Out Too Far | 26 April 2022
I rose to the surface and finally got my head above water. What a wave! Sucking in precious air, I realized that a rip tide had taken me several hundred yards out from the swell I had started on. I motioned frantically to the beach, but didn’t capture anyone’s attention. I was struggling to understand how not to panic when I got that old familiar feeling that I had company.
HCH Response
“Typical,” I huffed to myself. You drive an hour to the most remote surf spot you can justify on a cold Wednesday afternoon, only to be reminded that it’s everyone else’s best-kept secret too. Yeah, I know. Surfers have a low threshold for what we consider crowded. Personally? Three slick heads bobbing in the water were enough to activate my territorial side.
I zipped up and ran into the churning gray without acknowledging the other bodies. Here comes the size-up from the jury. They’re always looking at your board, watching you watch the swell, waiting for you to defer or pursue, waiting for you to stand up — and of course waiting for you to fall down.
As luck would have it, the oncoming wave looked pretty good. Better yet, nobody else seemed to be in a position to compete for it. I attacked with fresh first-wave energy to meet it sidelong, tucked my feet under me and stood up like I was on dry land. BAM. That’s how you make an entrance. It didn’t carry as far as I anticipated, but no harm. I paddled a little down the beach to give myself some more distance from the crowd. Eyes on the horizon, the next one looked VERY promising. Had my name all over it. The warm cushion of water between my skin and the wetsuit pulsed like an extension of my blood flow. It is ON.
But the arousal was confused with another sensation. A tugging. If I’d been in a house, it would have been a draft powerful enough to slam a door. Within seconds, I was pulled sideways and under. My board dragged behind me reluctantly, fighting the current and making it harder for me to alter my direction. Desperate not to get sucked out even further, I bucked as hard as I could and felt myself get free…suspiciously free. I reached down to feel my ankle and confirm what my eyes wouldn’t believe. My board was long gone.
I lay floating on my back to regain my breath, then tread upright to get my bearings. Fuck. This was going to be a swim. A dark ripple undulated in my peripheral vision a few feet away. The cloudy sky had no shadows to cast, no glints of light to offer. Kelp? The long braids can suck a lot of light you didn’t even know was there. In the calm, I heard a familiar disruption behind me. Someone’s head and body popping out for a quick crest, and the slap of fins and belly on reentry. Ah, a seal. I’d spotted tons of them out here. The feast of Drake’s Bay and the connecting Estero is perfect for them — and for rip rides, idiot, I remembered a little too late.
I waited, hoping for a close look at the slippery creature. No luck. But…the water had changed. The visible color between the surface and my submerged hands had muted to a brown. Fifteen feet beyond, where I probably heard the splash, it was richer. Not sand gold or kelp green or even whitewater gray, but oxygen-rich red.
In the tunnels of my ears, I heard a wraith impersonating my voice cry with horror, no language to be had. My mammalian body wouldn’t submerge its head to swim, but instead squirmed in slow motion, like running in a dream. The sky dimmed. My ears rang. I panted, watching the dry brush and clay cliff sides of the beach stamp overlapping impressions like a magic eye painting a million miles away.
Voices shouted under the ringing, getting louder. Wet, dark figures splashed, getting closer. Four arms pounded the the water, propelling toward me. Two more were close by, with a stack of fiberglass in tow. Neon lettering. Faded stickers. Neoprene. Stubble. Dripping eyebrows. Craggy foreheads and ruddy cheeks. Four hands wrapped around my biceps. “We got you. We got you. We got you.”