Last Long Drop

by Mike Safe

  ‘Oh, no, not overall – just his own age division more or less all the time.’

  As with his Noosa house, Vargas had a collection of surfboards in the shed, although this one was not as extensive or elaborate. He suggested Harcourt try a version of a Takayama DT 1, a speed shape that was made for fast down-the-line waves. Harcourt liked Takayama boards, having owned a few along the way and had previously ridden a DT 1. They were designed by the late Donald Takayama, a onetime Californian, turned Hawaiian, beach boy who had gone on to make boards of all shapes and lengths for all sorts of surfers. There were two DT 1 boards and Vargas had said they were his favourites to use out on the reef in moderate conditions. ‘If I lose one out there and it gets smashed on the reef, it’s not like I can walk down to the corner surfboard store and buy another. You’ve got to be prepared when you’re way out here. Hence two jet skis, two Takayamas.’

  Double toys for the boys, Harcourt had thought. Twenty grand and counting for a top of the range ski, a mere fifteen hundred for a DT 1 board.

  They reached the gap in the reef and Harcourt and Poppy slid off the backs of the skis, taking their boards, which had been tucked on to the side of the machines, with them. Poppy also grabbed Vargas’s DT 1. Vargas and Dutton roared back towards the shore, half a kilometre or so away, to beach one of the jet skis.

  ‘As Mike was saying last night, it can get kind of weird out here,’ said Poppy as they floated on their boards in the channel, the sound of the jet skis dissipating towards the beach. ‘The last few days we’ve had a little fun swell from the southeast. It was lining up nicely and giving us the occasional head-high ride on long walls. This new swell is all southwest and the rides are shorter with these slabby, unpredictable sections. Like that one there.’

  The first wave in a set well over head-high dumped on the verge of the reef with percussive force. Harcourt looked at it with a touch of apprehension. Poppy noticed. ‘Yeah, well, that one was more trouble than it was worth. The best thing is to sit a bit wide and get your bearings. Don’t take any chances, at least not straight away.’

  The other three waves in the set were of similar size to the first but broke in more or less surfable fashion, although they were almost too fast to make. Harcourt and Poppy watched as a lull descended. For a minute it was almost as if there were no waves at all, just a lot of unsettled water and the wash of foam across the reef.

  ‘It’s the start of real ground swell stuff from a long way off,’ said Harcourt. ‘It’s only going to get bigger, right?’

  ‘I’d say so,’ said Poppy. ‘What you’ve got to do here is really commit, paddle hard and then get in fast, angle it from as near the top as you can, don’t take the long drop straight down and try to turn off the bottom unless it’s too steep and you have no other choice, but whatever the case just get in and get going like hell. Don’t wait around.’

  ‘Thanks for the advice,’ Harcourt replied. ‘With your time on the pro tour you’ve probably surfed and survived a lot more hairy situations than I have. So, hey, I’m an older, if not quite old, guy and I’ve come to know my limitations. My days of being a surfing hero are no more.’

  Another set reared – this one bigger than the last – and prepared to unload on the reef as the sound of one of the jet skis returning could be heard across the lagoon. Then the thick rolling thud of the dumping wave on the shallow shelf immediately drowned out the manmade noise.

  ‘I wish Mike would think like that sometimes,’ said Poppy, her voice raised as white-water engulfed the reef. ‘Sometimes it seems as if he’s just got to prove himself to himself as much as to anybody else. I mean, he’s doesn’t have to do any of that ego stuff for me, that’s for sure. And with what he’s done, what he’s achieved, he doesn’t have to do it for the wider world.’

  ‘Well, he is who he is,’ Harcourt replied. ‘I guess that’s part of what’s made him the success he is.’

  ‘I know, but sometimes…’ Her voice trailed away.

  Harcourt looked at Poppy. Her fair hair tied back in a thick pony tail, her burnished skin and toned body, and, of course, the bikini, this one bright yellow. The tentative look now on her face was the first time he had seen her look anything but serene, anything but happy within herself, but she still looked, well, beautiful. There was no other word for it.

