by Mike Safe
They let another smaller set of waves pass beneath them, two of which were caught by others, who disappeared down their faces as a golden spray swept over the remaining pack. The take-off spot was kind of predictable and workable, although Harcourt remembered the earlier big sets that had claimed their share of victims – and they were playing on his mind.
A clean and slightly bigger set came and he saw Carpark, well positioned about twenty metres away, stroke into it. As his friend caught the second wave and disappeared down its face, Harcourt’s attention focused on the third that was building slightly wider than the one Carpark had caught. It was perfect for him, or as perfect as anything he was likely to encounter out there could be.
The board under him was an eight footer he had borrowed from Brown for the day. With a streamlined shape and a pulled-in tail, it had a heavier glass job, giving it a bit more weight and tracking ability. On the way out, the board had felt good under him and it now moved smoothly as he paddled for what was rearing behind him.
He picked the wave up easily and, climbing to his feet, he and the board dropped down the now-teetering face as one. This couple of seconds seemed to take place in a longer, drawn-out capsule of time where the act of surfing no longer had anything to do with style or flair or being cool. Instead, it was all about purpose, a focused commitment to powering the board down the wave’s rearing face, turning it with force off the bottom and then angling away down the line before the collapsing wall engulfed him. This part of the ride was more difficult than the take-off, which had come instinctively enough – just a steep but well-timed drop over the edge. But now, at the bottom for a split, panicky second, he felt as if the back of the board was slipping, breaking free of the wave – but the tapered tail gripped and held. With a finely balanced working of pressure through his feet, it responded and accelerated away across the face. The roar of the wave was all around and a rush of displaced air and spray washed over Harcourt as the white-water came crashing down to where he had been a moment before. Looking up, he saw the next slab of water, turned from blue-green to shadowy grey, dropping towards him like the displaced ceiling of some ancient building, but the board was now tracking at full momentum and he raced clear. Another lesser section followed and the wave began to ease as the reef tapered off into deeper water. Harcourt aimed the board up and over the back of the subsiding swell.
He had made it – the biggest wave he has surfed in years, for a good decade at least. Carpark was about fifty metres away, his arms raised in exultation, as Harcourt appeared over the wave’s retreating back. He called out something that Harcourt couldn’t hear over the wave’s final roar.
‘Fuckin’ A-one!’ yelled Carpark as Harcourt paddled towards him and they stroked back towards the take-off zone.
‘Just made it,’ said Harcourt, his breath coming in hard, sharp bursts, a mixture of jubilation and fear. ‘I thought I’d lost it there for a moment.’
‘Me too. I didn’t think it was going to hold coming off the bottom like that.’ Carpark paused and then smiled, almost in bewilderment. ‘But, shit, what a ride.’
It was hardly the time or place for self-congratulation. Even though they were in relative safety outside the line of the break, the possible consequences of being caught inside by bigger and wider sweeping waves remained.
During the next thirty minutes, taking their time and picking meticulously, they both caught two more waves of similar size to their original rides. They remained cautious in what they attempted as the water, still agitated with energy between the sets, slowly emptied of other surfers. Only a couple of times did Harcourt catch sight of Brown, a small figure silhouetted against the restless blue-green water and fiery white sun. He seemed far away down the line, further out but still in tight to what would be the take-off spot for the ultimate scream of a ride across the whole length of reef.
They almost felt it before they saw it. After a wait of what seemed to be a long ten minutes, the half a dozen or so surfers remaining at their more conservative take-off spot saw the first wave of a new set loom far outside. It was bigger than anything since Harcourt and Carpark had been in the water. From where they sat, there also appeared to be extra width to it and instinctively everyone in the pack started paddling as hard as they could further outside and towards the deep-water channel, hoping to clear the wave before it broke.
Harcourt and Carpark had been sitting ten metres further out than the other guys so they at least had a start. They said nothing to one another and in a way thought even less. All concentration went into survival – long paddling strokes that should take them up and over the first wave. Only the god of the sea, whoever he or she might be, and the gaggle of spectators up on the cliff with the ocean panorama spread before them could see in full what was coming down on those in the water, but, if they cleared the first wave, what followed almost certainly wouldn’t be smaller. Harcourt and Carpark’s bigger and more solid boards cut through the ruffled water with speed, and side by side, they rose and rose, as if lifted by some primordial force. Then, teetering at the top, they dug their paddling arms even deeper to help prevent being pulled back over and down by the breaking wave. Being dumped in such a way was known in surfing parlance as ‘going over the falls’ – a highly unpleasant experience like falling backwards off a waterfall and landing in a boiling pit of pummelling foam and spray with a surfboard strapped to your ankle.
Their effort and paddling lead over those who scrambled after them now paid off as their arms held solid. In front of them, the second wave was bigger again, but digging deep they had it covered. From behind them and over the white noise of the crashing first wave, Harcourt heard the faintest of cries as one of the straggling surfers was swept back and over in its watery avalanche. For a fraction of a second, he chanced a look over his shoulder and could only see a couple of others behind him and then alongside him Carpark, his eyes wide and staring ahead as he concentrated on his paddling.
