UTMC

whoa! those are thickest swells i have ever seen.

There's a spot in the middle of the Pacific somewhere that regularly gets 60+ feet, with the ocassional 80-90 footer

There's a page about it in the Surfer photo annual


I also got scared off the big waves when I was a kid. Got slammed pretty hard and am still a bit apprehensive with anything above 6 feet

That's just insane.

sun rat wrote:whoa! those are thickest swells i have ever seen.

Seriously, did you see how dark they were?

Yeesh.

I got wrecked by a 4 footer while body surfing this summer.
Fuck that shit.

I boogie-boarded the North Shore of Oahu in the off season. Waves were 8 feet at best.

I was doing good until I slipped on a wave and dropped down the face. The crest came over me and slammed me into the sand face first, then held me there for what seemed like a minute (but was probably just a second). Then it spit me out the back, tumbling and slamming into the beach repeatedly.

I decided that was the end of my surfing for the year.

Vitiare wrote:I boogie-boarded the North Shore of Oahu in the off season. Waves were 8 feet at best.

I was doing good until I slipped on a wave and dropped down the face. The crest came over me and slammed me into the sand face first, then held me there for what seemed like a minute (but was probably just a second). Then it spit me out the back, tumbling and slamming into the beach repeatedly.

I decided that was the end of my surfing for the year.

Yup! Been there, done that. I'm not a water person, and also am not too keen about forces that can hold me beneath the surface, shoveling saand in my mouth and nose as I'm trying to find which way's up.

These people are plain off in the head--my kind of people, but I won't be joining them out there.

Zer0 wrote:

sun rat wrote:whoa! those are thickest swells i have ever seen.

Seriously, did you see how dark they were?

Yeesh.

yeah. i couldn't do that knowing how much water was up over me. the overhead tube walls looked over 6 feet thick. that is a shitload of water!

Zer0 wrote:

Vitiare wrote:I boogie-boarded the North Shore of Oahu in the off season. Waves were 8 feet at best.

I was doing good until I slipped on a wave and dropped down the face. The crest came over me and slammed me into the sand face first, then held me there for what seemed like a minute (but was probably just a second). Then it spit me out the back, tumbling and slamming into the beach repeatedly.

I decided that was the end of my surfing for the year.

Yup! Been there, done that. I'm not a water person, and also am not too keen about forces that can hold me beneath the surface, shoveling saand in my mouth and nose as I'm trying to find which way's up.

These people are plain off in the head--my kind of people, but I won't be joining them out there.

A few years ago I surfed the North Shore Kauai, on Xmas. (No I didn't know that was the biggest time for large waves in Hawaii.) I had only surfed a bit but I figured that I would learn how I learn everything else, throw myself off of a cliff and build my wings on the way down. (I learned to snowboard by dropping into a backcountry bowl at Copper. Successful. And I learned that I should never skateboard by dropping into a 6' halfpipe onto my face. Unsuccessful.) So, After paddling around a bit and giving my balls enough time to swell up to the appropriate size for the task at hand, I taught myself how to surf. I have no idea how big the waves were, but I can tell you that my 6'6" ass could stand on the board (crouched) and the barrel was breaking and white above my back. So... no clue there, but I'm guessing somewhat decent waves, nothing like those in the video... holy shit.

So, I went for a total of 6 runs... (the last one was unintentional, so, five)

While there I learned from a local dude, who sold shave ice, that you needed to count the crests and there was a specific number to count to to find the correct wave to ride. So here is how it went:

Ride1: Rode belly on board down pipe, rolled to the lowside, popped out the back of the wave, paddled back out into the ocean.

Ride2: One foot up, on a knee, fell to the lowside on my back, timed a breath wrong, popped out the back of the wave spurting water out of my lungs. Found my board, back out to the ocean. Waited until my lungs stopped burning.

Ride3: Bigger wave than the other 2, Both feet up, for a moment, leaned back too far, kicked the board out in front of me, fell backwards into the barrel, got rolled, popped up disoriented but fine. Got hit immediately by the next wave, pulled back out by a small riptide, popped up just behind the 3rd wave break. Back out to the ocean.

Ride4: Small-ish wave, both feet up, stood up, rode out the end of the barrel. Got cocky. Paddled back out.

Ride5+6: Small-ish wave again, both feet up, stood up, got high in the barrel, accidentally stuck my head out the top of the barrel, this launched me off the board head first into the trajectory of the wave, I stick my hands out in front of me, I go deep underwater, hit the sand on the bottom with my hands, flatten my body against the bottom, I am effortlessly drug along the bottom of the ocean backwards by the undertow, completely disoriented my feet stick out of the top of the next wave, I find myself in a seated position like I am driving a car except my arms are behind me, as the colors alternate quickly from light (sky/air) to dark (The sand/Ocean) I am able to get one quick partial breath before I see the surface of the water as my body slaps against it. Back under I go, but this time I am stopped very quickly, as my chest hit the outside of the sandbar that was causing/caused by these nice waves. Thing is, I didn't bounce, the wave just held me there, and it pressed, like someone letting the clutch out on a dumptruck that has you pinned against a wall. It just kept pressing. It squeezed all of that half breath out of me, and it just continued pushing, squeezing, pressing. Things started to go blurry and dark, I was out of oxygen. The surfboard leash pulled against my ankle. If there was ever a point in time in my life where the bottom of my feet would be touching my scapula, this is that time. I was starting to go unconscious. The wave finally relented, drug me across the sand again and popped me back out the back side of a different wave. That was it, i was done for the day, I swam to shore.

