Hurricane Rick and Typhoon Nepartak

SURF REPORT

21 October 2009


Once Hurricane Rick bloomed off southern Mexico, I nearly forgot that waves were coming from the northwest around the same time the hurricane swell might arrive. Rick was generally a fizzler, but may have been the source of some lefts breaking at Ventura Point today. Category Five Rick, with up to 185 mph winds, was the second most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the eastern Pacific and a spineless party-pooper. I had enjoyed the fantasy of Rick parked 300 miles off Baja, swigging Tequila, doing no one any harm as he stalled in our swell window for four or five days launching surf at California. But Rick forgot to take his Viagra. Wind shear from the west carved him up quickly into a tropical depression and he slunk off to the east to rain on Texas.

At 3 PM the CDIP was 6.9 at 17 from the 290, a northwest swell courtesy of recurved Typhoon Nepartak. I was startled and started to pine, inwardly of course. Something from the 175 was also registering, but I doubted if it was from Rick, who had played peek-a-boo in our window on Monday for a few hours at 155 degrees. I went late with the wrong gear to Ventura Point with the Popcorn Prince of Oaxi, Greg Prinz, AKA The Pizzer. I pushed the Yater out into the bathwater at Stables wearing a 4/3, boots and cap. The wind had blown all day at the farm, but there was glass at the beach. I could have, should have trunked it. Surf was running mostly head high to a little over. It would be an afternoon to forget, but not without sufficient adventure to report.

The Pizz was on fire but I had one of my most depressing go-outs all-time. There was a lot of deceptive windswell on top of the groundswell which I struggled mightily to ride, but was prone to misjudge too early or too late, provoking plenty of flailing in the No-Catch Zone or circus clown late take-offs into the swirling soup. Greg came steaming back out mid-session barking about the “ bottom turn of his life!” On the other hand I felt like I was surfing in oatmeal.

I got a fair left, then spent quite a while either fruitlessly paddling or taking off into closeouts. Then I took off with Greg on a frothy comber going right, and thus fastened on the idea of employing the buddy system in order to get some waves, just turn off my brain and rotely follow whatever he did-not that he was not frustrated as well, but he was catching a lot of waves and going from mid-stables to the showers frequently. That’s a twenty second ride. On one such exemplary tandem wave event, I rolled forward in slo-mo standing up for a full over-the-falls cascadia, remaining upright so I could keep up with Greg, who was flying on the face of the wave many yards from me by then. I crashed in an explosion of white water, still gamely on my feet while beneath me the turbulence roiled. There were far too many people in front of me, wide-eyed with horror, to merely jump off, so I dropped down and grabbed the tail, and proceeded to calf-wrestle the nine and half foot fiberglass beast into submission. I felt like I pulled my shoulder but it was just age-trauma no doubt. The medics remained seated ashore.

The crowning touch was a rebirthing escapade on an overhead left, which I dropped into late, of course, and just as I completed a disturbingly awkward backside bottom turn, beginning to go out of control, I found myself enveloped in what we will here identify as the tube, though within it there was little space or visibility. It was a good place to be, but all very wrong. It was like a blind date with a pretty girl who openly wishes you were not there. I rested there in the whiteout, gently skimming now on one knee, pelvis on the moon, and felt like I could cry. When I came out, I stood back up, lost my balance in full flail then fell backward. Judges on the shore held up scores of 9.9, 9.8 and 10.0. I had come so close to a full kook. But there was still plenty of daylight left. I could give it another shot-if I could catch a wave.

That night, as usual, I dreamt many things. The final dream was at one of my dreamworld surfspots. I have been there a number of times. It’s a combination of Haleiwa and Hanalei, with a really good series of breaks fronted by a carnival-like beach town. I was surfing small surf. Mostly just admiring the scene. An older surfer paddled up to me and told me I needed to get in better shape if I wanted to surf. He did not scold. He was more like a life-coach from God. Then on the beach he presented me with a large black idol with a one-eyed face on it and a thick dark headband carved on it. He said it would help. I sat on the floor of some busy camera shop and opened the idol up, discovering that there was another identical, smaller idol within. I opened that one, and inside it was also replicated in miniature. I kept opening and revealing smaller and smaller idols, until the idol was too small to open. I tried and tried to pry the tiny thing open until a loud city-slicker type came barging up and asked me why I was playing with army men on the floor like that. I found it impossible to defend myself or put back all my little idols in the next biggest one, so I just opened up a floor tile and hid them all under it and left.