The third wave was about the same size as the second but it was clean and lined up. For a moment they appraised it, deciding.
‘I’m going,’ Carpark appeared to mouth over the torrent of noise. Harcourt said nothing, just kept paddling for the outside as he was lifted up and finally over the wave. Again, he glanced back, but Carpark had disappeared down its breaking face to whatever awaited him. Three stragglers who had just managed to clear that wave paddled closer to Harcourt.
‘Fuck me!’ said one of them, wild-eyed and gasping for breath. ‘If yah mate makes the drop on that one it’ll be a miracle.’
A fourth wave, a fat lump of water that seemed bigger than the one Carpark had caught, passed harmless beneath the remaining surfers as they dragged in spray-drenched breath. The fifth and maybe last in the set loomed. It was seamlessly lined up like the wave Carpark had caught, big but clean. There was hardly time for considered decisions – should he or shouldn’t he? Harcourt simply went for it. He was here, he was in the moment, this was the reason he was hundreds of metres out in this angry, boiling ocean anyway.
With this wave being bigger and thicker than his earlier rides, Harcourt knew he had to somehow paddle into it and make it down its face early or he would be caught up high and most likely pitched as if shot from a slingshot – and that would mean freefalling down the collapsing face. It would be a fate similar to, if not worse than, going over the falls.
He squirmed slightly more forward on the board to lower its nose fractionally and so help push it into the swell as early as possible. It worked with what seemed to be surprising ease and once he was set he stood quickly, legs spread, almost in a survival stance, as he looked down from the top of what equated to at least a double-storey apartment block of water. The board dropped fast and true as he drove it with deliberation. It was now all or nothing, no second chances. Make the drop, power off the bottom, trust the board to hold and then position it for the ultimate speed run down the line – all the while hoping to make it to the other end. The board bit solidly off
the bottom as he wrenched it around in a long turn and set its angle for the speed run. His back to the wave, he transferred his weight to the front foot and, resuming the survival stance, urged maximum speed.
Everything was bigger, more amped than on the previous waves. As he was carried from sunlight to shadow, the wall of water toppled towards him. He made the first section as the collapsing wave spat air and spray at him, but then, ahead where the sunlight was, he saw its next section arching high above him before curling over in what seemed like a slow-motion replay.
Immediately, Harcourt knew he wouldn’t make it. He was about to be devoured. The wave was too big and had swept too wide for the reef to handle and now it came toppling over, or closing out, along much of its length, certainly all of the section that he was attempting to outrun. He felt remarkably calm, lucid even, as the explosion of white-water engulfed him, swatting him from the board and driving him down. It was a long time, many years, since he had been in such a situation, a life or death moment. He had experienced it before and survived – and now he had to do it again.
When mega-wipeouts were discussed, usually as war stories retold in surfing magazines or videos by the small group of deranged individuals who appeared to thrive on such calamities, it was all about ‘being in the moment’, coping with what was happening there and then, not thinking about the next ten seconds let alone the next ten minutes, not panicking and therefore not drowning. Even Brown, who probably qualified as a big wave lunatic, would at least admit that much, even though he preferred to keep his counsel when it came to the reasons why he did what he did. All this was far from Harcourt’s mind as he was beaten further and further down by the explosion of white-water and his survival instinct kicked in. Somehow, his surfboard’s leg-rope did not snap, although it had to be stretched to the limit as the board pulled away from him as he was pushed towards what could only be the ragged reef bottom.
‘Being in the moment’ was all about staying calm, not fighting the overwhelming force that now gripped him. It also meant holding his breath for as long as it took to get back to the surface and take in that life-preserving gasp of air. There were numerous stories of big wave surfers training for these moments and being able to hold their breath for minutes at a time. Easier said than done, especially when adrenalin is coursing through your body, and you’re disorientated with the surface seemingly nowhere near. Harcourt hit the reef and a sharp pain resonated through his back, which was protected to some extent by his wetsuit. A true fear of those caught in big wipeouts was being dragged across a reef while attached to a surfboard’s leg-rope which might catch on any bit of craggy rock, trapping the surfer underwater. Luckily, Harcourt appeared to rebound from the reef cleanly, although it was still impossible to tell up from down as the maelstrom of water, a bewildering mix of bubbling white and midnight black, pushed and pulled his limbs in a dozen directions.
Having lost track of how long he had been under and with his tortured lungs desperate for air, he at last felt himself rising. He was more or less upright, or what he thought was upright, and so grabbed hold of the straining leg-rope that was stretched to its limit. He pulled himself up its length, something he’d read could happen during the survival of big wave wipeouts, although he’d never had the experience before, always thinking it was more myth than reality. But now he knew he was heading towards the surface and could sense the light above. Dragging himself hand over hand, he focused his whole being on reaching that glow and its life-giving air.
