A Surfer’s Tale: Chill of Victory, Agony of the Feat

All my life I wanted to surf.

I grew up a Navy brat, so I was never far from the sea. I swam competitively on the East Coast where my family lived, and on trips to the West Coast my father would dazzle us bodysurfing the big Pacific waves.

But surfing on a board was something I had only seen in movies. It seemed like magic, to be able to harness the ocean and ride it, to stand atop a wave that had rolled thousands of miles to shore, to feel it swelling beneath you like a living thing.

Being a surfer seemed like the epitome of cool, of wild, of free. And being a girl surfer seemed like the coolest thing in the world.

So when I moved to California, I got myself a board. True, it was the size of a door. But I stood up my first time out and I was hooked.

I was also a lightweight.

In the beginning, my perfect wave was a Malibu summer crest, 3 to 4 feet, glassy and smooth. I liked it sunny and warm. The water should be warm, too, so I could just wear surf shorts and a bikini top.

But as I got more into surfing I got myself a real board and a real wetsuit. I also found a mentor.

The kind of guy foreigners stop to take pictures of when they walk the beach in Southern California, he could ride a wave so long he got bored. He didn’t have just one surfboard, like me, he had a whole quiver.

Through his example, I quickly learned the essence of the surfer philosophy. There is no written credo, of course, but I came to realize that all true board riders are bound by a common code. A code that honors toughness over complaining, showing what you can do on the waves rather than bragging about it afterward. It’s all about being a warrior, about being hard core.

My mentor was a laconic guy who never gave me many tips. But I always knew what he thought. To put it in a way a non-surfer would understand, if I was Gidget, he was Moondoggie.

Anyway, he made me feel I had something to prove.

I started going out mornings before work, when the world still slept and only dolphins, pelicans, and surfers were out.

I wanted to show my surfing buddy that I would go out in anything. I wanted to show that I may not have finesse, but I have guts. I wanted to show I was hard core.

So I decided to try winter surfing.

That means paddling out in water that hovers in the 50-degree range--water so cold it can kill if you are in long enough without a wetsuit. It means paddling out after storms whip up the waves, when entire trees wash up on the beach.

Cold Slap of Reality

One early morning in January, I walked down my driveway and ran into my neighbor. He looked at me like I was crazy, then ran to his garage and handed me his booties.

“If you’re going to do this, take these,” he said.

At the beach, my buddy and I wriggled into our wetsuits, slipped into our booties and waxed up our boards. What was I doing here?

But then I looked out and the water was full of surfers. How bad could it be?

At first, the booties helped. Wading into the water, I couldn’t feel a thing. I was like a sea creature, insulated from the elements by a thick layer of subcutaneous fat.

I jumped on my board and started paddling. The first wave washed over my head, swooshing down into my suit. I felt my scalp puckering up on my head like I was some kind of shrunken-head voodoo charm. I could barely breathe. My body stiffened like rigor mortis setting in. I was seeing stars from the cold, but I was intensely, achingly alive.

With a morning surf routine I would definitely not need coffee.

In a matter of minutes I was mostly numb. I watched my hands getting redder, and when I smiled it took awhile for my cheeks to go back down. Otherwise I felt fine.

By the time I got out, my hands were so cold I could not even tear open the Velcro on my leash. I hobbled across the parking lot, and my surfing buddy helped free me. It took five minutes to get out of my wetsuit.

But I felt happy.

More importantly, I felt tough.

I got into a routine, going out a couple mornings a week. I started watching surf movies again. I could feel my arm muscles rippling lightly under my suit at work. My buddy told me with a few more mornings I would be truly hard core. I felt invincible.

Until the day of the storm.

My alarm went off at 6:40 a.m. and I looked out the window. The sky was dark and gray, what we used to call a snow sky in New England. I dressed, threw my board on my rack, picked up my friend, and headed to Surfers Point.

