photo by Scott Braun
We take a break for lunch. A Clif bar, a coconut water and the world’s best BLT later, and I’m back in the water. Not quite as glassy as dawn patrol, but still thumping. The guys and I paddle out in different spots. I like to avoid the thick of the crowd whenever possible on account of my flailing and inability to paddle battle giant men with huge lats.
When it comes to paddling out, I’ve finally embraced the concept of timing. Watch, wait, paddle like hell. Works like a charm. Much better than the ‘power your way through it’ angle I’ve adopted in the past. Yet another example of how concepts in life can be applied to surfing and vice versa. Surfing with my ex was always stressful; I was never in the moment. He was always so worried about everything that I felt worried, too. Alone, I don’t worry. I just surf. I feel the calm center in my chest where the present moment occurs, as though the world slows down and I see everything the way it really is— not the way my ego perceives it.
So I arrive into the lineup with a smile on my face and my bikini bottoms still graciously hugging my behind (watch for my next post: Bikini Bottoms VS Shorts, the Pros and Cons). I find an empty five yards flanked by two good-natured looking hotties, and stare gratefully into the horizon. About 3 yards out I notice something moving. A little black-tipped fin poking out of the water, tooling idly around. Instinctively, I lay down and pull my legs up. I look around to see if either hottie #1 or #2 has noticed this. They haven’t. I can see Josh and Nick down the lineup and consider getting their attention and making some sort of shark-like gesture with my hands. However, I decide to err on the side of surf propriety and just keep the whole thing to myself.
I watch the little fin come nearer. It zigs and zags. I can almost touch it. I feel a little nervous, but not scared. The drop-in is a lot scarier. My ex always defaults to New Smyrna, so I’ve surfed there a lot. The New Smyrna inlet is purportedly the sharkiest break in Florida. You see a lot of sharks. At first it is scary, but you look around and no one else seems scared and nothing bad ever seems to happen, so it becomes mundane.
The fact that I wasn’t scared out there alone in the line-up, with giant sets rolling through and this tiny shark checking me out, startled me. What else had time and repetition turned into complacency, my biggest fear? Once it sets in, the will to change slips quietly out the back door, unnoticed. What is truly frightening are the things we learn to endure.
A perfect peak is coming right to me. Finally, I will escape my tiny predator. I turn around and start paddling. To my right, hottie #3 (where did you come from?) is frantically paddling for the same wave. He is right next to me. Normally, I would pull out, deferring to the better surfer, but I’m fed up with the shark and my own complacency so I just go. The wave has me, my heart pounds and I know I have it. I see him stand up. I could touch him, I hear his breath. I flail under the pressure. And I eat it. Hard. I don’t see how I didn’t completely take him out. I probably did (sorry, hottie!). Karma comes into play instantly as I am pummeled against the ocean floor, only to come up for air and get rocked again on the inside.
Eventually, I make it to the beach. I’m having a hard time catching my breath, and my heart beat is loud in my ears. I’m tired. I lay down and I fall asleep, instantly. Right there on the beach, covered in sand, not cute sleep like a kitten or a child, more like a dead body (super sexy).
When I wake up, I feel lost. I find myself looking down the beach for Brad, wishing he would walk up to me and smile. I don’t know why. I haven’t thought about him for days. Surfers and sharks share a unique relationship. We fear them and we love them. We wish they didn’t exist, but we would miss them if they were gone. It hits me that we are all sharks in the water. Always moving, always hunting, trying to stake our claim in an ocean that belongs to everyone and no one. The predator is not the thing to fear, it is complacency that is the real killer.
Thank you, thank you for this piece of brilliant writing. I learned to surf late in life, my son taught me;most often I’m out there alone — with all the thoughts and feelings you expressed — but w/no one to understand or share them with…. the female perspective….. your writing made me feel understood & not alone in my feelings and experiences. You succeeded in “capturing” every bit of what it’s like to be out there and a female. May Neptune always hold you gently. Evy
Keep Surfing!!!!Pray for safe Passage!!We all have that fear!Surf,Surf,and Surf!Life would SUCK without SURFING!!!!ROCK ON!!!
The waves, the sharks and the ocean all play a role in the life of a surfer. A challenge is presented every time we enter the water and it is our own courage and thirst for adventure that drives us to be in the mighty ocean, along with all it’s encompassing elements. We rise to the occasion, face each challenge, and, more often than not, persevere and succeed in conquering such challenges, inevitably learning from each experience.
Nice writing, I enjoyed reading about your experience at Sebastian Inlet, and no one can tell it better than a surfer!!
Props
Crushing 18 foot Horseshoe’s on a cold January morning can feel like an ice cream head ache delivered by a dump truck. Easy paddle out, since the reef is in the middle of deep water bout a quarter mile out. New board, and nothing but time on my hands. “Am I really doing this?”, I ask myself halfway out to the shifting peak. Getting closer, now I can really see what I’m in for. Pitching lips throwing 10 feet out from what looks like 4 stories up because the boiling rocks are exposed at the base of the wave at LEAST ten feet below sea level. “How is that possible?”. Anyway, “Yeah. fuck it.” I thought and continued paddling. Interesting sound those waves make as they break the morning silence incidentally. Puts a shiver in your already cold body.
Anyways it had been 6 years since I’d left Clearwater to go to school in San Diego. I was ready. That day at Sunset Cliffs where I almost drowned, Wilbur Kookmyered inside by a 14 wave set after my skeg caught a huge bulb of kelp. The day at Black’s where I’d caught my first left and got a full 3 minute overhead ride with 2 buddies inside 2 witness it. And that perfect day at Scripps. A-frame barrels all day long with the life guards blasting Floyd over the pier’s loudspeakers. It had all led up to today. Do or die. “I can do this, no problem, the local guys are riding ’em, so why not me”?
Scraping over the first wave of the set with every ounce of energy I had, I barely made it over the shoulder. “Phwew! Damn that was close.” Oh shit don’t mind the 4 waves behind it. Made it over the next three and literally flew as I was pitched over the falls on sweet old number 4. I really got antiquated with pain as I was washing machined over the death rocks. Seems soo much farther down when the bottom is sucking up like that.
“Board still in-tacked, fuck it again! Ima do this” (I think ebonically for some reason). Half hour later seems like some one had turned the switch off. Finally another set roles up. “I got this one yo!” Now the break is left, but once I stand up I decide to go right as I am already behind the peak and am quite aware of the price for failure. I get a nice little drop and the lip flaps behind me. The smile slowly fades away from my face as I realize how that looked. “Damn, pussied that one!”
“Ok, one more, then I’m out for a Keith Richard’s Panikan coffee and girlfriend”. Both warm and non life threatening. 3 other guys right there in the spot. Nobody fighting over these waves. You got it? Go then bitch. So a reasonably not 400 foot set approaches and I am inside so I take it. The drop was so fast I was sure I’d pearl and the nose of my board would impale me, but nope, that’s when the lip pitched out over me and time just slowed down for a second that felt like a minute. Everything went from the grey hazy over cast sky to a dark murky green. I shot out “WWOOOOOO!! Yes I fn made it!” My first and ONLY real wave at Horseshoe’s! I didnt dare tempt fate with anything more than a nice slow turn off the shoulder and belly rode in as far as I could. As I got to the beach the Jimmy was waiting in the parking lot. I could hear the breakers farther off in the distance now, more soothing like a massage therapist’s CD or something. “Crank up the heat baby I’m freezing!” I said, As Kelly’s backing out of the lot she asks “so’d you catch anything?”….