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Free Ride

FREE RIDE

Labor Day in SoCal means sunny skies, crowded beaches and a gentle 2-3 foot swell the kids can play in, so we visited family friends at their Huntington Beach house.  In 1963, I was 18 and still hadn’t seen the already legendary Hawai’i, but I literally crawled into the Laguna Beach surf when I was six months old.  I kept right on going, spending my time outside school bodysurfing and SCUBA diving.  Just to keep beach lifeguards in on their toes, I had already ‘shot’ between the pilings of every pier between Santa Monica and La Jolla in eras I can’t even remember.

It was ten years until satellite photos, radar images or any form of swell forecasting, so my brother Tom and I expected some small Huntington shoulders while our parents watched from their beach chairs.

What we found was15-foot closeout dumping surf - the largest I’d ever seen. Huntington is a long, sand beach without a point break – just huge swells dumping outside, reforming a hundred meters out, dumping again and hitting the beach in a wall of foam powerful enough to knock us over in knee deep water. 

Just getting outside was hopeless, let alone catching a decent ride.  Young and stupid, we gave it a try. 

We didn’t get anywhere.  Obviously, with a swell this big, we needed a point break just to get out – or a jetty break.  This was the best swell of our lives, and we should have been at the Wedge.

Back at the beach house, Tom and I lobbied hard for a drive to Newport.  . The only problem was Mom knew her surf, and she knew the Wedge.  No way, today!

Plan “B” was to convince Mom into snorkeling at Corona Del Mar cove, usually ideal for a pleasant day’s snorkeling.  There’s a small but beautiful sandy spit snuggled up against the Newport Harbor jetty, well protected inside the double jetty.  The other side of the channel is the legendary Wedge, the biggest, meanest, strangest shore break anywhere east of Hawai’i.

Mom saw right through our strategy and said that if we went bodysurfing on a day that big we would go to the Corona Del Mar side.  Maybe she could still go snorkeling.

It was a fair compromise.  Off we went.

Thanks for Mothers.  Corona was a nice ripping 15-foot peak swamping over the breakwater, sucking so deep we saw rocks that hadn’t seen air since they built the jetty. The beach was packed with Labor Day crowds, but only a couple of dozen bodysurfers. The form was excellent, and getting out was fairly easy. Waves broke big, in plenty of water, so we took some chances, experimented, and spent the day playing with the peak.  Sometimes we caught the pitch, dropped straight down the face, made a radical bottom turn and raced the tubes.  When they collapsed, we tucked back and came up facing a monstrous but predictable wall.  No problem.

Our favorite game became intentionally pitching over the falls, free falling head first into the foot of the wave, tuck, and let our momentum take us under the wave foot just in time to surface in the line up of the next wave.

It was something like a 15-foot “hydraulic” on a river, except we had to work to stay in the cycle.  We played like this for hours.

In the early afternoon, the beach guard was going nuts with his bullhorn until he finally caught my attention.  He was pointing to a swimmer so tired he was headed to the barnacle-encrusted jetty instead of the beach.    Even an experienced waterman would die going for the jetty when awash.  This guy was so inexperienced he didn’t realize he was about to become hamburger.

I signaled the guard that I had it under control.  His hands were full already.  The guy was already so close to the rocks it was foolish to go in and get him, so of course I did. 

No fool, I considered my options.  My Super Extra Large Voit Duck Feet gave me the torque to time the break, grab a cross-chest carry, and pull him out beyond the break before we both got dumped on the jetty.  Plan B was to let a big peak wash us over the breakwater and into the channel without scrapping rocks, a truly low percentage option with high percentage negative consequences.

Luckily, I was able to pull the guy away from the jetty.  I waved off the guard.  Now it became a normal rescue - all I had to do was get him in through 15-foot surf.   

My victim was really tired, and really freaked, on the verge of panic.  He wasn’t thinking normally.  This was the pre-chopper era, and who knew where the Lifeguard boat was, if it even left the harbor.  I had to take this guy in through the surf.

