“Help me!”
I drift past him at about 10 knots and I hear his desperate cries for help. He is caught in the impact zone at Schoolyards and completely spent from the salvo of waves the southern hemisphere is unleashing upon Orange County in general and upon him specifically. While his cohorts on the beach watch -- fins in hand, happy to be out alive -- the bodysurfer is pummeled ceaselessly.
His pleas would be unheard, drowned out by the smashing waves, were it not for my stubborn desire to successfully bodysurf at least one wave. My prior attempt was an exercise in futility: I drifted north to Newport pier before even catching anything. I got out, walked back down towards 10th street, and, after a brief pause and a bowl of sinsimilla, headed again out into the lineup. In the 15 minutes or so it took me to walk back, the surf had gotten noticeably heavier.
His pleas would be unheard, drowned out by the smashing waves, were it not for my stubborn desire to successfully bodysurf at least one wave. My prior attempt was an exercise in futility: I drifted north to Newport pier before even catching anything. I got out, walked back down towards 10th street, and, after a brief pause and a bowl of sinsimilla, headed again out into the lineup. In the 15 minutes or so it took me to walk back, the surf had gotten noticeably heavier.
“Help!”
“Are you serious?” I ask as I acknowledge him, a blurry head in a torrent of churning foam. I think for a moment that he is just a fellow bodysurfer joking about the unruly conditions, albeit in a perverse way.
“Yeah, I need help!”
I assure him it will be okay and that I will soon be over to help him. I'm just inside the impact zone, thanks to my meager attempt at getting back out into the line-up, so I let a breaking wave push me in closer to him and the shore. He continues to call out. I drop in on another wave and tumble in the barrel. I punch through the surface and sprint towards him. The urgency in the fading bodysurfer’s voice is palpable as he comes up just in time to swallow another wave bearing down upon him. I quickly learn how contagious panic is. The severity of the predicament gives me pause to think that I might need saving. I have to stay calm or we are both screwed. (This reminds me of a time three friends and I split a half-ounce of mushrooms and hiked into the hills above U.C. Berkeley. An hour-and-a-half and many blunts into it, Rolph, who had not shroomed for a while and who eyeballed the mushrooms and likely got the largest dose, asked me -- with fear in his eyes and an unsure smile on his face -- “how do you handle this?” Not wanting to say the wrong thing and risk Rolph running off into the trees like a lunatic, I told him the most comforting thing I could think of: “You just ride it out, man.” The truth is I was really telling myself that.)
I grab the bodysurfer’s hand, offer words of encouragement, and we swim like hell towards the beach. We make our way into shallower water and I get him in a front bear-hug under the arms. I can touch bottom now, so I walk/swim backwards towards the beach, all the while reassuring his sorry ass that he is going to make it. Another wave comes and I let it break over us. We are waist-deep now and the bodysurfer is too weak to stand on his own, exhausted from his donnybrook with Davey Jones. Still bear-hugging, I carry him out of the water and over to his friends. He pours out of my arms and on to the ground like wet sand.
“Thanks for saving our friend,” is all one of his friends can muster.
Interestingly enough, I may have had a role in the bodysurfers’ being out in the water in the first place. When I was returning down the beach after my failed first attempt I passed the soon-to-be-rescued man and his friends as they were staring at the surf and contemplating going out. They asked me how it was and I told them it was heavy, but worth going for. What I didn't tell them was that I was as blind as Mr. Magoo when I wasn’t wearing my contacts -- and that I wasn't wearing my contacts. All I could see in the line-up was big blurry. It could have been 10 foot; it could have been 15 foot. I had no idea the size of the surf, nor had I even been there long enough to see the biggest sets. (I later learn that the largest sets rolled in every forty-five minutes, a fact I read in an article about a couple who was swept off a jetty to their deaths -- never to be seen again -- not a mile from where I was and only four or five hours prior.)
The bodysurfer lies motionless; the water’s edge dances at his feet. I have no doubt that he is spinning like a top in his head, wondering what went wrong but not really caring because he is alive. I know the feeling; I had a similar experience with a different ending...
Rewind 18 years and I am being held under by the Nth wave of a monstrous set at the Wedge. My bodyboard -- my lifeline -- is gone, wrenched from my clutches many waves earlier. I breach the surface and call out to a bodysurfer who is in almost as bad of shape as I. I tell him I don't think I'm going to make it. He is in no position to save me -- he is hardly in a position to save himself. He is fortunate to be much closer to shore.
"Please, I can't handle anymore," I think as I dive under another.