The storm was far out at sea, and I could only imagine what fury it was causing out there, because the violence it was bringing ashore was frightening. The waves were insane, the biggest I had ever seen with my naked eyes. Huge walls of water crashed into a frothy soup of turmoil.

To my untrained eye it looked like the North Shore of Hawaii.

At first, it seemed there was nobody out. The regulars stood sipping coffee in little clusters on the promenade--their boards still strapped to their cars. Then we saw the hard-core surfers, way out there. They looked like little water bugs, zipping up and down the waves.

I did not feel hard core anymore. I wanted to go back home and crawl under my comforter with my cat, Niki.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been out in waves this big,” I said, silently praying my friend would suggest we go have pancakes.

“You’ve been out in bigger waves than this,” he said.

I wasn’t sure this was the truth, but I was not going to be the one to back down.

I believe you should do one thing that scares you every day. This would count for a whole week, I promised myself.

We picked our spot to paddle out. The sets were coming in fast and heavy. It was all white water.

As we scrambled down onto the sand I saw a leash, sans surfboard.

Then I saw a dead seal washed up on the rocks.

It was not a good omen.

We strapped our leashes to our ankles. Slow, silent, deliberate, like warriors heading out to battle who might not come back.

“Do you have any advice?” I asked.

He turned to me, somber, serious. “Paddle hard. Paddle strong.”

I never even noticed how cold it was. I was paddling as hard as I could just to get out past where the waves were breaking.

We paddled like crazy, not going anywhere. I kept getting washed off my board. I grabbed it and pulled myself back on. Within 30 seconds I was panting. Within a minute I was grunting. Then I was swearing. The waves seemed to get bigger and bigger.

Graveyard of Surfboards

My adrenaline kicked in. I was not going to be beaten. I was going to get out there. I am hard core, I repeated to myself over and over, like some crazed, demented mantra.

After what seemed like forever, my arms like jelly, I made it. I was out past the wave line.

I turned around to see where I was. The waves were washing east. I’d gone in the water up at the point. I was already down about 300 yards, near the Holiday Inn. The pier looked dangerously close.

I kept thinking of a man in our office who walks with a stiff gait. Rumor is he used to surf, until he rode into the pier and broke his back.

I saw the waves licking the underbelly of the pier. I saw my buddy take off on a big wave, but I was too tired to even paddle for one.

I felt like a wimp.

I sat for a minute thinking about what to do. A big set came in and pushed me toward the pier again. If I caught a ride now I was going to be heading right into it. Two knots out of three attaching my leash to my board were untied. I was afraid I was going to lose it.

The Velcro on my booties had come undone and they were filled with water. I couldn’t get them done up again.

It takes a woman to admit it, but I was whipped.

I was too tired to care if I was hard core.

I was going in.

I turned around and paddled for shore.

Getting in was worse than getting out, because you can get pounded right into the sand.

Finally I slid off my board and planted myself, barely able to stand against the power of the undertow sucking at me and pummeling my feet with stones.

I ran for shore, and collapsed onto my hands and knees.

There was a board lying there. It had a mashed nose, frayed fiberglass, foam protruding. Nobody in sight. I dragged it away from the water.

Two men walked toward me.

One carried his smashed board under his arm. His face was so white I thought he had zinc oxide on.

He said he’d been washed through the pier. His leash wrapped around a pylon. His board went one way, he went the other. A wave held him under and pounded him into the pylon.

He escaped only by somehow managing to undo his leash underwater.

Then another guy came running down the beach asking if we’d seen half a surfboard.

Walking the quarter-mile back to the car we saw two more surfboards snapped in half.

I felt lucky. I was alive. I survived. I was giddy with joy.

Now, I don’t feel hard core, but I do feel initiated.

I’ve relived my experiences with all my friends who surf. Some call me crazy. Some say the experience was good for me.

“Everyone should go out on a day like that,” my neighbor said.

Now that I know the power of the sea, and the power of my arms, I will never again try to prove anything.

Well, not until the next big swell blows in, anyway.