We regrouped outside the break where waves are peaking, but not yet breaking.  It’s an interesting spot to calm down a victim, I had no choice except to calm my new friend, assess the situation, explain what we would do, and do it. 

The next time you find yourself on that roller coaster forming 15-foot waves, imagine pulling somebody out of there, with or without fins.  In the trough, there’s nothing but water.  From the peak, you’ll get a frustrating and fleeting glance at dry, safe land beyond that huge break before you.

There’s really only one way to handle an unassisted rescue in large dumping surf, and it’s not fun.  Gradually swim closer to the break with your victim, and wait at the peak for a break in the sets.  When calm comes, “swim” like hell through the impact zone before the next set hits.  Of course, all the water is dumping off the beach, and usually, your victim is just dead weight anyway, so go into this maneuver expecting both of you to get crunched. 

Of course your goal is your victim’s survival, so you’ve got to break some rules.  Your only hope of saving them in that dumping soup is to stay with them – and the only way to stay together in that pandemonium is to double bear-hug, face to face.  This makes you a serious candidate for a double drowning and the funny farm.  Bear hugs require extreme faith in your superior conditioning and swimming abilities; and the hope the victim will release when things get really bleak.  

The last thing you want is to get dumped “Over the Falls”; a problem because you are so sluggish you can never maintain speed with the wave – a bad spot to be with so much water washing up the wave face.

When you see that inevitable crunch-time looming, get as low on the wave face as possible, bear-hug each other, take one last deep breath – and get crunched.  With luck, you can stay clenched through the impact.  It’s a sickening feeling to lose your grip on somebody during this explosion.

This uncomfortable scenario should be avoided whenever possible. Several tons of water dumps from five meters up, tossing both of you in a giant washing machine.  But if you want to save a life, there are times when you have no other option.

We held our breath, bear-hugged, took the dump, and according to plan, we tumbled onto the beach right in front of the guard.  It was my first contact with dry land in hours. 

The victim spit foam for a couple of minutes, and then said, “Damn, I never realized ocean waves were so big and strong.”

The guard and I shared a look that said, “What’s this jerk talking about.  This is the biggest swell of our lives.”

I said, “What do you mean, man?  This is the biggest day I’ve ever seen” 

Flat on his back in wet sand, my victim said, “Really - I’m from Iowa.  This is my first time at the ocean.  I just thought every day was like this.”

Disgusted, I grabbed my fins, and ran back into the surf for another few hours of free falls.  But the karma I “banked” from that rescue helped save my life almost immediately.

All day long, the jetty was awash – not with spray, but thick green stuff.  It was the first time I’d seen this awesome sight, and we all wondered about the Wedge. We left about 4pm, trying to convince Mom to drive the Newport circuit in Labor Day traffic so we could “just watch” the waves. Sure, nobody’s surfing, but let’s take a look.”  It’s only 200 yards across the Channel, but the Wedge is a long drive around Newport from Corona.

From the Corona parking lot, we saw the peaks of swells.  Driving up the cliff, we got the awesome panorama.  Mom went for it.  We were off to the Wedge.

It was late afternoon when we finally beat the traffic, but there were still several hundred onlookers...but only two lunatics in the water,

I slid into my wet suit, grabbed those Duck Feet, jumped off the overhead sand cut into the water and immediately caught a nice 15 foot right while I was swimming to the line up.  The Wedge runs double the size of anywhere else, so that wasn’t an unusual wave.  What was unusual was the right.

The Wedge is a “rebound” wave.  When a wave jams into the corner where the beach meets the jetty, it rebounds off the rocks almost perpendicular to the following wave.  On reasonable days, it is great fun to start near the jetty, catch the rebound and race across the face before it meets the next wave and builds into a giant bowl.

The rebounding wave packs into the face of the oncoming swell, driving the wall so steep that water “peaks” so rapidly you can hear liquid explode. Where the two forces intersect, everything sucks up, forming a caldron called the “Bowl”.