Shoulders on fire, arms as heavy as anchors, I'm exhausted. I resurface just in time to be rewarded with half a lungful of air and a mouthful of water as the next mountain of foam consumes me. The set is endless. Twenty minutes prior, immortal and drunk on testosterone, I made the fateful decision to charge into surf I had no business being in. I used to like the Wedge; I am not so sure now.
"Live or die? What's it gonna be?"
It's a question I consciously ask myself; a decision I need to make soon, as it is about to be determined for me. I decide to live. I can just as easily choose the latter as the former -- in fact, dying is probably easier at this point. I am almost there now. But I have made up my mind.
I quit fighting. The force of the ocean is my friend, not my enemy. I swim down to the bottom and push off of it -- towards the surface and the shore -- as each succeeding wave comes in. In no time I am in shallow enough water where standing is possible. I have made it. A few more waves and I am sitting on the shore, head between my knees, still in the spin-cycle and trying not to vomit. But I made it--on my own!...
I drive away from Schoolyards comparing my experience at the Wedge with today's events. I feel no emotion having saved the bodysurfer. My life doesn't suddenly have purpose or meaning. I begin to wonder if I did the bodysurfer a disservice by saving him. Perhaps I should have stayed close enough to rescue him but forced him to save himself. Maybe in the long-run he would be better off. I wouldn't have just given a man a fish, I would have taught him how to catch them. Instead he is just some dude who had to be rescued by another. As far as he knows, but for a complete stranger he would be dead. Me, on the other hand, I've not only survived many a near-death experience, I've got the confidence to know I can save others.
It isn't long before Mother Nature gives me a re-match at the tug-of-war. Same stretch of beach, two months later. This time three lives hang in the balance. My ego takes a battering, but my will to live is stronger than any other time in my life...
I relax in the sand at the cove in Corona Del Mar after a couple hours of bouldering. Large surf slams the Wedge, across the harbor. Despite my climbing partner's protest I cut out early to catch a few barrels at Schoolyards. Swells are fleeting; the rock in CDM is going nowhere.
Today is an experiment of sorts. I have never bodysurfed wearing Dickies shorts. I wonder how much drag all the pockets and heavy material will create. No matter. I am fit; what could possibly go wrong?
I catch so many tubes that I am giddy with laughter. The sun is dipping below the horizon and I decide to go in. Then I hear them: the screams. I swim over to a trio swept out to sea by a rip current. Two girls and a guy -- none of them with fins. They had fought the current only to tire themselves out. I lie and reassure them that they will be okay. That three people need rescuing triggers a panic response in me. So despite 25 years of being in the ocean, despite knowing exactly what needs to be done, I do the worst thing imaginable: I grab the guy's hand (he is closest to me) and we swim directly towards the shore -- directly into the rip current. We fight a losing battle for what feels like an eternity (likely a couple of minutes). My actions not only make things worse by tiring the guy out more, but I attempt to pull him into the line-up. Prior to my attempt at a rescue they were safely floating outside of the impact zone (albeit scared, far out in the ocean after dark).
"Why is this so hard? Why can't I save this guy?"
I have never had an issue beating the rip current. I have always imposed my will on the ocean, even when it looked like the ocean had the upper hand. Not today. I am dragging 175-lbs of largely dead weight. I yell for help, for I know that even if I rescue this guy there are two others -- girls, no less -- who I am leaving behind to fend for themselves. It is dark, no one can see us from shore; the waves are so big no one can hear our pleas. My screams only heighten my feelings of panic. I am so tired I begin to think I may be in jeopardy. It's them or me now, and I am going to live. I let go of the guy's hand. I tell them I cannot save them. The guy grabs ahold of me. I break free.
"I'm sorry."
"Where you going?!" "Help!" "Don't leave us!"
"I'm sorry."
Tears in my eyes, I swim away, convinced they are going to die. I can no longer withstand their frantic calls, so I roll over and back-stroke towards shore, burying my ears in the water.
I flag down some lifeguards who are patrolling the beach. They save the trio (by swimming perpendicular to the rip-current -- and thus out of it -- and then into the shore). I apologize to the guy for leaving him. He understands. In all likelihood my actions facilitate in saving their lives.
As I drive home I am overcome with a zest for life. Not because I saved others, or because I saved myself, but because I saved myself instead of others. I realize that when my survival is threatened I will do what it takes to live. It's strange -- almost troubling -- that I feel more of a purpose in life when I leave three people to drown than when I save somebody. I am not sure what to make of it. Am I a coward? To this day, I still lose sleep over the incident.
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