Last Long Drop

by Mike Safe

  ‘Whatever happened to the impoverished writer living on bread and water in his basement flat?’ asked Harcourt.

  ‘Oh, that’s just about everybody else – say, ninety-nine per cent of them,’ said Tess. ‘Our Mr Harrison has left that sort of penury far behind.’

  ‘Like any lefty made good he has a deep understanding of class – first class, that is,’ said Harcourt.

  Tess finally got around to tasting the stir fry, ‘Wow, this has a lot of chilli in it.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry about that.’

  ‘Oh, in all that excitement I forgot,’ said Tess, giving up on the stir fry. ‘Kirsten and Silas are coming over for a barbecue next week. She rang me today and we arranged it. Is that okay?’

  ‘Oh, sure, fine.’ They hadn’t seen their daughter and Silas – who Tess insisted on labelling Kirsten’s ‘partner’, where Harcourt preferred to call him her ‘boyfriend’ – since Christmas Day. He paused for a moment before adding, ‘I just cleaned the bloody thing and put it away. But I can drag it out again – it’s not like I’ve got anything much else to do at the moment, is it?’

  THREE

  The swell came up three days later. In Sydney, it was not super big, but more than big enough, driven as it was by a cyclone that had spun to life out of a Coral Sea warm-water disturbance far off the northern Queensland coast. Over the course of the New Year week, it had meandered westwards, slowly gathering strength and then, within a couple of hundred kilometres of Australian landfall, it had veered south. Soon the pristine rainforested points at Noosa Heads, north of Brisbane, better known for their well-behaved small waves, were assailed by thick slabs of grey malevolence that exploded on shallow reefs and sandbars before sweeping ashore in lines of sand-churned foam. They overwhelmed the defenceless beaches, gouging away large chunks of what were supposed to be the nation’s summer holiday play places.

  Down on the Gold Coast, south of Brisbane, beaches were dredged away overnight until multimillion-dollar seafront homes that should never have been built on such shifting sands were in danger of being inundated. Then, as if wearied, the cyclone stalled somewhere off the Queensland–New South Wales border before wandering back out to sea where it barely moved for a couple of days. Still, even while dawdling about, masses of energy continued to radiate from its spinning core like radio signals beamed across a clear night sky. These pulses worked their way down the New South Wales coast in ragged lines.

  In Sydney, those parts of the coast facing north were open to receive the full brunt and there the waves could be heard booming like distant cannons on the open beaches. But at those locations that faced south, such as Harcourt, Carpark and Brown’s local beach, the swell was refracted, having to bend its way around buffering headlands. This warped and confused the waves, making them unpredictable and even more dangerous.

  For the three friends, who over the years had survived their share of encounters with nature, this exhibition of raw power meant one thing – a quick road trip. A few calculations and telephone calls suggested a certain reef break a couple of hours’ drive south of Sydney, down through the national park that skirted the city’s edge, and then on a bit. Brown in particular was keen to go – his take off and die attitude had kicked in and nothing would hinder him. Harcourt was somewhat ambivalent, although he kept those thoughts to himself.

  The hard truth was that at fifty-five he had surfed his share of big waves, including several stints during his twenties and thirties on the north shore of Oahu, the Hawaiian island where the best surfers in the world gathered every northern winter for the big wave contests. He had an indelible memory from his first time there when a massive swell had rolled out of the North Pacific from somewhere up in the storm-ravaged blackness of the Bering Sea. Even now, he could recall standing in awe on the coastal highway at Waimea Bay, the notorious big wave location, watching set after set pour in. How big had those waves been? Forty-foot faces? Fifty foot? Numbers didn’t mean much when you were confronted by such overwhelming absoluteness.