Instead of pealing off, the Bowl collapses into itself on either side.  Wedgeheads can take the rebound off the jetty, race high on the wave away from the jetty to hopefully “Beat the Bowl”.  We usually enter the forming bowl on an incline; make a turn at the point of the bowl, screaming down and away from the break (and the rocks) as the bowl collapses into itself from either side.  Because of the complexity and dangers involved, this is the perfect Wedge ride. Making that turn in the bowl, sliding like a stunt plane in a tight turn, realizing you are making the wave, and then screaming down the steep wave face, is Nirvana. 

However, an early take-off on the rebound wave results in a sluggish ride, arriving late into the collapsing bowl.

A wipe out is a given.  But you do have choices.

The safest option is to bail.  Dive deep under the wave foot, and pop up before the next peak.  This is smart on a slow ride because without momentum, you are doomed to being blown backwards over the falls when you confront that collapsing peak deep inside the Bowl. 

However, if you are smoking, you may hit the collapsing lip with enough momentum to punch straight up into a free fall.  It’s great fun for about three seconds.  You arc into the sky, totally separated from water.  At the top of your arc, you hang, suspended in time.  Just when you think, “Wow, what a beautiful space”, survival genes start screaming “Oh, shit. I’m going to fall back into that caldron!” (see Linda 4 “launched by a wave from Linda”)

It’s inevitable.

Well, none of this happened on my ride.  I started near the bowl, and peeled away with the break back into the rebound wave – right towards the Jetty.

I realized the stupidity of my actions, but didn’t care. . I was lined up perfectly on the wrong shoulder on a dangerous day, so I dropped in and screamed across the face.  When I came to the rebound, I turned up the face and snapped into a free fall arc. It was a great ride.

I landed behind the collapsing wave, which broke with the usual deadening roar.  I heard cheers, and at 19, I was stoked. I knew I was close to the jetty, but I was pumped with my own ego, and started swimming on my back like an otter, casually kicking back to the line up.  I was a Hero!

Suddenly, everything turned dark, and the water was dropping fast.  I was sucking into a forming wave!  I flipped onto my stomach to face an already vertical dark green wall with white foam across its face.  It was a monster – 30 or 40 feet, and the lip was already pitching beyond me.

The wave sucked water off the sand, a rare event that far out even at the Wedge.  For an instant, time stopped as I froze like a deer caught in headlights.  I stood on exposed wet sand, only 10 yards from those meat-grinder boulders, with tons of Green Death about to envelop me. 

A million options went through my mind.  “What am I doing here” was not among them.  I didn’t have the time for self-pity.

Bodysurfer instinct says dive under the wave, so I dove at the very foot of the wave, but the last water sucked up the face, and I landed flat out on wet sand.  It was a good thing. I stayed flat, becoming one with the crabs, limpets and barnacles living in the jetty, evolved flat to withstand surf.

The pitching wave started to fall.  Imagine the Goodyear blimp filled with water, falling from five stories up.  It was worse than that as a hundred tons of energized water hit the sand with a force that would have crushed me if I hadn’t been flat on the deck.

I took a huge deep gulp of air, expecting it to be my last.

The impact drove me into the sand, then bounced me back up into the collapsing wave.  The water advanced to the beach with as much force as it was dropping.  The Impact Zone is where these right angle energies intersect, and I was at Ground Zero, buried and bouncing under tons of imploding water.

When you are beneath them, Monster waves drop in agonizing slow motion. Their vortex is the tube, wound tight until it implodes with fury. I was helpless, at the mercy of wave physics, sucked backwards through a giant fire hose - ten feet above sand and ten feet from air. The white fury tried to dismember my extremities as I tossed in a cyclone of wet.

Those were the days before fin straps, and I vividly remember my fins sucked from my feet, the most sickening feeling of my life.  I was lost in the Impact Zone at the Wedge on a legendary day, my only remaining asset my wet suit.  I wouldn’t get sand burns, I could still dive under waves, and I had just enough buoyancy to survive. 

