Loc:
El Porto (45th)
Time:
0645-0845
Conditions:
4-6 FT+, mid tide, consistent, freak rogues.
Board:
5’9 Motorboat Too
Given yesterday’s lackluster session, and
having missed out on surfing with the WHC on Sunday, I made sure not to miss
them for Christmas Eve. As much as I want to surf at my favorite local break, I
have to put in some time with Rick, Gar, and the rest of their crew.
Text threads had already been abused the
night before about the plan to surf 45th this morning. Before Bri
and I even exit El Segundo, Rick already sends the text that he’s parked in the
lower lot.
The offshores are strong this morning. With
a pre-0700 check-in time, the dawn’s still dark with a deathly chill. Winter is
upon us, no doubt.
With the morning tide finally more
manageable, the waves aren’t as mooshy as they’ve been. In fact, they’re
breaking a bit fast with the mid tide, but it only looks four-feet tops. Bri
and I change while Rick and Dave T rush the sand. We catch Gary parking on the
way out.
The lot. . . I can’t speak enough about how
I am not a local at Porto anymore. I’ve probably lost that card a couple of
years ago. Some of the diehards I still recognize. Whiffle Boy sits next to the
meter on the concrete wall, baseball cap on underneath the lamp light, watching
the surf before he changes. The two Asian dudes who got into a fistfight early
this year are here, too.
The water’s pushing a little high up on the
sandbank when Bri and I reach it. Dave and Rick are making their way out. The
idea of a long paddle feels sketchy, especially since the waves are breaking a
little bit bigger than they had looked from the lot.
I give Bri a kiss, tell her to be careful,
and dart towards the water. I make it to the lineup fast, only getting my hair
wet on one duckdive before reaching the outside.
Rick paddles into a four-foot left in front
of 40th. Already, he’s on a wave with good shape. Water gets thrown
out the back from one of his turns, the offshore spraying it up even higher.
Dave makes for the same take-off spot where Rick had got his.
The both of us are frustrated. As the sky
brightens from purple to pink, more cars are pulling into the lot. I paddle
into a right, ditching the pig-dog attempt to penetrate out the back of the
wall. Resurfacing, Dave catches a closeout left, doing the same.
I check on Bri. She’s chatting it up with
Rick just north of us in the lineup.
Next wave, I pull into a left, but I’m
late. Closeout barrel it is. If I had a chance to make it out, it doesn’t
matter because Rick snakes me on the open face, or shall I say that he had better
position regardless.
The lineup’s more crowded. I take off too
deep again eating shit on the face. Not sure what happened. The water just kind
of bounced up or I had hit a chop, but I fall like a noob while some other guy takes
off on the shoulder. Resurfacing, a rogue wave sprouts up in the distance. We’re
all caught, but it’s a makeable wave, so I use some muscle to duckdive it.
I check Bri again. She’s caught inside. The
roguer has friends following behind it. Bri takes a beating. It takes a while,
but she makes it back out.
Bri’s not having an easy day. More walls
stand up, bigger than the waves had been in the morning, and Bri constantly finds
herself in the impact zone. On one, Dave and I hold our breaths as we watch and
wait for her to resurface.
On the next rogue wave, I duckdive, and the
power of the wave just yanks the board out of my grip. Immediately after, I
feel the tension release from my ankle. Broken leash.
Now I’m that idiot who’s swimming in to
shore. I’ve never appreciated how dangerous being in the impact zone can be
without a board, but I’m quickly given a lesson when I’m pulled under from the
whitewash. I’m so tired I’m sidestroking in. Somehow, I make it back to shore
with speed. Some guy on the inside pushes my board towards me before I get out.
I say thanks and head to the car for a replacement.
#
The lineup’s fucking crowded now, like something
you’d see in a movie. Camera guys on the shore. Bri’s with the main pack,
scratching for the smaller in-between waves, but I know those won’t break. Only
the bigger ones will if you’re sitting outside. I’m out for blood. I need to
redeem myself, but little do I know that my ego’s about to get checked once
more.
Bri tries to go for one of those little
ones again. I want to tell her it won’t break, but I need her own surf process
to take place. She doesn’t need me nagging her. When I turn around and look towards
the outside, there’s a wall standing up.
“Outside,” I tell her, as I make a calm but
purposeful paddle to beat the wave. Watching it get closer, I know I’m not
gonna make it, but I try to time it so I’m not directly where the lip’s gonna
fall. The wave looks big, but I convince myself that I can muscle through it,
maybe get dragged back a little at worse.
