It’s one thing to be awake before sunrise. It’s another to be on the ocean’s edge before dawn. To hear more than you can see, to anticipate more than your already frozen fingers can feel. It pains me to admit, but my dawn patrol sessions have decreased over the years. I remember as a kid pulling up to Sandy’s in a sea foam green Honda Odyssey, trading glances between the perfect, playful shorebreak and the rising sun, poking its head out from behind Pele’s Chair. The relief from surviving a night away from home in combination with the blue, Gatorade Frost barrels would be overwhelming. From the backseat of the car, we would take turns pointing out peaks and corners. I swear our only words were, “oh my god how’s this thing coming in?” This memory, replicated dozens of times, is one of the fondest from my childhood.
As I grew older, mornings like these were fewer and farther between. There is no single thing to blame for these later wakeup calls. Rather, it’s a culmination of many factors relatable to twenty-year-olds everywhere; late night rituals and an eternity of sleep debt to name a few. But every so often something switches inside of me. Some gear catches. Some spark ignites. And those flashbacks come surging in with that same childhood excitement following closely in its wake.
With two surfboards, two crusty eyes, and one cup of coffee, I waited in the darkness outside my Noe Valley apartment. The sound of early morning San Francisco, muffled by low clouds, was as faint of a buzz as I have ever heard in the city. To keep warm, I sipped my coffee quickly, choosing to shake from the caffeine and excitement rather than the cold. It was 4:50 in the morning when my buddy, Duncan, pulled up outside my door. “You got your big board?” he asked. With a quick nod and knowing smile, I replied yes.
The surf report for the week leading up to this morning looked like the heartbeat monitor for a dead person coming back to life. Day after day of flat surf and onshore wind gave way to a bombing, stormy, short-period swell. It was supposed to peak at 8am, about two hours before the now offshore wind flipped back towards the beach. On paper (or I guess my computer screen), we had a four hour window to score some of the biggest surf of our lives. Under the orange glow of a street light, we strapped our guns to the roof of Duncan’s station wagon and stuffed our step-ups over the folded back seats. A quick (frozen) high five and we were off, the grid of city streets quickly opening up to an empty 280 Highway.
After cutting through the San Mateo hills that empty into Half Moon Bay, we headed south along the 1 towards Santa Cruz. We tried our best to think of a conversation that didn’t involve the waves that we were about to ride. We spoke about school, ski season, and Christmas plans. But no matter which cookie-cutter topic we chose, we always circled back to how good the surf “might” be and how much we “might” score.
At some point in our half-hearted conversation, the encompassing night sky was cut by the horizon as the light of the hidden sun illuminated the ocean beneath the cliffs. As we drove on, the grey of this black and white photo was replaced with purple and pink. By the time we had parked and slipped on our 5mm of rubber, the world was in full color.
It was obvious, right away, that we had found where we were going to surf. From the small turnout parking lot we listened to waves crack further up the point than we had thought was possible. This once familiar spot had completely transformed with this bombing swell. While this surf spot is no real secret, the quality of this spot on a giant day may very well be one. Therefore, I’m going to refrain from name dropping in the blog post. But I’m sure there are no shortage of clues.
With an 8’6 and an 8’4 under arm, we crossed the road, and then a creek, and then a long, sprawling beach up the point. The closer to the water we got, the bigger the surf appeared, and the more thankful were for bringing (and investing in) the guns. For the next ten minutes or so, we watched for sets and tried to figure out the best timing to paddle out through the slabby shorebreak. When we finally saw our window, we sprinted down the steepening burm and dove onto our boards, gliding over the first ten yards of turbulent water. “Here we go!” someone yelled. I’m not sure if it was Duncan or me.
We immediately realized that we had timed this paddle-out horribly wrong. Within 20 seconds we were ditching our boards to dive under a double-overhead closeout, my brand new wetsuit filling up with water before I even made it out past the shorebreak. “Here we go!” someone yelled again. With urgency (and anxiety), we scampered out into the channel and began the long paddle up the jutting point, fighting the current and dodging Bull Kelp along the way.
From the lineup, the surf was bigger than either of us had imagined. Then a set closed out the bay, and the surf was once again bigger than either of us had imagined. All this being said, we felt relatively prepared. Thick wetsuits, big boards, and our familiarity with this spot, albeit 100 yards further out than the normal lineup, gave us a morsel of confidence to chew on as we sat, side by side, staring attentively out towards the horizon like meerkats.
In another universe, I might say that we used the first few sets to calibrate ourselves, using half-assed paddles to sneak glances over the ledge of these freight-train rights. But really we just dodged them. Things were critical out there, and, blame my wise old age of 25, I was going to take things slow.
In the chaos of those first twenty minutes out in the lineup, I didn’t even notice the sun emerge from the burnt remains of Big Basin. The charred landscape and thinned tree-line looked like a patchy beard on a homesick freshman. If the surf wasn’t enough, the toasted mountain range was a reminder of the magnitude of nature power and lack of forgiveness.
It wasn’t much longer until we too slipped into a groove. One wave turned into another and soon we were doing laps up and down the point. We surfed for nearly four hours that morning. And in those four hours caught some of the heaviest waves of our lives. I’m sure I could dive deeper and describe each wave in painstaking detail, but that just doesn’t do the session justice. It wasn’t about this wave or that wave. It was about being a quarter mile out at sea and cheering my buddy into the sets. It was about pushing my own limits and taking that leap of faith over the ledge of that seemingly endless drop. It was about the party waves. Heavy wipeouts, 10-minute paddles back to the peak, and Bull Kelp shark scares. It was about having the right equipment to huck it into something the size of which I’d only ever dreamed of.
There were so many pieces that came together to make that morning what it was. And it was nothing short of epic. I caught my last wave to the beach (and got absolutely blown up in the shorebreak) and it may have been my biggest one of the day. From the safety of the sand I watched Duncan (only visible due to his eight-foot neon green board) knife a drop, disappear behind a veil of spray from the wave in front, reappear, and ride it all the way in. Somethings things just go right.
After a pit-stop in Pescadero for garlic artichoke bread, we began our long ride back up the coast, passing Half Moon Bay, Montara, and Pacifica along the way. By now, the wind was back to ripping onshore. We had timed our excursion perfectly. Back home with a full belly, I napped until dark and spent the evening (and most of the night) thinking about that view. That view from on top of the wave, where the whole ocean sucks towards you and you have nowhere to go but down. And then that view from the bottom, right when you set your rail and start that bottom turn, and look up to see that same water threatening to crack down on top of you. An endless dance on the edge of disaster.
This was just one of those days you remember for a long time. One of those days that gets you itching for more.
BAMBOOBLISTER 
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