I was a significant distance up the beach (or is it down?) from where my group had set up on the beach. So I was walking back, carrying my board... when I noticed that people on the beach were staring at me. I looked down to see if my shorts had ripped and my cock was hanging out or something like that, but when I looked down I had blood running down my chest and thighs, and as I looked down, I saw drops of blood running off the end of my nose. It looked like a murder scene. So I ran back to my group, dripping blood on the beach the entire way, they were horrified, I ruined a couple of hotel towels and what had happened was the sand had "sanded" off enough of my dermis to reach blood, thousands of tiny little pores all bleeding a tiny amount of blood all at the same time on my forehead, chest, belly and the fronts of my thighs. I had almost zero body hair and I compulsively cried sand for about 3 days as my tear ducts and sinuses evacuated the foreign debris.

That was the last time I surfed.

I've been back to that beach several times since then. I splash around when the waves are about waist high, but I haven't been on a board without a standing paddle since that time.

Someday, I'd like to go again, but it spooks me bad. No matter how strong or tough you are... the ocean doesn't give a fuck. It does what it wants, when it wants and you don't have a say in the matter.

My healthy respect for the power of the ocean remains.


(Oh, I counted ride 5 and 6 together because I was told that I went back through the barrel of another wave (the biggest that they had seen all day and nobody rode it) during this run and when I slapped against the water, it was me hitting the bottom of the barrel where it was dragging the water and sand up into the big wave. So, I count that as another ride, hence; 6 rides.)

MagnusTheBuilder wrote:

Zer0 wrote:

Vitiare wrote:I boogie-boarded the North Shore of Oahu in the off season. Waves were 8 feet at best.

I was doing good until I slipped on a wave and dropped down the face. The crest came over me and slammed me into the sand face first, then held me there for what seemed like a minute (but was probably just a second). Then it spit me out the back, tumbling and slamming into the beach repeatedly.

I decided that was the end of my surfing for the year.

Yup! Been there, done that. I'm not a water person, and also am not too keen about forces that can hold me beneath the surface, shoveling saand in my mouth and nose as I'm trying to find which way's up.

These people are plain off in the head--my kind of people, but I won't be joining them out there.

A few years ago . . .
It just kept pressing. It squeezed all of that half breath out of me, and it just continued pushing, squeezing, pressing. Things started to go blurry and dark, I was out of oxygen. . . . ;
6 rides.)

Je-sus

The Ocean doesn't care.

That place is murdurous in normal conditions. When I was in Tahiti about ten or twelve years ago, I was on a bus going to someplace or other and a local guy hobbled on, who had obviously been surfing (location unknown) up to the point where he got dragged across a reef. His whole back and most of one thigh looked like hamburger. He wouldn't sit down mainly because he couldn't; his wounds were still fresh and weeping all sorts of nasty stuff. He was stoic, but obviously in a lot of pain.
IIRC the locals never really surfed Teahupoo because they considered it unsurfable. It's also pretty far offshore, like over a mile or something like that.
I got worked hard in Bali enough to make me consider my age and all the things I'd like to do in life and that was on a sandy beach break. Coral and rocks and shit is for young guys who are braver and less concerned for themselves than I am about myself.

I like motorcycles.

Sisyphus wrote:That place is murdurous in normal conditions. When I was in Tahiti about ten or twelve years ago, I was on a bus going to someplace or other and a local guy hobbled on, who had obviously been surfing (location unknown) up to the point where he got dragged across a reef. His whole back and most of one thigh looked like hamburger. He wouldn't sit down mainly because he couldn't; his wounds were still fresh and weeping all sorts of nasty stuff. He was stoic, but obviously in a lot of pain.
IIRC the locals never really surfed Teahupoo because they considered it unsurfable. It's also pretty far offshore, like over a mile or something like that.
I got worked hard in Bali enough to make me consider my age and all the things I'd like to do in life and that was on a sandy beach break. Coral and rocks and shit is for young guys who are braver and less concerned for themselves than I am about myself.

ATGATT applies to surfing too...

piccini9 wrote:The Ocean doesn't care.

Zero is the number of fucks that the ocean gives.

That pretty much sums up surfing in general.

that was magnificent!

MagnusTheBuilder wrote:

piccini9 wrote:The Ocean doesn't care.

Zero is the number of fucks that the ocean gives.

I've been called a fuck before, but now I'm a particular number of fucks?

Wow.