Ocean Beach and the Hour or So Before

From what I could tell from my computer screen, the surf was getting bigger and the wind was staying light. Double overhead sets feathered out the back and turned the ocean to a grey corduroy. Things were coming together in one of those ways that makes you sit back in your chair and go, “oh my god, it’s firing.” As the clock slowly turned towards five pm, I became restless and even annoyed. A mindless meeting was keeping me from the first true fall afternoon at Ocean Beach and I could hardly stand it. By the time I logged off and slammed my laptop shut, it was go time and I was frantic. 

With so much swell in the water, it was clear that I would need my step-up today. Digging through my pile of (only three) boards, I pulled out my 6’8” Mayhem and literally wiped off the dust. Reaching into my board bag, I searched the rear pocket for my fin key, since I only have one set of fins for my two short boards. Of course, it was nowhere to be found. This is when I started to sweat. I swear I checked every drawer in my garage. “Does anybody have an allen wrench set?” No. Fuck. 

With every melting second, another bomb rolled towards shore, and the blazing, smoke-veiled sun fell closer towards the horizon. I called up a buddy in the Sunset District and he said to stop by and that he’d give me his fin key. Tick Tock, Tick Tock. In a frenzied and cartoonish tornado, I loaded up the car as quickly as I could. Two boards, a wetsuit, booties, leash, wax. No towel, fuck. Turn around. Towel. By the time the ignition started, my face was hot and palms were covered in sweat. It was that nightmarish feeling, where no matter how fast I move, or how hard I try, something is always pulling me backward, and I can never quite get where I’m going. 

The drive to the beach was reckless, each red light felt like the end of the world, and every pedestrian crossing the street in front of me was intentionally ruining my life. By the time I had my fins switched out, wetsuit slapped on, and feet planted on the cold sand dunes, the sun was already tucked behind the evening fog. A shadow lay motionless over the stretching beach. It was late, but I made it. And yes, the surf was in fact firing. 

The relief I felt paddling out to the outer bar was second only to the relief I felt when I finally made it outside. Bombing lefts jutted out of the water like small, but jagged mountains. The crumbling avalanche takeoff quickly shifting to a grinding runner, connecting two sand bars and spanning 50 yards. I couldn’t help but kick as I sprint-paddled towards the pack of surfers who sat just in front of the iconic Noriega Street intersection. 

As I sat out in the lineup and watched nameless, hooded surfers take turns stroking into set after set, the reality of this stressed out afternoon started to sink in. The first thing I noticed was my breath. I’m sure that some of the blame could be directed towards my thick wetsuit, and some of it could be directed towards the paddle through the treacherous inner bar, but honestly the true culprit was obvious. I had set such high expectations and was so desperate to get out in the water, that I had allowed every pebble in my path to become a boulder. I was completely wound up with stress and my body was finally given a moment to decompress. My breath was quick but heavy and I wondered why I had allowed myself to get this way.

Next I felt it in my shoulders, and then my legs. Wave after wave of exhaustion pulsed up and down my body. Not due to anything physical, I had sat at my desk all day long. But because of the mind games and torture that I had put myself through just to get to the beach a few minutes earlier. But out in the water, and with the most obvious but real cliche, these feelings simply melt away, and I was left alone and confused about why I let myself get this way, why I always let myself get this way. 

As my body slowly began it’s recovery back to a relaxed equilibrium, I noticed the surfers around me had begun to paddle out to sea. Next, I noticed the arrival of a set. One of those sets that rewrites the horizon, making it uneven and shifting it a few inches higher. A set that wipes you of all thoughts you have ever had and are currently having. I quickly joined the pack, scratching and kicking with our backs to the beach, only to be mowed over by a single-family home of freezing water. 

Unlike some of my surrounding peers, I refused to ditch my board (mainly due to my lack of trust in my undersized leash). Nothing really can prepare you for that first collision, but I gripped my rails tight and dove as deep as I could. The split-second of calm was replaced with an ocean’s worth of turmoil. Still holding my board, I front flipped twice under water and was pulled downward until my ears popped. Then, as quickly as the beatdown started, it ended, and I popped back up to the surface to find fifteen confused and pale faces around me. “Fall is finally here!” Some stranger cried out. I couldn’t help but chuckle in agreement.

The rest of the session was me pushing the limits of my step up and getting used to the power of big Ocean Beach. My body was loose, and my mind free to enjoy everything the ocean offered me. The consistent rising swell sent wave after wave in my direction, and I did laps until the lack of sun and excess of fog sent me straight-lining on a closeout towards the beach, surfed out on a Tuesday in the City. By the time I rolled over the crest of Twin Peaks, the sky was black and the lights of downtown San Francisco glowed like the fading embers of a bonfire. I couldn’t have recreated those suffocating feelings, from just a few hours earlier, if I tried.