And so he broke clear, gasping the biggest breath he could summons, the air mixed with spume from the aftermath of the collapsed wave. Looking above, as if for salvation, he saw the next blow about to descend. It was the sixth wave of the set, rearing high above before avalanching upon him. With his lungs only partially replenished, the slamming white-water drove him deep again but at least not all the way to the reef. Again, the leg-rope stretched and pulled away, dragging him after it. But he was now being ‘tombstoned’ as the board, caught solidly and being washed in by the white-water, strained against his weight beneath the surface. This slowed the board’s momentum, allowing it to stand up on its end for a couple of long seconds. It looked almost like an old-fashioned tombstone as it stuck out of the boiling mass of broken wave. Hence the macabre but accurate name for being dragged in such a way and being unable to reach the surface. Indeed, it was as if he was being buried alive in a watery grave with the board as its marker.
Harcourt felt a blackness descending. His lungs were giving out as he was pulled along at the end of the leg-rope. If it snapped, he would have at least a chance of making the surface. He attempted to centre on the moment and thought about ripping open the Velcro attachment that fixed the leg-rope to his ankle but, being dragged as he was, he couldn’t reach forward to make a decent grab at it.
This is it, he thought. I’m done here. Strangely, he didn’t feel panic, maybe just a moment of acceptance as the inevitability of this overwhelming force retained its grip on him.
But then he felt a slight nudge on the leg-rope and a slackening of its tension and he began to rise towards the surface. Having been pulled across the reef, he realised he wasn’t nearly as deep as the first time he had been pushed down and so he rose towards the welcoming light. For a second time, he burst clear and gasped the biggest breath he could, his upper body shuddering with relief. Almost in anticipation, he looked up and behind to see if there was a wave number unlucky seven. There wasn’t – six had been the last in the set. He used the leg-rope to pull the board towards him and in his exhausted state only then did he notice that it had effectively been broken in two, undoubtedly the reason it had suddenly worked itself free of the white-water’s pull. The bottom layer of its fibreglass coating somehow remained intact so the two pieces could still be paddled together in a haphazard manner.
The last wave had at least dragged him thirty or maybe more metres across the reef towards the rock shelf, which was to Harcourt’s advantage, and so he pulled himself onto the wrecked board and, as best he could, paddled it towards the narrow exit point at the base of the cliff. It was hard going, almost comical, as the mass of disturbed water continued sloshing about, especially off the cliff face and back out to sea. He was exhausted beyond belief and his upper back throbbed with pain from having been slammed on the reef. But he was determined to reach the rock shelf before the next set of any substance descended. And he did, just. After five minutes of haphazard paddling and attempting to line up with the narrow escape zone, a fortuitous piece of miscellaneous wash finally swept him ashore. He landed heavily on the rocks and, again, comically undignified, was washed off the remains of the board, grazing his knees and shins in the process. But he was safe. He rose shakily, ripping off the leg-rope that had helped save him while paradoxically almost drowning him. Fitting the broken pieces of the board he had borrowed from Brown under his arm, he picked his way across the rock shelf to the climb up the cliff.
It was only then that he saw Carpark waiting. The big man had a slightly dazed grin on his face. His right eyebrow was split and bleeding.
‘Well, that was one of our better ideas,’ he said, smearing blood away with the back of his hand.
Harcourt put the broken board on the rocks. ‘Shit, I thought I was gone,’ he whispered. He could barely get the words out.
‘Yeah, I got smashed too – I had no idea what’d happened to you.’ Carpark saw Harcourt’s back. ‘Jeez, you’ve got a rip in your wetsuit and there’s a bit of blood there. Not much though.’
‘Lucky I had it on. I got bounced off the bottom.’ He looked at Carpark’s brow. ‘What happened there?’
‘Like you, I got dumped on the rocks coming in. I lost my hold on the board and it sprang back on the leg-rope and wacked me. Fuck, what a disaster. The hold down on the wave I caught was bad enough and then I pulled an idiot act like that coming in.’ He paused and laughed, ‘Why do we let Brown talk us into these mad things? We’re old men now. Well, almost.’
&nb
sp; ‘Like Brown said out there, ‘you’ll never know, if you never go’,’ said Harcourt. He managed a ragged smile, ‘What a pile of bullshit that is. Never again.’
‘Speak of the devil,’ said Carpark, looking out to the reef where the first wave of a big set stood up to break. Far down the line, deeper inside than anyone else they’d seen catch a wave that day, Brown was dropping down the clean face. He turned off the bottom smoothly and fast as the toppling crest threatened to engulf him, but he had timed the entry and turning point to the finest degree and now charged across the shallowest and most dangerous part of the reef, the wave in angry pursuit. It was a long, measured ride, a display of grace under pressure, and as he reached the deep-water channel he casually flicked his board over the back of the now fading swell. From the relative safety of the channel he waited for the rest of the set to pour through – four waves, a couple of which were even bigger than the one he had caught and they all went unridden. From where Harcourt and Carpark watched, it was impossible to tell how many surfers were still in the water, but they saw three or maybe four scratch frantically over the top of the biggest wave in the set.
Good luck, thought Harcourt as their tiny figures disappeared behind the spray and white-water. You’ll need it.
Meanwhile, Brown after waiting out the set from the channel, paddled rapidly to make it back to the rock shelf. Five minutes later he washed across the slippery rocks and managed to get off his board and across them without mishap. He was the only one of the trio not to have shed blood – and there was no doubting he had caught the biggest and best wave in the process.