A couple days off in the middle of the week with uncrowded northern lineups, solid swell, and glistening glassy right pointbreaks. I could nearly melt into myself right now.
Driving along the coast solo on my way to Rincon, bumping a quite eclectic mix of Bob Marley, Bad Religion, and Shakira, I kept rubbing my eyes to make sure what I thought was a never ending perfect wave mirage along the entire coast was in fact real.
Rincon was nearly in my reach, but I kept seeing untouched beauties littered along the stretch of Pacific Coast Highway. So I did the the most logical thing I could think of…. I stopped. Not even having the faintest clue of where I was and before I even had a plan or knew what I was doing, I was covered in jet black stretchy neoprene, my big blue board in hand balanced sideways on my hip, and my eyes were scanning for a way to traverse across the seawall that was separating the road from the waves.
The tide was high and the swell was building by the minute; when I parked on the side of the road, the whitewater was hitting the wall with such force that it was shooting up over the barrier and soaking the dirt on the side of the road. I found a few helpful stairs that took me down to the flooded sand, timed my entry, and paddled into blissful loneliness.
Full of excitement, having never just pulled off to the side of the road not knowing where I was or what beach I was at and jumped in, I caught a couple peelers, and giggled uncontrollably to myself when I launched high in the air on one, backwash from the high tide coming back fast and smacking the bottom of my surfboard. Excitement and silly laughs quickly turned to nervousness – not just from the murky water and lack of company as far as the eye could see – but from the fact that after a few waves, I realized I was getting sucked out to sea.
My landmark (my Subaru aka the shredmobile) was getting smaller by the second, and in my present state of silliness I didn’t make the connection that the churning water and strong backwash from the waves hitting the seawall was pushing me out into the ocean — and rapidly. Not to mention that the huge swell forecasted to hit this afternoon seemed to be showing its face, every passing wave growing bigger and breaking a farther out (which is another reason I didn’t realize I was drifting out to sea).
I felt myself start to panic, slightly struggling to stroke against the nonstop waves, coming from both directions, and then a deeper part of me flooded my body with calm and killed the distress that was getting under my skin. I sat and breathed. Long and deep. Watch the waves. Time the sets. Feel the ocean. Make every paddle count.
I waited patiently for a lull between the sets, and with commitment and forceful vigor, paddled intently towards shore. My feet hit the sand and bounced like a deer up the stairs, barely missing being hit by some bowling beachbreak.
I sat in the sun for a while by my car — laughing about today’s events, watching waves of glass — and enjoying the emptiness.