  ‘Hey,’ he called out to her, as the last wave in the set subsided and the ski noise loomed louder. ‘For what it’s worth, when we were having our little chat about the book after you and Dexter so discreetly exited last night Mike admitted to me that he’s more than old enough to know better and that includes knowing what matters most to him. And as of now those three things are this film, the book but most of all marriage to you. Making that work means everything to him. Anyway, that’s what he told me, what he emphasised most of all to me.’

  Poppy smiled the most disarming smile Harcourt could remember seeing. ‘He really said that to you? I’m impressed. You know how to make a girl’s day.’

  He was glad to see her smile again even as he remained apprehensive. The hard truth was that his life and death experience from earlier in the year, the summer surf down the coast with Carpark and Brown where he’d found himself questioning if he would survive that massive wipeout, remained with him, perhaps forever, stored away deep inside his brain’s most rudimentary responses. This South Pacific swell was not as big as that day had been – at least it wasn’t so far – but the reef and its increasingly unruly waves presented their own serious challenges. Did he need this in his life right now? Or ever again, for that matter?

  The jet ski, Dutton driving, Vargas on the back, roared to a stop next to them. Vargas slid off the passenger seat and took his surfboard from Poppy. He fitted the leg-rope around his right ankle and pulled himself on to the board.

  ‘Hi, you handsome man,’ said Poppy, manoeuvring next to him and wrapping her arms around his neck. Holding on tightly, she kissed him firmly on the lips, their boards drifting apart until they both slipped off into the water.

  ‘What was that about?’ he asked, laughing as he pulled in the leg-rope and prepared to climb back on.

  ‘Just because I wanted to,’ she said, doing the same task.

  Dutton, aboard the idling jet ski, grinned but then suggested they go surfing as a new set of waves threatened the reef. ‘Looks like it’s only getting bigger. Go catch a few and then we can get outa here. It’s gonna be real big by late today.’

  ‘Okay, let’s go surfing,’ called Vargas as he started paddling across the deep water channel towards the wave line up. ‘Dex, keep a watch, buddy. This could get interesting.’

  Poppy and Harcourt followed in Vargas’s wake, Poppy on a shortboard that she paddled with the same ease with which she’d handled a longboard at Noosa, Harcourt impressed with the way the familiar DT 1 shape cut through the water. If he messed up out here it would be his fault, not the board’s. As they paddled in closer, rising over the unbroken end of a wave as it eased towards the channel, he noticed how far out its breaking section was throwing. It was as if it was almost square, as horizontal as it was vertical, a chunk of exploding energy. His experience with wide-throwing waves was anything but pleasant – when you made them they were exhilarating, when they collected you they didn’t miss, and a beating was guaranteed. As he paddled with Poppy, Vargas now well out in front, he kept thinking of her advice, almost turning it over in his mind like some sort of silent mantra – don’t paddle in too deep, don’t get too deep.

  Finally, they sat up on their boards as the surf calmed again, just the unruly wash of residual foam and water on the reef as a sign that there were any waves at all. But Vargas kept paddling, placing himself well inside where they sat.

  ‘Hey,’ Poppy shouted to him across the distance, ‘Mike, don’t go any deeper. That’s looking way heavy.’

  He merely smiled and waved back at them.

  ‘See, that’s what I mean,’ Poppy said to Harcourt. ‘Why does he have to do these macho bullshit t
hings?’

  Harcourt had no answer for her this time.

  A set loomed and appeared to be better aligned with the reef than most they’d seen so far. Positioned where he was, Vargas let the first wave pass and caught the second, disappearing from Harcourt and Poppy’s sight down the front of it and then flying by them before exiting the wave towards the channel, where Dutton raised his arms in acclaim as he watched from the idling jet ski. Meanwhile, Poppy effortlessly stroked into the last wave of the set and disappeared into what was a well-overhead barrel before emerging down near the channel to further approval from Dutton. Harcourt was left sitting out there alone as the others started paddling back towards him. However, another set arrived quickly, not as big as the previous one, but reasonably well lined up with the reef. Harcourt let the first wave pass and took the second, getting in fast and managing an angled turn before the shallow depth of the reef released the wave’s full weight of water. His momentum carried him through the main section of its collapse and then a lesser part before he shot out to the edge of the channel and relative calm. All right! That was pretty damn good, he thought, adrenalin pumping. Dutton, atop the ski, gave him a big thumbs up.

