed a swimmer so tired he headed towards the pier Barnacle encrusted instead of the beach. Even an experienced mariner would go die for the pier when the water's edge. This guy was so inexperienced, he did not know he was going to become hamburger.
I reported the guard that I had it under control. His hands were already full. The guy was already so close to the rock it was foolish to go and get him, then of course I did.
Not mad, I considered my options. My Super Extra Large Voit Duck Feet gave me torque-time, pause, take a cons-chest carry, and shoot him beyond the break before we both are dumped onto the pier. Plan B was to leave peak big to wash over the dam and canal without breaking rocks, a real option with low percentage of percentage negative consequences.
Fortunately, I was able to get the guys away from the pier. I waved off guard. Now it has become a rescue normal - all I had to do was done through 15-foot surf.
My victim was really tired and really panicked at the edge of panic. He did not normally. This was the pre-shredder, and who knew where the wrecker was, even if she left the port. I have taken this Guy through the surf.
We regrouped outside the break with waves reaching a peak, but no break yet. It is an interesting place to calm a victim, I had no choice but to calm my new friend, assess situation, explained what we would do, and do it.
The next time you're on this roller coaster forming waves of 15 feet, imagine pulling someone out of there, with or without fins. In the trough, there is nothing but water. Ridge, you'll have a look frustrating and elusive to dry land safely beyond the huge break in front of you.
There really only one way to handle an unassisted rescue the large dumping surf, and it is not fun. swim gradual rapprochement with the break with your victim, and wait at the height of a break in the series. When the peace comes, "swimming" like hell through the impact zone before setting the next hits. Of course, all the water is dumped off the beach, and generally, your victim is dead weight anyway, will in this maneuver awaits each of you to get bitten.
Of course, your goal is survival of your victim, so you've got to break some rules. Your only hope of saving them in the soup of dumping is to stay with them - and the only way to stay together in this pandemonium of doubling Bear Hug, face to face. This makes you a serious candidate for a double drowning and Funny Farm. Bear hugs requires extreme faith in your superior conditioning and swim, and the hope that the victim out when things get really dark.
The last thing you want is to be dumping "Over The Falls", a problem because you're so lazy that you can never maintain speed with the wave - a bad place to be with as much water to wash the face of waves.
When you see the inevitable crunch time is looming, getting the lowest on face waves as possible, bear kiss, take one last deep breath - and get bitten. With luck, you can stay clinched impact. It's a sickening feeling of losing your grip on someone during the explosion.
This scenario should Uncomfortable be avoided whenever possible. Several tonnes of landfill water five feet high, throwing them both into a giant washing machine. But if you want to save a life, there are times when you have no other option.
We held our breath, bear-pressed, took the discharge, and according to plan, we fell on the beach right in front of the guard. It was my first contact with the mainland in a few hours.
The foam spitting victim for several minutes, then said: "Damn, I never realized the ocean waves were so big and strong. "
The guard and I shared a look that says: "What is this jerk talking about. This is the biggest swell of our lives. "
I said: "What do you mean, man? Is the biggest day I've ever seen"
Flat on back in the wet sand, my victim said: "Really - I am originally from Iowa. This is my first time at the ocean. I just thought Every day was like that. "
Disgusted, I took my fins, and ran back into the sea for a few hours freefall. But I karma "in reserve" for this rescue has helped save my life almost immediately.
Any day, the pier was flooded - not with the sprayer, but the thick greenery. It was the first time I seen this impressive show, and we all interviewed on the corner. We left about 4pm, trying to convince mom to drive the circuit in Newport trafficking Labor Day so that we can "look" waves. Of course, anyone surfing, but take a look. "It's only 200 meters in the Channel, but the corner is a long walk around Newport Corona.
Since the Corona car, we saw the tops of waves. Conduct of the cliff we obtained the impressive panorama. Mom dark. We were off the iceberg.
It was afternoon when we beat finally, but there was still traffic of hundreds of spectators ... but only two bishops in water,
I slid into my wet suit, grabbed the duck legs and sautéed sand cutting overheads in water and immediately caught a right 15 feet of Nice while I was swimming to the line up. The Wedge will double the size of anywhere else, so it was not an unusual. What was unusual was the right one.
