by Tom Anderson
'Reckon he got barrelled then?' I asked Rhino. Getting 'barrelled' was just about the greatest sensation in surfing – meaning to place yourself inside the tube of the breaking wave with enough forward momentum to shoot along with it.
Rhino's face foretold the answer: 'I know he got barrelled then.'
A brief lull in sets followed, allowing all the other surfers to gather in the line-up again – including Jem, who was only too eager to confirm the quality of the wave he'd just had.
'The hole at the end of that thing was miles in front of me then,' he boasted – explaining how deep behind the curl he had gotten. 'That was mental!'
When another row of waves appeared, Rhino was naturally next in line.
This time I didn't make any effort to watch him – opting to concentrate on my own positioning instead and paddling safely over the wave. This would leave me ready to try and pick off one of the next ones. Jem had made getting into one of these look so easy and I knew my best bet of making a real go of this was to get stuck in from the off.
The problem facing me now was that a few of the other surfers had themselves got into a better place than me. In surfing there exists a common rule that the person sitting closest to where a wave begins breaking has the right to take off – and a guy on a big red board had made his way right to the top of the peak. This meant I had to let him go, and make do with the third wave of the set.
Checking that the wave had lined up properly, and wasn't going to shut down on me after I got in to it, I began paddling. Trying to ignore that I was on a board far too small, I kicked frantically with my feet and prepared for the final push. I felt the wave pick me up as I grabbed the edges of my board. My stomach suddenly felt as if it had done a somersault as I saw the drop below me open out. Gasping with trepidation, I threw all my weight to the back of the board, making the bottom half of my body act like an anchor, saving myself from dropping in. The wall of spray blinded me as the wave leaped forward, unridden. Shame began to absorb me immediately. You only get a few chances at taking off in a place like this before the other surfers decide you don't mean business and stop giving you the opportunity to paddle for the good ones. I knew without a doubt I'd just blown the first of those few chances.
A series of even bigger waves behind that sent everyone scrambling in different directions. Apart from Jem, who swung midway up the face of the next one and swooped downwards, sliding into the tube at the same time as getting to his feet. To make things harder, Jem was surfing with his back to the wave, adeptly grabbing the side of his board (known as the rail) for stability as the ice-like curtain slid over him. This was world-class surfing. In these intense conditions, Jem had wasted no time in raising his game to meet the challenge.
Fortunately, all of this meant he probably hadn't noticed me baulking at the one before.
I sat up for a moment as the waves again let off. I tried to remember other times I'd surfed enormous waves – as well as the perfect and ferocious tubes I'd seen at this very spot all those years ago. It was the size of this swell, and comparative winter-like nature of the scene around, that was taking so much adjusting to. Focussing on my breathing, I recalled the most important tip anyone had ever given me about this kind of surf: paddle for a wave as you normally would – but then add an extra stroke with each arm before jumping up. This would allow for the additional speed with which a wave like this would pitch forward as it broke.
Drawing my best attempt at quiet confidence, I locked a wave in my sights and began the splashing sprint towards the ledge, and glory. A lurching, heaving, guillotine of water launched itself at the reef in front of me, as I swallowed my fears and lowered my feet towards the board that was now dropping away from me, down towards the pit. Again I felt that stomach-churning warning signal within – but this time I managed to override it, and felt the resultant adrenaline flood my veins as I reached the bottom of the wave intact. Survival instincts now running on a state of heightened awareness, I drove a bottom turn and tried to find a good point in the middle of the face to generate the speed needed to get safely to the end of the thumping section. Trimming mid-face, I felt the acoustics around me change. The water in front darkened as the roof of the wave hovered just behind my head, interrupting the sounds of the outside world. I could feel a vacuum of air around as the tube breathed somewhere very close, before the pressure eased and I accelerated for the flatter shoulder of the wave. Confidence immediately boosted, I jammed a cutback in, as if to stamp the ride, and pulled off feeling pretty pleased with myself.
'Not bad,' Jem grinned as I joined him on the paddle back out. 'You've got to slow yourself enough to be in that tube next time though. No point throwing yourself onto a rail all cocky like that if you haven't pulled in first.'
By 'on rail' he meant carving a turn – because that would involve turning your board onto its 'rail'. And by 'pulling in' he meant turning into the tube of the wave. In Jem's world a big carve was meaningless here without a tube ride to precede it, and that was easier said than done.
I told him I'd heard the tube behind me and that it couldn't have been far off, to which he replied by asking, 'Did you see the hole?'
'You what?'
'Simple question. Did you see the hole? If you did, it was a tube. If you didn't, then it's back to the drawing board. It's all about barrels here. That's the only thing you should care about.'
As we were talking, Rhino dropped into a mid-sizer right in front of us, ramming all his weight onto the tail as he reached the bottom, killing off his speed and allowing the wave to overtake him. Setting his line through the middle of the tube, I noticed his right hand dragging softly against the face as he raced past us. This was his way of controlling speed inside the heart of the wave.
