brindleblog'n

The conclusion:
Somehow, my feet land on the surfboard and I quickly wipe my eyes straining to see. I barely keep the nose of my board from submerging from the scheer straight drop as I run into absolutley flat water on my bottom turn. I crank a hard right turn and look up to assess my punishment. This is the largest wave I have ever dropped into in my surfing career so far........and with little experience it is hard to describe the ultimate mind numbing fear of my impending doom. The wave felt much much larger but was probably only 10 feet. Only 10 feet! If you ever experienced a 10 foot wave for the very first time it feels limitlessly tall, and the dynamics of a strong south swell makes the bottom of the wave drop out 4-5 feet and kicks the wave height another 2-3 feet. This kinda of wave moves very fast and breaks top to bottom and rattles the earth when it falls.

My blind take off and plummet toward the bottom of the wave gave me plenty of speed but the wrong trajectory and I find myself way ahead of the wave and in flat waters, I'm at risk of stalling in front of a monster.....now I'm cranking a bottom turn like Mark Richards hoping to get back toward the shoulder before the crest catches me. I kinda make this weird looking arc, survival stance of a turn and I see alittle shoulder and aim for it. I'm loosing speed quick and see the monster of wave railroading toward me. I hear cackles from my friends in the distance, so I know they saw me catch one and now my focus is to try to make an awkward punch under the toppling lip. In my inexperience I go for an adrenaline buzzed kinda of moving kick dive so that I don't get sucked over the falls.

This fails miserably but somehow I make it through.........I gather my wits for a second too fricken panicked to rejoice. I'm in the impact zone now and I see the 3, freak, larger than ever sets rolling in on the far outside. The last one being the largest. My heart sinks. Do I scratch like hell or just sit tight and take the punishment.......I decide to scratch like hell...........I barely make it under the first one and I don't make the second........It crashes 2 feet in front of me, rips my board out of my hands and I feel the elevator ride.......12 feet up and then twelve feet down to the sand like a halibut, I grab the sand with both hands and feel myself being dragged awhile and then lifted up 12 feet again for another elevator ride, the next time I hit the sand I grabbed deeper and felt the wave pass me by.....I launch off the bottom and swim for air.........I strike the top and gasp only to catch a layer 2 feet high of sea foam and inhale it into my lungs.....my arms are virtually noodles and I am coughing and desperately struggling for air........

I see that my surfboard has been broken but still is connected by the fiberglass on the top........I borrowed this board from a buddy and I didn't tell him about it........figures........I reel in the board from the now stretched lease that runs about 15 feet and I am relieved that I have some kind of floatation device to ease my noodle arms....the third and largest wave thunders toward me...the deeper I take a breath the more I cough from all the seafoam in my lungs

I bail from the board and free dive as far as possible..........oh joy another elevator ride up what felt like 14 feet and I plummet to become a halibut once more.....I grab some sand.......same story but this time it repeats 3 times......as soon as I hit the surface for air I am hit immediately with another monster wave and I am deeply machine washed.......my arms are useless and I have no breath......
and my broken board acts like a wave bouy dragging me for yards........now I was being swept toward the pier at an alarming rate....I envisioned myself being slammed into the pier pilings

It was at this time that I thought I was going to die......my will to live just vanished.......I fought a good fight.......better than I could have expected but I just went limp.......I didn't care anymore

In hindsight this is what probably saved my life..........for it calmed me down and allowed me to oxygenate my muscles......as I lay there floating......another wave would come up and I made no effort to dive...I had no energy left in my arms....I was like a cork floating helplessly, aimlessly, ready to perish.........then in a last ditch effort I reeled in my board, grabbed the nose with two hands and squeezed it together with my knees to force it back together again.....positioned myself to face the beach and luckily the next wave jettisoned me forward until I lost my grip and the broken board opened up again and sent me into the machine wash....I did this technique several more times unitl I was in safer waters.

10 yards from the pier I emerge from the sea like a darwinian creature crawling on my hands and knees with 15 feet of leash and a broken board behind me.........I crawl just far enough where I collapsed and slept until I was awoken by my friends asking if I was okay. I didn't speak much to anyone on the ride home......

This was the day of surfing that changed my life entirely and cast the foundation of my spirit. It taught me that I was not immortal as young men feel in thier early 20's and that King Neptune spared me my life today..........

King Neptune on this day changed me from a boy to a man, and I felt that every day forward, from this day on, was a bonus, a gift, and I began a campaign of a positve mental attitude that carries with me to this day. In the years to come I poured myself into my art as an expression of my own immortality...a direct result of my experience that surfing gave me.