The Wedge is a "bounce" wave. When a wave of jams in the area where the beach meets the pier, it bounces off the rocks almost perpendicular to the next wave. The days of reasonableness, it is very funny start to the pier, catches the rebound and race on the front to meet the next wave and built in a giant bowl.
The wave of rebound in the face packs wave oncoming, driving the wall so steep that the peak water "so quickly, you can hear liquid explode. When two forces meet, everything sucks, forming a cauldron called the 'bowl'.
Instead of bells and wide bowl collapses itself on each side. Wedgeheads can take the bounce off the jetty, race high on the wave away from the pier to hope "Beat the Bowl." We enter the bowl, which generally occurs on a slope, make a turn at the point of the bowl, shouting down and away from the break (and rocks) as the bowl collapses itself on both sides. Because of the complexity and dangers involved, Wedge is the perfect drive. To turn this into the bowl, rolling like a stunt plane into a steep turn, realizing you're doing the wave, then shouting in the face of stiff wave, is Nirvana.
However, rapid dissemination of the results off wave bounce a walk in a slow, arriving late in the bowl of collapse.
A clear is given. But you have options.
The safest option is to bail. Dive deep beneath the foot of the waves, and pop up before the next summit. This chip is a slow walk because without boost, you are doomed to jump back in the fall when you face this peak to collapse at the bottom of the bowl.
However, if you smoke, you may hit the lip of collapse with sufficient momentum to punch straight into a free fall. It's great fun for about three seconds. You arc in the sky, completely separated from the water. In top of your bow, you hang suspended in time. Just when you think: "Wow, what a beautiful space," survival genes start crying "Oh, shit. I'll fall in this pot! (See Linda 4 "launched a wave of Linda")
It's inevitable.
Well, none of this happened on my way. I started around the bowl, and peeled with breaking again in the rebound wave -- right towards the pier.
I realized the stupidity of my actions, but were not concerned. . I was perfectly placed on the wrong shoulder on one of these dangerous days, so I went and shouted in his face. When I got to recovery, I turned his face and a broken arch in freefall. It was a great ride.
I landed behind the wave of collapse, which breaks with Usual noise fall asleep. I heard cheers, and 19 years, I was stoked. I knew I was near the pier, but I was pumped with my own ego, and began to swim on his back like an otter, kicking, passing the line back up. I was a hero!
Suddenly, everything turned dark and the rain fell fast. I sucked in forming a wave, I pass on my stomach to cope a vertical wall already dark green with white foam that crosses his face. He was a monster - 30 or 40 feet and the pitching lip already beyond me.
The wave sucked water on the sand, a rare event that far, even the Wedge. For a moment, time stood stopped as I froze like a deer caught in headlights. I stood on the exposed wet sand, just 10 meters from the blocks of meat grinder, with tons of Green Death about to envelop me.
A million options crossed my mind. "What I do here "was not among them. I have not had time to feel sorry for herself.
Bodysurfing instinct says to dive under the wave so I dove at the foot of the wave, but the last water sucked face, and I landed back on the wet sand. It was a good thing. I stayed flat, becoming one with the crabs, limpets and barnacles that live on the pier, have evolved to resist flat surf.
The wave pitch began to fall. Imagine the Goodyear blimp filled with water, fell five storeys up. It was worse than that of a hundred tons of water power hit the sand with a force that would have crushed if I had not flat on the deck.
I took a deep gulp of fresh air, he expected to be my last.
The impact pushed me into the sand, then bounced back me up in the wave of collapse. The water peak at the beach with such force as he was down. The impact zone is where these energies cross at right angles, and I was at Ground Zero, buried under tons of water and rebounds implode.
When you're under them, the waves slow down Monster agonizing. The vortex is the tube, close the wound until it implodes with anger. I was helpless to thank you for the physics of waves, sucked back with a giant fire hose - ten feet above the sand and ten feet in the air. The white rage tried to break up my end as I've thrown a wet cyclone.
