Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I crested the hill. It was the stuff you see in magazines. Photo: Pat Nolan
It’s Friday. I just spent the past two hours trying to get the truck fixed with partial success, and I’m back at the apartment getting ready to settle in. But I don’t want to settle in. I’m full of angst. I just want to go to the bar, but the sun is still high overhead and neither my body nor my wallet wants to spend another weekend drinking. I watched TV and physically felt my life slipping away. There are no waves today in Panama City Beach, a status I have become somewhat accustomed to (however, waves do happen, and much more than I thought). I had seen something about a hurricane in the Atlantic, and Jacksonville is the closest beach on the East Coast. Surf report says 3-4’ at 12s, 10mph offshore winds all day Saturday. No. It can’t really be that good. I’ll check another site. This one says it too. I NEED THAT!
But it was a five hour drive, the truck still needed an oil change, and the wife and I were trying to save money. I gave her a call in Virginia. “Hell yeah!” she told me. “Get off your butt and go!” Many people have rightfully told me I married up.
Life starts flowing back into my body as the excitement pulses through my veins. By the time I throw everything in the truck, reserve a room, and get gassed, up it’s 8:00. But I can’t fall asleep until 11. Will it really be this good? Is all this worth it? Am I going to get skunked?
Two a.m. came early, and I left for adventure as the bar crowds stumbled home. I listen to three hours of the SurfSplendor podcast, which makes the drive a breeze and gets me even more excited to surf. Shortly after the sun rises, I drive onto the Mayport Naval base, anxious to see the surf but more anxious to relieve my bladder of all the coffee I chugged through the morning.
In the parking lot I saw the winds were perfect, light offshores. But never in my wildest dreams did I expect to see what was on the other side of the berm. I expected to be let down, like I have been a hundred times before. I expected some decently sized waves with inconsistent and choppy faces. I was ready to make the best of my dumb idea to drive five hours for so-so waves. I was not ready for the head high, glassy barrels that greeted me. I had only seen this in magazines.
I had spent a month in Point Mugu earlier this summer, which is full of wedgy, shifting, powerful barrels. That month was an exercise in humility, and a lesson in everything not to do in waves that barrel (hesitate, doubt yourself, hesitate, etc). I tasted bits of success, but they were heavily outweighed by frustration and poundings. So when I saw these waves, while I could tell that they were a little different, they were still similar to those Mugu waves that gave me a run for my money.
The first wave I caught was everything I could have hoped for. It was a chest-high screamer that ended up closing out on me. But I had attacked it, my pop up and bottom turn were solid, and more importantly, I got a little taste of that tube-vision. I surfed for three hours, and as my confidence and performance continued to improve, the beatings I took carried no weight compared to the barrels I was consistently pulling into, even though I rarely got out of them. I couldn’t get enough. However, once I realized a chunk was missing out of the nose of my board, I decided to take a break for food, water, and duct tape.
As the tide dropped and the swell faded, more and more waves began to close out. While getting barreled hadn’t lost any of its appeal, the shallow wipeouts encouraged me towards the shoulders. Still, I was having trouble making any of the faster waves.
Then I remembered a video I had seen about generating speed, and how on smaller waves you immediately have to turn down the line instead of first going to the bottom.
Game. Changer.
As I paddled into my next one, I told myself “get away get away go go go!” It worked, and I soon found myself making everything. I surfed for three more hours, checked into the hotel and ate, then came back for a short evening session on some remaining dribblers.
This was the best surfing experience I’ve ever had. It was more than the adventure and excitement of a trip, or the incredible waves. It was the culminating point of all the things I’d learned in four years of teaching myself to surf, all the hard lessons that finally came after banging my head against the wall (or the bottom) over and over, all the frustration and doubts that I had started surfing too late and would forever remain a kook… they all came together here. For the first time in my life, I felt confident in my ability. I had earned my four year degree at the Academy of Making Every Mistake Possible, and was finally comfortable with including myself in that club of men and women who call themselves surfers.