  It had been quite simply terrifying, had felt as if the very ground on which he stood could break apart under the relentless bombardment. Looking up to the hill that ran alongside the Waimea point, through the spray and mist, he had caught sight of the tower of the Catholic church of Saints Peter and Paul, and it had seemed like a haven of tranquillity. At one stage, several sets of the biggest waves almost closed out the bay from one end to the other. Later that day, after the swell had settled and lined up to an almost manageable extent, a few of the big wave Hawaiians, joined by a couple of Californians and Australians, had ventured out. Harcourt didn’t join them. But in the weeks that followed he had found his own level in this place where the ocean teased one moment and terrified the next. He came to handle serious waves of double his height, or ‘double overhead’, to use the jargon, with reasonable assurance, especially when he was surfing on his forehand – that is, facing the wave as he rode across it. He had even scored a couple of pristine sessions at the infamous Banzai Pipeline, a wicked left-hander that regularly pounded the underprepared onto its shallow reef. On those manageable medium-sized days it was more often than not dangerously crowded but, taking his time and showing due respect, he had snared a few to remember.

  The skills and confidence won on that first trip had lasted Harcourt through his thirties and well into his forties. There weren’t too many occasions when Hawaiian survival mode was needed in the sort of places and situations he faced when surfing these days. But a cyclone swell bearing down from the north was never a trivial matter. His flexibility had been declining for the past fifteen years and Brown, a yoga devotee who could seemingly still tie himself in knots, had long been at Harcourt to take some classes with him. But, for whatever reason, mainly always managing to find something else to do, he hadn’t. He remained a solid swimmer but this was going to be anything but calm and easy. Sizeable waves on a shallow reef located off a cliff had the ability to suck energy and confidence out of you like air from a balloon.

  Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels On A Gravel Road was on the CD player of Harcourt’s seldom washed Honda CVR. He loved this album’s down south country-soul vibe. The Riders had a couple of covers from it – ‘Lake Charles’ and ‘Barbed Wire’, both bluesy reminiscences – in their set list.

  ‘He had a reason to get back to Lake Charles …’ sang Carpark in a cracked and seriously off-key baritone from the back seat as the introductory chords echoed out of the speakers.

  ‘This made Time magazine’s all-time top one hundred albums,’ said Harcourt. ‘Lucinda’s dad was a poet and English lit professor.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, but can she surf Pipeline on a big day?’ asked Brown.

  ‘Hey, Brown, show some respect, buddy,’ said Carpark in mock outrage. ‘Lucinda’s a goddess. Just because the only music you relate to is Jimmy fucking Barnes and the top forty from twenty years ago.’

  ‘That’s not true – it’s the top forty from thirty years ago. Cold Chisel, the Angels …’ Brown started to laugh. ‘Anyway, I heard a Nicki Minaj song on the radio the other day – she’s pretty hip, isn’t she? I have to admit I almost liked it.’

  ‘Sorry, Brown, but Miss Minaj doesn’t blow my hair back,’ said Harcourt. ‘Anyway, isn’t she so last year, or even the year before the year before that? She’s always half-naked and her songs are half-written nursery rhyme rap crap.’

  ‘So what’s wrong with that? The half-naked bit, I mean,’ replied Brown. ‘Anyway, I know she can’t surf Pipeline, okay?’

  ‘Spare me the Nicki Minaj dribble,’ said Carpark from the backseat. ‘Do you two ever think we’re getting old?’

  ‘Every day in every way,’ replied Harcourt.

  They rounded a last bend and dropped over a rise that led down to a dirt turnaround where a dozen or so vehicles were scattered along the cliff edge. Obviously, others had read the same signals emanating from the swell.

  From a well-worn gap in the cliff it was possible to scramble down to a st
rategic rocky ledge forty metres below. In the eerily heaving ocean was a group of fifteen or so surfers. Most of them were congregated pretty well straight off the ledge, out a couple of hundred metres but three or four were strung out further to the south in spots that would give them a deeper take off on the waves that, when they came, would break across a stretch of reef that tapered away to the north. Those few in particular were after the maximum thrill that came with maximum risk. But for all out there, a fall meant being swept towards the wall of rock – there was no welcoming sandy beach to wash up on.

