Stepping into the Mind of Surfing
When you take those first bone chilling steps into the water, your feet turn to ice. You hop on your board and paddle out; then you sit waiting. The ocean is still for the moment, and then you see what you have been waiting for. You turn around, start paddling, and catch that wave; it only takes one. You feel free and invigorated. The wave does not have to be perfect but when you ride that wave from the start to finish it feels like it is. When you find a really good wave you will know. There is no other feeling like it. You forget everything else except that wave. When you ride that wave you are there lost in that moment. That wave can turn your whole day upside down.
Surfing has been around since before Columbus discovered America. It takes a certain type of person to pursue such a potentially dangerous and even life threatening activity. Although many types of surfing are not dangerous, surfing brings with it an array of threatening aspects: the risk of drowning, being attacked by a shark, etc. On a large day, you can be hit by a wave and know what hit you, sometimes it feels like you have been hit by a Mac truck. But for most surfers, the benefits outweigh the risks.
For surfer Philip Watkins, the best ride of his life came after getting a speeding ticket. He was racing over Highway 17, after work, and he wanted to surf. On his way over the hill to Santa Cruz he got pulled over. The Police officer gave Philip a speeding ticket. Philip was bummed. He decided to keep going because he felt he needed to catch a few waves.
When he got to Capitola, he said, “the whole east side of Santa Cruz was lit up like a Christmas tree,” Referring to the amount and quality of the waves. It was about an eight-foot day. Philip suited up, headed to the water, and paddled out. He noticed some really big waves were breaking way outside and that nobody else was going for them. He decided to paddle out there and just wait for one of those waves. Then, out of nowhere, a big wave came and he had it all to himself. He was going up and down the whole wave, making turns and cutbacks, with nobody else in his way. When he pulled out, he said to himself “That’s it, I’m done, it does not get any better than that.” So he headed back in. Philip forgot about the speeding ticket until he got home and his father saw it. At that point it no longer mattered to him, he was fine with the feeling of his best wave.
California has a wide range of waves that attract a wide range of surfers. Some spots have small waves like Cowell’s beach in Santa Cruz, where there’s sometimes waves less than a foot tall, with 20 or more people on the wave. People like to learn at Cowell’s; many surf schools teach at that beach. Some spots are known for larger waves, like Mavericks, in Half Moon Bay, where the waves don’t break unless they are really big. Mavricks get waves upwards of 50 feet, it’s one rider per wave. People who ride large waves like the ones at Mavericks are the real thrill seekers. They love the rush you can get from a big wave.
About once a year, the area of Morrow Bay is hit with a storm and with the storm comes waves between 15 and 20 feet tall. A large part of surfing those waves has to do with conquering your fear. The first time you ride waves that size you are intimidated, but you are out there for the purpose to catch one of these monsters, so you have to commit. If you do not fully commit to the wave, you will be crushed by the wave. In a sense you are holding your own life in your hands. When you surf one of those waves the feeling is not the same as an eight-foot day in Capitola. On a big day, it’s sink or swim.
Surfer Edger Jordan, who surfs Morrow Bay, told how he tried to get over one of these monsters of a wave…but did not quite make it. He said the waves looked like buildings rushing toward him. He saw a set of three waves rushing towards him, growing larger every second. He paddled as hard as he could and barely made it over the first wave. Once over the top, he felt a sense of tremendous relief and invigoration.
“It is a feeling you can only get when you are moments from death,” said Edger.
He knew that he had only moments to get over the second wave. Edger paddled harder than he ever had in his life trying to make it over. He was heading up the face of the wave, he had just reached to the top, when it happened. The wave broke. Edger was sucked over with the breaking water backwards on wave that was fifteen foot or more high. It was like falling down a rushing waterfall. He felt the full impact and force of the wave. Edger was thrown down into the water and held under. For 45 seconds, (though it felt like two minutes), he was held under and tossed and turned like a sock in a dryer’s tumble cycle. He became disoriented, he did not know up from down. Then remembered what his friends had told him. “If you fall off your board in those waves, to tuck into a ball as tight as you can make it.” That helped because it kept Edger from being thrashed so much. Otherwise, he could have easily broken an arm, or been dragged to the bottom, by the sheer strength of the wave. Once the wave had passed, and he stopped tumbling around, he had to relax. There was no use in swimming because he did not know which way was up. Once he relaxed the buoyancy from his wetsuit started floating him in the right direction and that’s when he started swimming towards the surface completely out of breath. Breaching the surface, he had no energy left. He slowly flopped and pulled towards his surfboard. He managed to pull himself up into a sitting position. As he sat out of breath and out of strength, thinking about what had just happened. He said to himself, “I can’t wait till next year’s storm.”
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