Seeking wisdom in the waves

The chilly green waves off Humboldt County don’t sustain a big surf community like Malibu or Huntington Beach. But if one were to take root, it might be at the Jetty near Eureka.

Surfing 50-degree North Coast swells calls for 5-millimeter wetsuits, not that neoprene will protect against jagged rocks and white sharks. Yet this is where I decided to become a surfer.

I never rode waves when I lived near the warm waters of Southern California, and my attraction for swells flowed from a past I was eager to leave behind. Fresh out of college in the Midwest, I returned to Los Angeles and joined the rat race: punching a 9-to-5 clock, stuck in traffic, not doing much besides working. It cast a pall over my existence, like living in a boring dream, with no motivation behind anything. So I fled the crowded confines of city life in search of my place and a greater slice of the outdoors.

It takes attitude to brave the breakers off the Jetty, so I began by surfing tamer spots along the Northern California coast. But from the moment I dove into the surf scene here, the Jetty loomed large and beckoned.

Situated at the entrance to Humboldt Bay, it breaks during huge swells that come barreling in from the Pacific, especially during winter storms. Waves 20 feet tall are common; surfers reach them by leaping off the rocks and exit by clawing back up the crags. Surf the Jetty at the wrong time and you get sucked into shipping lanes and swept out to the open sea, or pulled into the near-shore impact zone and pile-driven into the sandy bottom. Some guys resort to tow-in on the outer edge, where waves can run high overhead.

After a winter storm, I watched from atop the rocky outcrop as experienced surfers paddled deftly along its jagged edge with the outbound current. Twelve-foot waves crashed beside them. One or two feet of deviation would surely slam them against the rocks. The waves shook the boulders, and in the lineup, the barnacled hulls of ships edged close by guys on boards. Weeks earlier, a big shark had gashed a surfer a short distance down the beach.

As a child, I was scared by waves as I trembled on the beaches back home, my father encouraging me to brave the tumbling monsters. Now, facing the surf in awe, I psyched up. I plotted how I would immerse myself in this fear as in a masochistic baptism. This was where I would plunge into the new me I had journeyed north to find.

Some weeks later, after the waves had diminished, my time to test the Jetty arrived. I didn’t launch into the full force of 20-foot monsters but was eager to get a taste of the break. I zipped up my wetsuit in the dirt parking lot near a sign that says “Caution, Hazardous Surf, Watch Out for Large Waves.”

As I walked to the end of the Jetty, the water was glassy, manageable and devoid of people. I suppressed the fear that maybe someone had spotted a shark, clambered down to a sandy spot and began to paddle out.

The waves were breaking near the shore, and soon I paddled into a small one that curled before me like a waterfall. Inside a miniature tube, I tried to stand, but the thrust shoved my board into the bottom. After being pile-driven into the sand a few more times I moved farther down the beach, where other surfers rode a lonesome head-high break.

The waves had slightly less form but were larger and more powerful. As I paddled out, the water seemed to be leading me north in an exhausting game.

After nearly an hour of furious paddling, the sun began to set, my arms were exhausted and my hands were purple. I called it quits, turned toward the beach and let swells carry me in. But as I lay limp on my board I realized I was drifting south. I had approached this break from the wrong side and had struggled in vain for half an hour. I was fighting something in the waves I couldn’t see, an invisible flow of water that carried me on its whims. It reminded me of why I had moved to Northern California, to fight the tide of a person I did not want to become.

I slid onto the sand as a foghorn bleated, feeling I had failed to change myself fundamentally. Yet I had confronted fear and gained a sense of accomplishment. Maybe I wasn’t meant to change much after all. With my board, I walked down the boardwalk to my car, where I peeled off my wetsuit and watched the sun sink behind the surf.

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Dylan Johnson is a freelance writer based in Eureka.