The ability to remember which way is "Up" is a special talent that prevents broken necks at the Wedge, Waimea or Sandy Beach.  It also saved my life when I was knocked unconscious while cliff diving. I was able to maintain enough presence to hit the sand bottom feet first – not easy when you are flipping backwards in turbulent water.  Of course, I instantly toppled and sucked further down the steep bottom while the wave sucked back off the steep sand beach.  I was running out of air, the surge pulling me backwards into deep water.

After a long, wild underwater ride, my air was finished.  I found the surface just in time to take one breath before getting hit square in the face by the next wave, as big as the first.  Repeat the above.

After a third wave, I was wasted, but alive, breathing real air, and floating just outside the impact zone...very important. 

I was also kissing the jetty...very important.

Fortunately, there were no more huge sets.  I could see the waves forming down the jetty, and there was water underneath me.  I was also very tired, and without fins.  In big water like this, it’s every man for himself, and I couldn’t ask for help.  But by then, I didn’t need it.  I was in for a long, grinding, tedious haul, but with determination I could survive, and I knew it.

There is usually a rip along the rocks that takes you on an interesting ride along the jetty to deep water, but I couldn’t find it, so I just floated, expending only enough energy to clear the jetty, and let my wet suit do the work.  When I regained enough energy to deal with the currents and chop, I tried getting away from the rocks. Without fins, that recovery took about 20 minutes.

My strategy was simple – get away from the jetty, swim behind the break, and ride the back of a ‘small” wave onto the beach.  My goal was only 100 meters away, but without fins and sapped of energy in large seas, it took me another 40 minutes to get far enough off the jetty to where I could comfortably let a “small” wave spit me up onto sand.

I was too exhausted to take a wipeout, so I hung way back on the wave and took a sluggish ride in, dropping on the back of the wave. I was finally “inside”, with sand before me, but the shorebreak section reformed quickly. I sucked down the breaking shoulder in perfect position for an ungracious spit onto steep sand, where I scrambled to the cut bank before the next wave hit.  With all my remaining energy and very shaky knees, I stood upright at the wall of sand, my head still three feet below the feet of spectators.  I stuck my arms straight up - my wrists finally at sand level.  I’m 6’4”, so the cut bank must have been about 9 feet. 

Somebody grabbed my wrists and pulled me up to dry sand and safety.

I had my teenage energy back in 15 minutes.  Off came the wet suit and out came the stories.  From shore, the family just though I was having a tough time catching big waves after a full day at Corona.  I clawed and struggled on the edge of death for an hour, and Mom was bummed that I only caught one ride.

When my knees stopped shaking, I walked to the corner where the jetty meets sand.  The sun was setting, and I wanted to muse on what almost was.  The Wedge was still pumping, although nothing like the massive set that almost took my life. 

I looked at the froth before me.  Sure enough, there were both of my fins, bouncing around in the corner.

I judged the break, ran into the surf, and retrieved first one, then the other.  After all, Floating Duck Feet, Super Extra Large, were about $16/pair, special order only, and tomorrow was another day.  (Reborn as classics, they run US$100 today.)  

I realize I died that day.  Teen-age ego got the best of me and clouded my judgement.  The Wedge isn’t a baseball game, and my break in concentration almost cost my life.  Except for the Karma from saving the Corona Del Mar tourist, instantaneous instincts and excellent conditioning, I would not be here to write this.

While I was watching the sunset, I realized that everything I did from that day on became a Free Ride, and at 62, I still live my life accordingly – pushing the envelope daily.

Even so, when I’m on the open sea, I never lose my focus. 

When all is said and done, the ocean just doesn’t care.

# # # # #

About the Author

John "Caveman" Gray, AKA Ling Yai (Thai for Big Monkey)was first published nationally in the USA in 1957 in Parade Magazine. He's been writing, photographing and producing videos ever since. His stories have appeared in numerous national and international magazines and newspapers on everything from Science to politics and travel. You can catch many more stories in the "Readings" section at www.johngray-seacanoe.com

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