The trip started super mellow, but all hell has broken loose for the past 2 days. The soundtrack in my head went from Bob Marley to Ozzy. Gotta feel aggro to take 3 on the head just to get outside. I've met up with some much better surfers at the small hotel we've been staying at. In a pattern that has repeated itself throughout my life, they've taken me under their wing.
We are 200 yards offshore, sighting the big white tower on the shore to keep ourselves lined up with the reef. My newfound friends tell me to follow them, to paddle from where they paddle. They both catch waves at will. Me, not so much.
The waves at Esterillos Oeste can be random. There is a reef outside that produces a nice longboard wave, and another one that makes a steeper shortboard wave to the inside, but this trip, the combination of direction and tide means that waves break whenever the fuck they want to. Also, they take a while to break. They rear up, stand tall, and march right by you. Or they break way outside and you scurry around the whitewater. It always takes a little bit of calibration to launch one right on the shoulder. From the outside I can see the backs of waves that rolled by and eventually broke. They're head high, which means that the front is at least a head and a half, or more. No big deal to your average surfer, but I'm a middle aged, desk bound, started in his 30s, now late 40s vacation surfer. Once a year, twice if I'm lucky, I grab a longboard and try to make it work.
When they finally break, the faces of the waves jack up and go vertical, with flecks of whitewater misting off the top. Then they crumble, big slabs of whitewater sliding out over, and then down the face. They're powerful but they're not hollow tubes. They're fast but not too fast. In other words, they're made for the desk bound, late starting, middle aged schmoe to have his hero moments.
After I get the timing down and place myself in the general vicinity of where my friends have caught their rides, I find my wave and pivot the board. No matter how early I start paddling, it feels like I'm late to the party. The board jacks up and I lift my chest up to keep the tip out of the water. I'm pulling hard and I can feel the wave start to move past me, I take three more strokes and bring myself back to the ledge. Then I'm sliding down the face and Shit! it's a long way to the bottom. I'm pulling myself into a crouch. I'm riding goofy on a right breaking wave, navigating by sound and peripheral vision, so I hear the wave more than I see it...
Now I've stood up and I'm milking the ride. No slashing turns - I haven't figured out how to do that on a longboard -- just gentle leans to move up and down the face, right in front of the wave as it curls and breaks. Everything is silent and I realize that this is it. This is what I was chasing by coming back here. The sun, the water, the size of the drop, the steepness of the face and the speed that I'm moving across it. Most of all the total silence. This is what I'm going to replay when I'm sitting in a shitty meeting, listening to someone drone on and on. When I'm plugged back into the Matrix, I'm going to remember what it means to really be alive.
We are 200 yards offshore, sighting the big white tower on the shore to keep ourselves lined up with the reef. My newfound friends tell me to follow them, to paddle from where they paddle. They both catch waves at will. Me, not so much.
The waves at Esterillos Oeste can be random. There is a reef outside that produces a nice longboard wave, and another one that makes a steeper shortboard wave to the inside, but this trip, the combination of direction and tide means that waves break whenever the fuck they want to. Also, they take a while to break. They rear up, stand tall, and march right by you. Or they break way outside and you scurry around the whitewater. It always takes a little bit of calibration to launch one right on the shoulder. From the outside I can see the backs of waves that rolled by and eventually broke. They're head high, which means that the front is at least a head and a half, or more. No big deal to your average surfer, but I'm a middle aged, desk bound, started in his 30s, now late 40s vacation surfer. Once a year, twice if I'm lucky, I grab a longboard and try to make it work.
When they finally break, the faces of the waves jack up and go vertical, with flecks of whitewater misting off the top. Then they crumble, big slabs of whitewater sliding out over, and then down the face. They're powerful but they're not hollow tubes. They're fast but not too fast. In other words, they're made for the desk bound, late starting, middle aged schmoe to have his hero moments.
After I get the timing down and place myself in the general vicinity of where my friends have caught their rides, I find my wave and pivot the board. No matter how early I start paddling, it feels like I'm late to the party. The board jacks up and I lift my chest up to keep the tip out of the water. I'm pulling hard and I can feel the wave start to move past me, I take three more strokes and bring myself back to the ledge. Then I'm sliding down the face and Shit! it's a long way to the bottom. I'm pulling myself into a crouch. I'm riding goofy on a right breaking wave, navigating by sound and peripheral vision, so I hear the wave more than I see it...
Now I've stood up and I'm milking the ride. No slashing turns - I haven't figured out how to do that on a longboard -- just gentle leans to move up and down the face, right in front of the wave as it curls and breaks. Everything is silent and I realize that this is it. This is what I was chasing by coming back here. The sun, the water, the size of the drop, the steepness of the face and the speed that I'm moving across it. Most of all the total silence. This is what I'm going to replay when I'm sitting in a shitty meeting, listening to someone drone on and on. When I'm plugged back into the Matrix, I'm going to remember what it means to really be alive.
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