STUDY FOR A SESSION

STUDY FOR A SESSION. The shack we stayed in was basically cut into the cliff right on the waters edge, about 20 feet above sea level. Apparently the boys had stayed there in the same place year after year, it was the cheapest and most risky place to be in the area and so being the kind of rough it surfer types it was perfect for the purpose. The locals at that particular location are very welcoming seeing as it is business and culture in what would be otherwise a totally isolated off the road fishing village. The main attraction there off the beaten road is the famous long right-hander. When it’s on, it lines up for about a mile of perfect wall, providing plenty of opportunity for manuver, complete with hollow sections. It’s any surfers dream wave: it just keeps on going. When it’s big though, it’s quite a serious ordeal. There is a particular way the coast there receives what the ocean throws at it; it kind of wraps its self around the points at an angle, making famously long rides. To provide protection from the roughest conditions, the point there has been modified so that without much trouble, the local fishermen navigate their way in and out of the harbour that provides shelter from the brunt of the swell. The same entry point is used by surfers for the same reason to get out to where the take off point is. So if you can imagine right where the waves would hit the hardest in front of the harbour there is now a huge concrete jetty made of huge industrial size tick-tack toe stickle-bricks; and that keeps the harbour safe. All the way out past the end of the jetty the wave starts its mile long journey across the bay. Before the harbour was built, the natural form of the point would have produced an even more unbelievable wave, as it would have started to break even further out; even so with the man made interventions the wave is world class, and the locals have a fishing industry as well as the visiting surfers in season bringing money in. I had noticed a few things before not too long, about the way the water moves and how to get in place and stay in place when you get there. On a routine I would go round the other side of the harbour up on the cliff top and smoke some of the local Moroccan hashish in an extremely long pipe I had bought at the convenience store. It had proved beneficial in many ways to sit and observe before hitting the water. The cliff there is several hundred feet up above the break looking directly straight out at it so you get to see everything that happens on the wave and in the harbour. The first thing I noticed was that the surfers who got out and walked back to the point after taking a ride all that way, got back quicker than those who paddled. It was also easy to see that you have to work hard to keep your place in the currents. Slacking off for a few minutes to get a breather could have you drifting out of optimum position and into a rip either going back towards the harbour if you are too far inside, or all the way down the beach if you are too far out. On this particular day it was absolutely huge. I think the swell was pushing about three meters. I sat there on the cliff top for hours watching the currents. Not one surfer made it out. There was just too much water moving. It would look like someone was nearly there, but then somehow they never actually made it and got washed up in currents and had to give up. I got into a trance as I sat there watching. I felt glad to be in such good weather and have an abundance of some of the best hashish in the world. It was just too perfect though. I started thinking to myself, why would I come all this way and turn this down? I can’t just watch…I have to try and get one of these proper waves now it’s showing its true colours. The lines were about as perfect as anything I’d ever seen. It was so big though the moment we all saw it that day everyone knew it was too big to go out. But by now after watching how perfect it was for so long I knew if I didn’t at least try then I would be thinking about it probably for the rest of my life. It’s hard to explain the un-ridden waves that can haunt a surfer for years in beautifully nightmarish flashbacks of what could have been. I wasn’t about to let the day follow me around like that; so after several hours of study from the cliff top I figured I had sussed out the way to get out. To me, it seemed really simple. I had been gazing at the water for so long, I had a kind of map in my head of where the impact zone was, how long the gap between sets was, and where to jump in and paddle out from. Thanks to whoever it was who nearly made it out earlier, I also knew that when I got there, there would be no time to rest. The water moves so fast that in order to stay in the right place ready for a set wave requires you to paddle full motion non-stop. So I suited up and went around to the other side of the point in front of the harbour, and jumped off the rocks round there. I wasn’t sure why no-one else had jumped off there. Maybe I was the only one who had noticed that day there was a channel there. It was a relatively easy paddle out and I found my position just as I had imagined. I timed it right. I picked off an absolute monster and rode it to the end; even with a sketchy section shutting down I somehow made it all the way through. I ran all the way back up the beach to the rocks at the point behind the harbour and did it again. As I was keeping my position at the take off point another surfer coming out from the direction of the harbour got very close but again just didn’t quite make it out. I realised how fortunate I was to have taken the time to observe for all those hours and sussing out the scene before jumping in. After my second wave I called it a day; knowing full well I wouldn’t easily be able to deal with the power of those kind of waves if I was to wipeout or get caught on the inside. The confidence I had felt in making the decision to go out that day was other-wordly. I don’t know what got into me. I just had to do it. I’d say it’s a warrior thing. An initiation. It doesn’t prove anything to anyone, because no-one knows who it is. It’s just a way of proving and even improving the spirit and the connection to Nature. I responded to the invitation with a well-executed plan and got my wings. In the evening a heard the story from another visiting surfer of the waves that day; waves too big for anyone to even surf, except for this one little dude who took two. That was me I said. There’s no way that was you they said, that guy was something serious.