'Now he would have just seen the hole,' Jem explained. 'Just in case you're wondering, that's how it's done.'
Merely watching that wave had sent my heart rate through the roof – and all I wanted in the world was to get into that position myself, whatever it took.
It's easy to think such things paddling out, though. When you're actually poised to drop into a wave like that, a lot more is going on to put you off. The window of time in which to act is so limited that fear freezes you to the spot.
Getting into a session like this for most surfers, myself included, is a battle against your better instincts, as you dare yourself to catch the wave later and later, each time making the ledge in front of you get that little bit closer to being completely vertical.
The other thing running through my mind at all times was the fact that the two guys I'd driven up with were from the same town as me, and that whatever happened up here would get back to everyone I knew and had grown up with. Usually when you came across waves of such quality it would be abroad, with hardly anyone you knew – and in a competitive line-up of surfers hungry for waves, who didn't give a shit if you'd just had the wave of your life. Such an atmosphere could be as cold as any of the weather-engineered situations you'd find up on this very north-eastern tip of the British mainland. But this time the only thing frosty about the atmosphere was in the literal sense. The surfers I was sharing this session with would do nothing but encourage me to score the wave of my life.
After about five attempts to get in and around the tube, one virtually landed on my lap. As if meant for me, everything suddenly slipped into place and all semblances of things being hard, difficult, tricky or frightening took ten seconds' leave. Just enough to allow me a ride that would stay with me forever.
A peak so round and solid that you wanted to cry with excitement made its way through the ocean towards me, just as a burst of rain began to pour out of the light-grey skies. Apart from where the droplets broke its surface, the water appeared silvery, slippery, thick. There wasn't a wisp of wind and I was in exactly the right position to go for it, with no hassle from anyone else.
I paddled, coolly focussing my breathing and senses to channel the excitement in my muscles into the economy of motion nee
ded to negotiate the drop. Building up paddle momentum I got over the ledge well in time to avoid any kind of freefall, but still deep enough along the reef to find a long wall of mercury-like water rising up in front of me. Way beyond, out in the flats and a world I had left behind, I could see Rhino sitting up and raising his hands into the sky. He was yelling something. Time began slowing and my awareness of all around me heightened to a haywire crescendo. I could hear my breathing as my thought processes clarified… This wave is going to do it… It's going to do it… It's going to…
The lip hooked itself outwards, piercing the flat water to my left, swallowing me in the back of its saltwater pocket. With so much room, my board was able to stick to a clean wave face and continue unhindered in its trajectory forward, towards the window of light that had now shrunk my view of the channel to merely a snapshot – with Rhino cheering ecstatically in the middle of it. This time the absolute change of sound, gravity and atmosphere indicated how far behind the portal I was. There was time to think, to stare, to marvel – then as quickly and predictably as it had thrown over, the exit suddenly flew towards me and I was catapulted out and back into reality, careering onto the shoulder with runaway speed and a grin that could be seen from the town centre.
Taking a breather to register what had happened, I let the euphoria flood through me and waited for my psyche to adjust. I had to try and do it again.
Paddling back out to wait my turn again, I watched as Jem slouched his way through another delirious chamber of churning water.
A couple of the other surfers took off on the waves behind, including one who got hung horribly in the lip as it rose up. Kicking his board away he was hurled through the air and downwards to the waiting reef, as a choir of groans and cheers echoed through the channel. The exploding white water released him to the surface, and a hero's reception. He'd need a trip to the car park though, as his board had not survived the thrashing intact. I watched as he gathered his senses and then noticed that only the half attached to him by a cord had survived. He gave a knowing look – a look of resignation and mild satisfaction – even pride. It had obviously happened to him many times before.
Several exchanges of waves followed – allowing both Jem and Rhino to continue registering oodles of tube time – before I again found myself in position for another monster wave. This time I relied less on instinct and more on the memory of how I'd ridden the one before.
Again, the wave allowed me to get down it with all my speed and poise intact, and I turned to take aim, watching with relish as the shoulder thickened. A darkening pit began to rise around me. I knew what to do here, I thought, seizing my chance to repeat things. But this time I'd do it with a casual stance I'd not dared to pull before.
As I heard the other two cheering for me, I clasped my hands behind my back and stuck out my tongue. The tube held up for me, and for a moment I was able to feel myself standing disdainfully inside one of the heaviest tubes I'd ever seen, as bona fide witnesses from Porthcawl, my home town, hollered at me.
Things can happen awfully quickly with so many thousands of tons of water flying about the place – and just before making my cocky escape and reaping the imminent glory, I saw Jem's expression change ever so slightly. His eyes had widened, almost unnoticeably, but enough to warn me that something wasn't quite right. The next thing I felt was an enormous whack to the back of the head, before I flew backwards and was pummelled downwards into the reef, cracking off the floor, coccyx first. The panic that set in began to drain me of oxygen, and it was with a splutter and whimper that I pulled my head above the surface – just in time to have to dive under the wave behind.