Those were the days before fin straps, and I well remember my palms sucked my feet, the most sickening feeling in my life. I lost myself in the impact area at the corner legendary one days, my only asset is my wet suit. I would not have burns sand, I could still dive under the waves, and I had just enough buoyancy to survive.
The ability to remember which way is "Up" is a special talent that prevents broken neck at the Wedge, Waimea or Sandy Beach. He also saved life when I was knocked out in cliff diving. I was able to maintain adequate for kicking a sandy bottom first - not easy when one is leaning back into turbulent waters. Of course, I instantly reversed and sucked down the lower slopes, while the wave sucked off the beach steep. I was short of air, pushing pulling me back into deep water.
After a long walk underwater wildlife, my air was finished. I found the surface just in time to take a breath before getting hit in full face by the next wave, as big as the first. Repeat the above.
After a third wave, I was wasted, but living, breathing real air, floating just outside the impact zone ... very important.
I also embrace the pier ... very important.
Fortunately, there were no sets worse. I could see waves form at the pier, and there was water below me. I also fins very tired and out. In waters of this magnitude, it's every man for himself, and I could not ask for help. But by then, I do not need. I was in a long, grinding haul tedious, but with determination, I could survive, and I knew.
It is generally tearing along the rocks takes you on an interesting walk along the pier to deep water, but I could not find, Then I floated, spending only enough energy to clear the pier, and my wet suit to work. When I regained enough energy to deal with currents and chop, I tried to get away from the rock. Without fins, the recovery took about 20 minutes.
My strategy was simple - get away from the pier, swimming behind the wagon, and ride the back of a "Small wave on the beach. My goal is only 100 meters, but without fins and sapped of energy in large seas, it still took me 40 minutes to go far enough off the pier where I could easily leave a "small" wave me spitting sand.
I too exhausted to take a wipeout, so I hung back on the wave and took a turn sluggish, falling behind the wave. I finally been "inside" with sand before me, but the section shorebreak reformed quickly. I sucked his shoulder at break in an ideal position for a pin on unsightly sand cliffs, where I scrambled to the bank cut before the next wave hit. With all my energy remains very fragile and knees, I stood in front of the berm, the head still three feet under the feet of spectators. I stuck my arm Straight Up - I Finally wrists in sand. I'm 6'4 ", so the bank cut should be about 9 feet.
Somebody caught my wrist and pulled me up to dry sand and safety.
I got my energy back teenage 15 minutes. Off came the combination isothermal and he came out of stories. From the shore, just the family but I had trouble catching large waves, after a full day at Corona. I recovered and was struggling on the brink of death for an hour, and that Mom was bummed I just took a ride.
When my knees stopped trembling, I walked to the corner where the pier meets the sand. The sun was setting, and I wanted to muse on what almost was. The Wedge was pumping again, though nothing like the whole massive almost took my life.
I looked the foam before me. Indeed, there were my two fins, hop around the corner.
I found the break, rushed in the surf and retrieved first, then the other. After all, Floating Duck Feet, Super Extra Large, were about $ 16/pair, special order and tomorrow is another day. (Reborn as classics, they Run U.S. $ 100 today.)
I know I died that day. Ego won the Teen Age best of me and clouded my opinion. The corner is not a baseball game, and break my concentration almost cost my life. Except for the karma to save tourists Corona Del Mar, instant and packaging excellent instincts, I would not be here writing this.
As I watched sunset, I realized that everything I did from that day became a free ride, and 62 years, I still live my life accordingly - Pushing the limits everyday.
Although, when I'm on the sea, I never lose my attention.
When all is said and done, the ocean does not care.
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About the Author
John "Caveman" Gray, AKA Ling Yai (Thai for Big Monkey)was first published nationally in the USA in 1957 in Parade Magazine. He's been writing, photographing and producing videos ever since. His stories have appeared in numerous national and international magazines and newspapers on everything from Science to politics and travel. You can catch many more stories in the "Readings" section at www.johngray-seacanoe.com
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