October foliage and a clean point break surf in New Hampshire. Photo: Brian Nevins
What do you when the thing you love most tries to kill you? You’d think I’d be over it by now. It’s been over 25 years. But I’m not. It haunts me. The place. The wave. The day I nearly died.
I’ve written here and elsewhere of that cold February day at Fox Hill Point in New Hampshire when I went over the falls on a monster and got ragdolled and held under to the very limit of my breath, to the point where I gave up and reconciled myself to death. By some miracle, I survived. I came up. I breathed again. And I lived. But it haunts me still.
In a sense, I suppose that wave still has its grip on me, it still ragdolls my conscience. You might think it would be easy to let it go. I’m not a big-wave surfer by any stretch of the imagination. And the wave that nearly finished me was not big at all when compared to the Brobdingnagian proportioned leviathans that today’s big wave chargers are towing and paddling into. But when you’re being ragdolled and held under to the very limit of your breath, and you start reconciling the reality of your impending death in your mind, what difference does it make how big the wave is?
I’ve surfed Fox Hill a few times in the ensuing years, most recently about ten years ago. It was always on smaller days than that day, but it still gave me the willies. Just thinking about surfing it again gives me the willies. But I know I have to.
I don’t know why. I’m not really out to prove anything – at least I don’t think I am. And in a very real way, I’m nowhere near the young fit surfer I was then. It really would be kind of foolhardy for me to paddle out there now at my older, less fit stage of my life. It’s way more crowded these days and a lot of young rippers compete with each other for set waves. I’m way beyond the days of having the ability, or desire to compete with young rippers.
But you see, I made this gun…
The board is an 8’ round-pin, single fin. About as basic as basic goes. It’s thick and forward foiled for paddling ease and getting me into large waves early. Safely. I don’t have the quickness or reflexes for critical takeoffs anymore and I just want to be able to catch, drop, bottom turn, and then race the wall. Survival-style surfing. Though I made the board about eight years ago, I’ve only surfed it twice. Once in small waves and another time in slightly overhead waves. The board is a stable solid platform – a safe platform for catching larger surf. I almost took it out during Hurricane Bill a few years ago. Cops and firefighters were cordoning off parts of the bluff that overlooked my local spot, not allowing anyone to get close to the water and the surging surf that was smashing and surging up over the rocks. But as I stood there, watching, and even though it was the wrong tide for this place, it was coming over hard and heavy at the main peak. I knew my gun would handle it perfectly, and as I stood there and watched, and listened to the authorities yelling at people to “stay back,” authorities who had very little clue of how the ocean works, yet who years before had suffered the trauma of losing three people on the same day in two locations off those same rocks and bluffs, two kids and an adult swept out to sea. I understood their panic. Yet I kept timing the sets, and I saw a window, a possibility of jumping into the cauldron during a lull, and paddling out to that peak. I knew I could do it, at least paddle out, that is. And the worst case scenario, if I blew a wave or got caught inside, I would only have to allow the sets to sweep me into the safety of the beach. Yet on this day, I was still dealing with a lingering injury, not enough to prevent me from surfing, but enough to instill doubt into my confidence. I watched about two hours, then finally walked away.
That day I probably made the right decision. But it killed me inside. I knew I could’ve done it, but I didn’t have the will. It made me mad though, and I knew that someday, when I got my confidence back, I would paddle out.
On the nose of my board, I glassed in a decal: “EWG.” It stands for: “Eddie Would Go!” Ask any surfer who Eddie was, and what that phrase means, and they could tell you Eddie was a legendary Hawaiian waterman who never balked at big surf. Eddie always went. And he became known, even after his death, trying to rescue himself and the crew of a capsized catamaran, by that phrase: Eddie Would Go. I put the decal there to inspire me over the ledge, into the next truly big wave I paddle for.
For now, I wait. I struggle with my fitness, my confidence. And for now, the board gathers dust.
My plan is during the long, flat summer, I will get myself into better surfing shape. I will paddle that board on flat days. I will get my mojo and my confidence back. And, when I’m ready, I’ll face my demons, I’ll paddle out again at big Fox Hill, and hopefully other big point waves I’ve always dreamed about.
Someday they’ll say: Mo Went.