The violence of all that water exploding on the reef shuddered through my body, yanking my limbs in different directions, shaking me until I didn't know which way was up. I could feel cold water pouring in through the back of my wetsuit as the wave ripped a piece of Velcro open. The shock gave me a surge of determination to get back on my board and paddle my way to safety.
Although the whole thing had taken seconds, it felt as if I'd just survived days at sea when I broke free of the impact zone and dragged myself towards the safety of deep water, wondering what had just happened. Jem was shaking his head and tutting.
'Pride comes before a fall, young man!'
Rhino laughed.
'I could see that lip creeping towards the back of your head then,' Jem added. 'Made that mistake myself once. You shouldn't assume you can squat in a tube like that unless it's the size of a truck. You end up forgetting where the lip is. That, fair play, was the funniest thing I've ever seen – one second you were about to fly out of the barrel of your life and the next you looked like a rag doll!'
'Oh, come on,' I pleaded. 'It was a good one before that happened!'
'Nope,' Jem grinned back, shaking his head. 'That's the whole point of tube riding. It's the risk. The more you stake, the more the reward. If you fall you only get about a tenth of the credit. It's back to square one for you. You'll just have to do it again now.'
'Whatever,' I spat back and looked to Rhino for some sort of support.
'Rhines'll tell you. That's the way it is,' Jem added, as if he'd read my thoughts.
Rhino didn't have time to reply, fortunately perhaps, having spotted an incoming set and heading off in pursuit of it.
As we settled in to a marathon session, I started realising that things wouldn't automatically keep going my way. When we'd been in half an hour I noticed that on rare intervals there were sets coming through way bigger than any others. The trouble now was that this interval had begun shortening. At first it was every quarter of an hour, but then it dropped to ten minutes. It was clear the swell was growing – and fast.
If my board had carried unfortunate dimensions at the start, it was now rendering surfing virtually impossible. Getting down the earlier waves had been possible with a gargantuan paddle effort and a reliance on not a drop of water being out of place. Now though, with a wind starting to build alongside the swell and limbs rapidly reaching the point of extreme fatigue, staying out much longer could be perilous – and anything but fun.
To my dismay, Rhino had a solution:
'My six-ten is getting a bit small for this now,' he stated, matter-of-factly. 'I might go in and get the seven-o. Want to take this one off me if I do?' He pointed at the board he was paddling. 'Anything's gonna be better than that thing you're on!'
'Yeah. For sure.' The offer of an extra five inches of stability and foil would decrease my chances of further injuring my already sore coccyx – although only marginally.
The spectacular part of his plan involved swapping boards on the spot, while treading water. Nervous a set might catch us catastrophically unawares, I ripped my leash off quickly and concentrated on securing this new ride to my right ankle.
Next came the bit I most wanted to see. Spitefully, I was wishing for a case of Schadenfreude; secretly hoping he'd get creamed catching one in on my board – and then exalt me for having managed to get this far on such an impotent piece of equipment.
With a kick of water he dug in to a paddle, making for another enormous wave. After chasing it to the very top of the reef, he spun around, drifting halfway up the face backwards. With a couple of quick strokes at the critical moment he engaged with the wave's forward momentum, allowing his own weight to launch him into an air-drop – only inches ahead of the tumbling lip.
My six-five looked like a skateboard under his feet as he landed, lodging just enough of the tail into the water to skip up the face again before the curtain landed behind him.
Far from safe yet, I saw him adjust his weight to try and compensate for the over-responsiveness of the tiny board he was riding. Flexing under the pressure and speed, my six-five wobbled as a puff of gas billowed from the depth of the furious tube, lifting Rhino's wet hair as if he were standing in a wind tunnel. It was a show of skill and bravado that I couldn't even imagine attempting myself.
Jem hooted. 'Yeeaah buddy!'
> 'Did he make it?' I called over.
Jem laughed. 'No. Don't be daft! He just got annihilated. Good effort though, eh? You can rely on the Rhines to go when no one else would!'
It was at that point that I remembered Jem hadn't slept yet since driving up. By highlighting Rhino's approach, he was taking attention away from his own relentless display of commitment.
'Are you feeling it yet?' I asked.
'Not in any way whatsoever!' he replied. 'Leap before you look, innit!'
As it happened, the fierce peak Rhino dropped into was one of the last to barrel like that. Scotland has always lived at the mercy of whatever weather systems the ocean chooses to generate, and the same storm that had sent these waves was itself beginning to make its way to shore. Jem had predicted this as early as yesterday – which was why he had been able to plough his all into this session, with no need to keep anything in reserve.
After nearly five hours of surfing, it was clear the building breeze had ruined the waves. Gone were the airbrushed borders of the lip line, and the cylindrical tubes with their hypnotic, churning foam patterns. Instead the waves were crumbling, bouncing – their strict lines getting interrupted by a backing wind. But by now it didn't bother us in the slightest, and it was with serene relief that I climbed back on to the beach and up to the van.