  Harcourt paddled back out, now doubly confident in his board if not quite himself, and sat up near Poppy while Vargas had again sited himself deeper down the reef. On the next set, and off-centre wave caught Vargas and drove him down as Harcourt and Poppy escaped over the back of the remainder of a near-double overhead set. Dutton judged his run to perfection and charged the jet ski through the wash and foam to pick up Vargas and his board, taking him back to the edge of the channel where he appeared none the worse for the wipeout. Harcourt got caught on a smaller wave, having made its first and heaviest section before getting dumped on by the end portion. It hit him hard, holding him under for a scary few seconds, but his leg-rope held and he came up near the channel. He paddled to its calmer water without needing assistance from Dutton.

  Harcourt had a sense, fuelled by a growing edge of trepidation, that the swell was building fast, way too fast. It was consistently double overhead now and he was sensing its grunt and heave as it unloaded on the reef. After paddling back out and sitting up near Poppy, he said nothing but his anxiety must have been obvious.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘it’s getting kind of edgy out here. With this swell angle it won’t hold much more size than this. It’s going to start coming over in big fat slabs. I reckon one more and we’re out of here.’

  Harcourt simply nodded in agreement. They sat for a couple of minutes, Poppy casting an apprehensive eye towards Vargas still sitting deep inside from where they were positioned.

  She called out to him, ‘Mike, come back over here! It’s getting too antsy to be taking off way over there. We’re catching another one and going in!’

  But it was doubtful if Vargas even heard her over the wash of broken waves on and off the reef. He continued to gaze out to sea, his alertness focused towards the horizon, or so it seemed. Suddenly, he started paddling, paddling fast and deep, towards whatever was approaching. Harcourt and Poppy followed his gaze.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ said Harcourt and they started paddling as well.

  It was by far the biggest set since they’d been out there, approaching triple overhead and now charging down on them. As well as paddling further out, they angled towards the channel, knowing that staying where they were would see them caught inside and dumped on.

  ‘Best you take the first one,’ called Poppy, a board length in front of him. ‘At least you’ll be able to take off on it and it looks kind of makeable. I’ll deal with whatever’s behind it.’

  Harcourt merely grunted in acknowledgement while paddling as hard as he could. But she was right. It was a big wave for sure but their position was now as good as it was going to get and he didn’t care to think about the size of whatever might be following this one. He had to commit and so he went. The DT 1 paddled easily into the rising wall and he was on his feet quickly. It was steep, very steep, and so he had little choice – against Poppy’s earlier advice – but to take the long drop down its deep and darkening face while barely angling away from the angry water about to unload onto the edge of the reef. There was that feeling of space and time – as if there was more of it than there was – that came with big waves, and the board ran strong and true, taking the long drop, holding its line, and then turning off the bottom with the speed that was needed to set him inside the falling water’s massive curvature. Then there was an almost calming instant as he found himself deep inside this grinding maelstrom for what seemed long seconds before it spat him out into the light as the wave crashed onto the reef behind.

  Harcourt checked his positioning as the next slab of water, the sneaky bit that came with this swell’s difficult direction, collapsed towards him. It wasn’t as big as the section he had just outrun, but it was going to nail him and no doubt hard. He tried to power the board down and around the collapsing slab, but knew it was useless and so prepared for impact. It swatted him with brutal efficiency and Harcourt felt almost like he was a bug about to meet its fate on a car windscreen on a late summer night. He could only go with it, taking the deepest of breaths and closing his eyes, trying to put himself somewhere between tense and relaxed as he was driven down and then back up and over by the breaking slab unleashing its power on the reef. Somehow and thankfully, he avoided the serrated bottom, both on the initial hit and after being pulled up by the spiralling water and slammed down again.

