I told crypto I'd post about a surf trip I took Wednesday, So here's the story.
Since before Google maps had satellite info, I've been somewhat obsessed with poring over aerial photography and finding new and exciting places to surf. I've found many promising spots far away, but never got the chance to surf one.
When I decided to move to San Francisco, i pored over nautical charts and maps, and looked at aerial photos of what at the time seemed like such a wild coastline north of the city. I was searching for my own little perfect break that no one else had ever surfed.
As I had done many times before, I found one but this time I was going to get to surf it! Pretty much as soon as I got to California, I went to check this place out, the nearest road is miles away, and the waves were good elsewhere, but I thought I was going to score so hard.
Turns out it sucked. It was a mess, the waves weren't hitting like I thought they would and it was a huge disappointment. I kept thinking about it though, and thought about swell directions and how it might be better. I never really felt like testing it out again though since I had missed such a good day and it's an all day commitment to get to this place.
Fast forward a year or so, I learn that my "secret" spot isn't all that secret. People have been surfing it for a long time. Once I figured that out, I was a bit less excited about my "find" but still wanted to surf the place.
Yesterday I got the chance, and in a most adventurous fashion too.
Hiking to this place sucks, lugging all your gear is a royal pain in the ass, and the chances of getting skunked are pretty high. Getting there by boat is a lot easier, but with a NW swell in the water, and a fair amount of chop, a lot more painful. We were on a zodiac, with me in the front, facing big swells and chops, making 5 foot drops off the back of waves, slamming into the water and seriously destroying my body. When we got to the spot, my legs were shaking from exhaustion.
One thing to add is this place has a reputation as a swell magnet, and while most of the buoys were reading 3 feet at 18 seconds, at least one was closer to double that size. My buddies were giddily planning for 10-15 foot faces, and with only a 6'3 I was preparing to have to change my shorts. When we pulled up to the spot and parked the boat, as an initiation, I was kicked out of the boat and had to paddle in to make sure there weren't any sharks patrolling. Lucky for me, there were none.
As I was paddling towards the break, what seemed like mountains of water were moving under me as a set of the building NW swell slid past. It was beginning to jack up on the reef, but wasn't really breaking. All I could think about at that point was "don't get caught inside". After a bit of time, i got comfortable, caught a number of good waves, some from the outside, some on a fun little workable inside section. After 3 hours or so I was getting cold so was headed back to the boat, when I was about 20 feet away, I saw a monster set come out of nowhere. As I think back, It seems like it was 15 feet, but it was probably closer to 10, I was scratching so hard for the outside, but there was no way, and worse, all that paddling put me about 10 feet from the impact zone. I saw the boat (which was parked in what seemed before like a very safe location) go vertical, I ducked, thought I got under, then had that sinking feeling of getting pulled back up that you know is going to be followed by an elevator drop. And I went deep. Got blasted into a rock, and held under for what seemed like an eternity. I was resigned to a long hold down from the start, so I went limp, and let the wave ragdoll me to preserve my breath. To my surprise, I came up with plenty in reserve, no screaming lungs, just the sight of another huge wall of water bearing down on me. In total with 2 breaths in between I got dragged about 200 yards underwater.
At this point the sun came out, and I decided to head back to the boat and warm up. We moved the boat out a bit farther, stayed out of harms way while the rest finished up catching some waves, then headed back. The NW swell had really started to fill in, and being on such a small boat while watching large long period swells push vertical a bit on the offshore reef was pretty spectacular. We got back to harbor safe and sound, packed up the boat, and headed back to the city. I was pretty stoked that I got to achieve my first goal I'd set for myself upon moving to California. I got to do it with good dudes, and a nice swell. Hopefully I'll be back soon.