The wave breaks about ten yards in front of
me. I duckdive the stampeding white wash and just get trampled underwater and
sucked down below. It’s violent. Not what I had expected.
You’re supposed to be calm in these
situations. I try. I tread water with my arms and kick my legs to get to the
surface, but the pressure in my earplugs keep pushing further into my head with
a squeaking sound. I’m far from shore, but I reach for the sand with my foot
and actually touch bottom. After pushing myself up, light starts to filter
through my eyelids. Dark horror. The whole time I’m thinking, Please God don’t
let there be another wave behind this.
I reach the surface, air starved. I look
for Bri. She pops up just a moment after me. If I’m hurting I know she is.
“Are you okay?” I say.
She looks at me and says, “I have no
business being out here.”
I look out the back. The next wave is just
as big and menacing. The offshore wind makes white veins that ripple up the
curling face.
“I’m going back,” says Bri, as she turns
her board around.
I have the keys to the car, so I have to
turn around, too. Truth is, I have every instinct to bail as well.
The second beating’s not so bad. I get
rolled and eventually catch a belly ride to shore. The incoming tide is already
pushing up against the rocks. To my left, someone’s board’s crashing up on the
rocks. Done deal, I’m thinking. With the damage done, I stumble for the
clearing, but two guys on the rocks are yelling at me to grab the board. I do.
When I reach the sand, they’re waving at some guy who’s struggling to swim back
to shore. I hold his board for him and watch him get out. As he approaches, I
notice cherry-red blood oozing from his mouth and dripping from his chin.
“Thanks,” he says. He inspects his board
and groans at the site of the smashed nose.
The shoreline is littered with surfers.
Whoever didn’t make that wave is now on the shore, waiting for the set to
finish. Even Charlie, a local heavy, is getting out of the water. He turns to
his buddy and says, “I’ve got the wrong board. That new swell is showing up
and. . .”
So it’s not just me. Even the guy who had
handed me my leashless board is on the sand with me, debating on going back in.
#
There are numerous reasons why we push
ourselves, and I can name a few this morning. One, I have to paddle back out
because my homies are out there, older Venice vets, and I can’t bitch out and
just say something like, “It was too big.” If I don’t challenge myself, I don’t
learn, and even though a line must be drawn somewhere between pushing myself
and stupidity, I’m hoping that I’m using good judgment.
Two, I haven’t caught one fucking good wave
yet, and I can’t leave the surf without a good wave. Sometimes, one good wave,
just one, can make the difference between a horrible session and a decent one.
I know I just need a good ride to make this whole morning worth it.
Back outside, I lose Gary. Not sure where he
is. Dave and I cross paths a few times. Rick more than anyone else is a
constant back-and-forther. This really is his spot.
I have a chance at a right, but a
bodyboarder on my inside gets it, even calls me off of it. Well, it was his
wave, but I was hoping he’d back out. I usually don’t surf like this, but I’ve
been having a bad morning, and I’m desperate at this point.
And then there’s the fear. I keep looking
out back, ensuring that I’m not drifting too close to the inside, waiting for
that monster rogue wave to roll through again. Apprehensive to work the lineup,
I stay in my spot.
Tyler comes out in shorts and a rashguard.
Might be a spring suit, but he’s on his longboard living up to his legendary
status. An entourage watches him from the sand. He and Rick chat it up.
I struggle. Struggling goes to hating
myself, and then there’s the dark side.
My last wave is an inside right. I expect
it to close, but it reforms, holding shape for me to get two backhand snaps. It’s
not good enough to reclaim the session.
Emphatically defeated, I rinse my board in
the shower. Bri’s on the sand talking to the photographer. Some chick with a
bunch of stickers on her board talks with them, probably sponsored. I walk up
like an unfriendly dick and demand my car key.
Bri knows I’m frustrated, so she lets me
stew in my shit while I change. Before pulling out of the lot, I watch the surf
and see that it’s getting better. No more rogue waves. The higher tide is
producing rippable head high inside waves. Out in front of the tanks, a right
is barreling and holding shape. Either the surf has been like this the whole
time and I suck, or the surf is just improving. I wouldn’t doubt the former
being my case.
#
Later on that day, and for the next days to
follow, I tell everyone about this session, and they can’t believe it. Klaude
had surfed Venice and said it was three-feet tops. Orlando will say that he had
surfed 26th Street and that it wasn’t big at all. It just goes back
to what I had said earlier. El Porto. I’m not a local here anymore. If I was, I
would’ve known.