  Coming up gasping for air, his flailing board pulling at the leg-rope on his ankle like a runaway bull, he glimpsed the looming second wave of the set, with Poppy locked in tight. She held the perfect line and, as chance would have it, the end section of the wave stood up flawlessly as she raced under it all the way to the channel. It was as if this woman was the instigator of her own destiny, one of those who asserted themselves into critical situations, which they handled with an uncanny grace.

  Again, Harcourt braced himself for being dumped and so he was driven down as the mass of white-water that had been the wave carrying Poppy rolled over him. But he had already been swept well inside by the first wave and now he only had to hold on through the churn that tumbled and rolled him, the tethered DT 1 still flapping about on the end of his leg. Once clear of it and still gasping for air he dragged himself back onto the board, thankful that the leg-rope had held as he started paddling for the safety of the channel.

  As if out of nowhere, Dutton was before him on the ski.

  ‘You okay?’ the big man yelled above the roar of the machine and broken surf.

  Harcourt, shaken but finally getting enough air into his lungs, nodded a yes, knowing he could now, with some serious paddling, make it to the deep water of the channel and not be swept onto the bare line of reef in front of him.

  ‘Mike’s gone down,’ Dutton yelled. ‘I gotta get him.’

  With that, the ski powered away towards the impact zone, leaving Harcourt in his survival mode state of mind to wonder what the hell the big guy was getting himself into. Dutton might be an ex-Seal, he might be a rough water swimming champion, but taking a jet ski into the core of such a churning mess went beyond tempting fate.

  Anyway, he headed for the channel, the sweep of broken water off the reef helping him along, although he had to endure another, if lesser, pummelling from the third wave in the set, probably the one that had wiped out Vargas. He made it to the deep water and Poppy floating on her board, her gaze fixed beyond him to the impact zone and the spot where what appeared to be the last wave in the set had unloaded.

  ‘Mike wiped out,’ she said, telling Harcourt what he already knew. ‘Dexter managed to get to him, but he was having trouble getting him on the ski. Then that last wave, the white-water hit them big time. I can’t see them at all now through all that white-water and chop.’

  Harcourt managed to stand up briefly on his board and looked back towards the impact zone. His board, being longer and thicker than Poppy’s, plus h
is extra height, gave him an advantage as they bobbed about in the channel and from there he caught a glimpse of the riderless jet ski being washed all the way onto the sharp bare bones of the reef. Then, with both lifted by a thick lump of wash, they spotted Dutton’s bald black head among the slosh of foam and backwash as he appeared to be holding an inert Vargas’s head upright while attempting to swim with him towards the channel.

  ‘C’mon, we’ve got to get to them before the next set comes, while there’s this lull,’ yelled Poppy.

  With that, she was flat on her shortboard and paddling back towards the impact zone. Harcourt, still coming to terms with making it out of that very spot unscathed, could only follow in her wake. Within a minute they’d reached Dutton, who was using a sort of modified sidestroke as he managed to keep Vargas’s head not only above water but above the layer of foam that lingered on top of it.

  ‘He’s unconscious,’ said Dutton, labouring for breath but otherwise all steely calmness. ‘He had heavy impact to the back of his head when he wiped out. Looks to be a wound there, lots of blood. Must have hit the bottom when he went down. Gotta get him out of here quick.’

  Vargas’s board was still attached to his ankle and the three of them managed to load his motionless body on top of it and Harcourt and Poppy set about pushing the board back towards the channel.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Dutton. ‘I’ll swim over there. Get him to the calm water, check his vital signs as best you can. This is bad. We’ve gotta get him to the beach.’

  As they paddled while pushing and pulling their makeshift stretcher towards the channel, Harcourt took a wary look out to sea. Maybe their one piece of luck was the chance of long pauses between sets of waves that had travelled long distances. In their haphazard way they made it to the channel before the next set appeared. There was a continual flow of blood from Vargas’s head wound into the water – not a good sign for the injured nor his would-be rescuers and the cold uneasiness of potential shark attack ran through Harcourt’s mind for a moment, even though he knew a heavy surf zone like this was not somewhere a shark might linger.