Pepe Le Pu

The donut hole. The goose egg. The old skunkaroo. Whatever you want to call it, I was shut out this weekend. For a week I watched the reports with the greatest of hopes; I read through The Surfer’s Journal; I repaired minor dings on my board. And when my surfection was threatening to rip through the ol’ Rip Curl, I plunged into an ebbing channel that floated me effortlessly past half-submerged boulders to the outside.

Maybe it was a little too easy. Being pulled out to the take-off spot gave me the false impression that it was going to be a day of non-consequential rides back to the rip. I realized just how wrong I was as the first set waves of the sesh stacked up on the horizon. Scratching like a dog I pierced through the first two, only to be rolled half way to Portland by the third, and mightiest, wave.

Someone must have hit the replay button, because after struggling to reclaim my spot I was again tumbled into the garbage disposal.

The rest of the session was a comedy of errors, as I hunted the ever-elusive peak. The punctuation to the story was stamped all across the crescent bay when the sea heaved forth an onslaught that made me think of Discovery channel programs with names like “When Good Times Go Bad” and “Nature’s Wrath.”

It’s a true testament to the beauty of surfing that even though I was humiliated on all fronts I came away from the weekend with a smile and plans to get back out as soon as possible (not to mention a ding roughly the size of the bruise on my thigh). Surfing, for me, is about so much more than, well, surfing. It’s about the friends, the music, the struggle, the water, the chit-chat, the wine, the art, the sleep, the salt and so much more.