  Standing on the cliff top, the trio knew this was the pensive moment of waiting, watching and wondering. There were often such lulls between sets of bigger waves that had travelled across vast distances. For those in the water, these moments of respite were welcome and necessary because, for starters, they allowed a much easier passage when attempting to paddle out beyond the surf line. And for those who had wiped out on previous waves it was also a chance to recover and get back out or, if they had been beaten up badly enough, make their way in to the rock shelf and scramble ashore before another set descended. Well, that was the logic – as much as there was any sort of reliable game plan in big swells at dangerous locations like this.

  As they watched in silence, the ocean heaved and pitched in a ragged mood of discontent. Even without breaking waves, a massive amount of water was moving about, sloshing against the cliff face and then washing back out to sea. They watched a surfer who was trying to come ashore get tossed about like a cork as he waited to time his last rush of paddling to bring him back to the rock shelf. It looked almost comical as he finally managed his exit by being swept on to the slippery rocks where he stumbled several times over their pitted surface while scrambling for the relative safety of the ledge that led to the narrow path back up the cliff.

  ‘Here we go,’ said Brown. He was looking out beyond the surfers to where a series of blue-green lumps could be seen moving in untidy formation across the ocean’s surface. It was a relatively still day, just a gentle side breeze that was at least taking the edge off the relentless summer heat, and the trio watched as the waves approached, growing bigger and more defined as they lined up and bore down on the reef. Now the surfers at sea level in the unsettled water caught sight of them as well and started scrambling further out to sea.

  ‘This is going to be interesting,’ suggested Carpark. ‘Those inside guys are going to get hammered.’

  Two of the pack sitting out from the rock shelf were obviously caught well behind the rest as everyone paddled frantically to get over the top of the now rearing first wave of the set. The other few surfers strung out along the reef and who had been further out made it over with relative ease even though they were closer to what would be the point of maximum impact when the wave finally broke. As it did, one of the two caught inside was halfway up the face as it toppled to engulf him, throwing what seemed to be his sticklike figure backwards and driving him and his board down hard. The second surfer, caught even further inside, could do nothing but push his board away and dive as deep as possible in the second before the mass of white-water consumed him.

  Big wave surfing had its own creed, some true, much of it myth. Part of this was that the surfer should never catch the first wave in a set because if you wiped out you’d have to survive the impact of all the waves that followed. Another supposed article of faith was that the biggest waves in a set were usually found in the middle, maybe the third and fourth in a powerful swell like this. There was no such thing as the killer last wave that was often mythologised in Hollywood movies, like the late-night Mike Vargas one that Harcourt had watched on TV the week before, although the grim reality was that enough waves in a big set could quickly sap the energy of anyone who had to endure being bombed by them.

  Again, the pack managed to scramble over the top of the second wave, which was much the same size as the first. The third was bigger but better lined up, a clean right-hander that allowed one of the surfers to paddle in to it and take the long drop down its face, turning off the bottom and picking up a fast 100-metre-plus ride across the reef. At that point, the bottom dropped away abruptly into deeper water, which allowed a well-timed exit over the back of the diminishing wave.

  The fourth swell was the biggest of this set – probably with a minimum six-metre face, making it at least three times as tall as anyone who might take it on. This one lined up along the reef slightly more to the south where the surfer sitting the deepest in the impact zone, or in the most perilous position, was able to paddle in to it, rising to his feet and taking the drop into its depths as the mass of water reared up and then toppled above him. Somehow, he managed to hang on to a gouging turn off the bottom and slot himself inside its vast watery chasm as it roared across the reef like a runaway locomotive. If the previous surfer’s ride had been exhilarating, this was awe inspiring. A man against the ocean moment. The surfer was finally spat out of the wave, aiming his board up and over its back as it subsided into the deep water channel.

  ‘Wow,’ said Carpark. Even he was left otherwise speechless.

  For another ten minutes or so they watched as two more sets poured through, neither the size of what they had first witnessed. The two surfers they had seen cleaned up eventually made it back to the rock shelf, one of them with only half his board after it had been snapped when he was swept back up and then dropped down the face of the wave as it had collapsed on him. On the following sets, a couple of others had wiped out, although nowhere near as viciously, and in the lull that followed one of them was now floundering to get back to the rock ledge. The cyclone was wreaking its own brand of havoc from 1,000 kilometres away.

