brindleblog'n

It was an impromptu rule we had with one another when assessing large waves...........paddle out hard as you can for 1/2 hour, if you can't make it out then you don't look like a pussy and gave it your all. We were all in great shape from surf class, jogging every morning, 75 surfers running in mass down the beach always turned heads.

So there we are, 4 of us, very quite, very pensive, we watched storm debris float the strong south swell northward with surprising speed, 2-3 people out. Nothing needed to be said, just an awe for what we were seeing, and that weird feeling you get in the bottom of your stomach when self doubt rules your thinking. Then the sets came in! Scraping the bottom of the pier and seafoam foam getting everything wet

Everyone started surf calling (a kind of laughing cackle) at the top of their voices, we sounded like a bunch of wild animals. "Their breaking on the train reef" someone said. The reef was made from the trains submerged years ago to serve as an artificial reef.......the waves would spill on the reef, recollect, reorganize and come screaming into shore.....like they were pissed off they had to break before they had too........the biggest waves any of us had ever seen......I was the least experienced of the crew and could have easily been talked out of paddling out........we studied the sea and the sets longer than normal.......I was pretty quite but had surfed large waves before and felt it was feasible but not preferable.

You could feel the tension, feel the impact of a large wave rattling the ground and the foam doubling the size of the wave..........then the words came out from someone......"paddle out for a 1/2 hour".....Without a word we all split like a football team in a huddle and began suiting up.....like a race to see who got their wetsuit on first.......words were few and really unimportant......the game faces came on and everyone got serious.......

Stretching and waxing the boards on the waterline..........no eyes left the ocean the whole time........someone said to me "brindley.....how you are doing?".......all that came out was a kind of reserved utterance.....UH HUH.....the most experienced surfer became our sergeant in a way.....at the top of his voice, so we could all hear him over the waves......."We Go Now! Paddle hard and don't stop till your outside.........then keep paddling! Remember the third wave of the set is the biggest!!!!!!! See you outside

We had walked down as far as we could south of the pier to anticipate the south swell pushing north.......I remember hitting the water........full steam........andrenaline pumped to max......we were like paddling machines...no words....full focus.......we all began to drift northward immediately, so we all paddled out diagonally perfectly staggered.

We were all on short boards and the deeper we got, the less we drifted but you could feel the power of the waves and their speed from the first smaller waves you had to punch under...........once you punched under a few waves you began to feel a little more confident. I began to pace myself and focus on my breathing for what I truley felt would be a 1/2 of paddling but not punching through the impact zone.