  ‘Well, are we going?’ asked Brown. He was tuned in – Toad time, take off and die if you dare.

  ‘It’s now or never,’ replied Carpark, a little more reluctantly, or so it seemed to Harcourt who remained silent.

  ‘Look, it’s no big deal,’ said Brown. ‘No one’s keeping score here – we either go or we don’t.’ He paused and then added, ‘We’ve all been around long enough and seen enough to cut the crap. No one has to go if they don’t want to. It’s big and it’s nasty and we know there’s no reason to put yourself in a situation you don’t want to be in. The macho bullshit days are long gone.’

  Harcourt knew Brown was only saying this for his and Carpark’s sake, probably his in particular. ‘No, we’ll go,’ he said. Despite Brown’s conciliating words, there was still something in his hard-core friend that would expect all three of them to go out there. The brotherhood … be that bullshit or whatever.

  ‘Yeah, we’re in,’ said Carpark. Harcourt nodded in agreement.

  Ten minutes later they were at the bottom of the cliff and on the rock shelf, their boards under their arms. Brown and Carpark were in their board shorts while Harcourt wore a short wetsuit, thinking if the worst came to the very worst and he was washed across the rocks the neoprene would save him at least a bit from being bashed, bruised and bloodied.

  ‘Okay,’ said Brown, ‘I’m going to sit deep down the line and try to snag a couple of those big tubing ones.’ He paused and smiled at the other two. ‘I don’t expect anyone else to do that if they don’t want to.’

  ‘Mad bastard,’ said Carpark.

  ‘I think we’ll sit out the back from off the shelf here and see how we go,’ said Harcourt. ‘You can have that on your own – be careful.’

  Brown laughed. ‘Always.’

  The trio watched another, smaller set wash through. As the last remnants of it surged across the rock shelf they launched themselves on to their boards and headed out to sea. It was all about a hard and fast paddle to get out cleanly, to clear the breaking surf line as quickly as possible. The prospect of being caught inside the break and hammered by incoming sets was not to be considered. Brown was a strong, instinctive paddler and Harcourt and Carpark followed him. Their luck held as the ocean slumbered discontentedly for the next five minutes. Brown headed slightly to the north to av
oid the impact zone directly out from the rock shelf and they climbed over another relatively small set of only three waves. The last was the biggest and as Harcourt followed Brown up its face he looked across to the impact zone where a paddling surfer stood and then dropped into its inner depths. It all seemed to happen in a sort of cinematic slow motion – everything was bigger, bolder, brighter and louder, more magnified, as the rider disappeared down the wave while the three friends paddled up and over this heaving liquid wall. The mass of the wave passed harmlessly beneath them and, aided by the light side breeze, it displaced a rush of air that blew back over the paddlers in a halo of sunlit spray. Making it into clear water, Harcourt felt the thrill of this all-surrounding rawness, as well as the heartbeat thumping within his straining chest.

  They reached the dozen or so surfers clustered in what appeared to be safety just outside the zone and Brown sat up on his board for a moment as the other two joined him. ‘Okay, guys, I’m heading down the line a bit more. Take my chances down there.’

  ‘Why not get an easier one here with us?’ asked Carpark. ‘Get the feel of it for starters.’

  It seemed a reasonable proposition to Harcourt. His heroic days were over.

  ‘Nah, I’ll try down there,’ said Brown. ‘You don’t know, if you don’t go. See you back on shore.’ With that, he paddled away to the south where even the smaller waves were breaking on the inside of the reef with a cracking ferocity.

  ‘Like I said, he really is a mad fucker,’ said Carpark to no one in particular.

  The pack of surfers around them was made up of guys into their mid to late twenties and older. There were no kids and certainly no backpacker learner types. It was pretty much an unspoken rule that if you got in trouble in a big swell at an isolated place like this you were on your own. There were no lifeguards, no jet skis, no hovering helicopters to come to the rescue. Even if surfing with friends, there was no guarantee they would be able to help you, or even know if you were in trouble. Once launched over the ledge and disappearing into the void, it could be minutes before anyone else out there knew if a surfer had fallen or not.