I awoke to the blaring ring of my cell phone. It was pouring raining outside and cold as all fuck, add a hangover from the night before’s festivities and I was in no rush to get out of bed. I looked at my clock and it was noon. Man did I have a headache. I picked up the phone and it was my boy and new surfing buddy Trevor. “I definitely want to surf today” he said. Yesterday we were suppose to surf but he bailed because he was too hung over and may actually have been slipped a ruffie. Ah yes the things a woman will do to a man.
Turns out this chick he was seeing broke it off with him Friday so he went out on a bender. Had I not been so hammered myself Friday engrossed in my own party I most likely would have ran into him on the scene. “Its pretty small I think, but I am down to grovel. Give me a few hours and we will role.” I replied. I got on my computer to see what was in store for us. All models and cams pointed to complete flatness. I thought about running north and risking becoming dinner at Surf Beach or Guadeloupe then reconsidered. That last shark attack up there was just a little to close to home for me.
My life is finally picking up for me, the last thing I want to do is go out by a shark. Also I really want to make it to the 21st. I mean if the world is going to end I really want to be there for it. I hope its not lame. I don’t care how it goes down as long as it is really cool. Maybe no zombies. I don’t want to have to deal with that mess. Truthfully I am kind of hoping for a biblical judgement day apocolysp like in “Little Nicky”. I don’t think Ozzie will be able to save us this time though.
I figured we could just cruise to Ventura Harbor. In the winter there is always something to surf there. I got out of bed all dizzy and dehydrated. Went in my bathroom and was greeted with the remnants of coke all over the counter top. Last night at my after party some black chick locked herself in the bathroom and proceeded to blow like a gram in there. It took us a half hour to get her out. Other then that I would say the party was pretty decent. Everyone brought booze, Griff and Bizarro brought a Pizza. It was a good time. Upon leaving at the end of the night this dude who had come with some other guests shook my hand and said “I really want to thank you for having us over we had really fun time”. I though how nice and well mannered.
In all the years and all the parties I have thrown I don’t think anyone said thank you upon leaving. Its good to know there are still some decent people out there. I mean sure that guy is probably a serial killer or pedophile rapist, but hey at least he is well mannered. “Please sir forgive me, I must kill you now, sorry”. Everyone even pitched in gathering all the glasses and trash so that when I woke up my apartment looked pretty good.
I downed my usual 9000 milligrams of ibuprofen for the headache, ate a meager breakfast, did my regular internet routine of surfline, facebook, surfingruinedmylife (yes I am that vain, like you other wordpress bloggers don’t check your blog every time you log onto the net) and my email. I looked at the cam for C Street one more time and it looked pathetic. Over it I decided to curl up on the couch with Alfie and a good book. Then I got a text from Trevor that he wanted to hit it. I had nothing better to do and he really wanted to surf. I am not one to rob someone of a therapeutic surf session.
We cruised down south toward Ventura and it was literally flat every where on the way down. Even all the indicator spots that allow one to make an inference on what the surf will be like were completely flat. Most times when I see that I just turn around to save the gas. We were on a mission, a retard mission to surf knee high junk in the cold and rain (ok, by Jersey standards it was not that cold at all considering the air was still in the mid fifties and the water in the high fifties, but at this point I am a spoiled Californian.). Even C Street was flat and there is a ride-able wave there nearly 365 days a year. It maybe a bad wave but surf-able.
Trevor kept saying he needed to surf so on we went. At the harbor the wind was at least straight offshore. It may be small but at least it would be clean. Upon checking it there were about a dozen other intrepid souls out there and the surf was solid chest to head high with clean peaky little tubes every where. It was another New Jetty miracle. Astounded, we were on it and out there like a bat out of hell. From there it was barrel after barrel. The crowd was mellow and most were sitting on the middle peak leaving the jetty peak for us.
I was on too. Stuck a huge clean full rotation back side air reverse, a full rotation frontside ally-oop and the barrels, fuck, the barrels. Trevor actually opened up with the first tube of the session then we were just trading pits. I even managed a double barrel on one. Everyone out was hooting. I had one left where I was standing there in the pit looking out watching this guy on the same wave about 100 yards from me going right standing in the tube. We looked at each other and started hooting. He pulled out and I boosted the end section. On the way back out we slapped each other five. There was so much stoke out there.
The clouds and lighting as the sun was going down was amazing. The mountains were all green with an eerie front light from the setting sun refracting off the grey clouds and some had there tops hugged by these strange wispy clouds. It looked like something out of a fantasy movie. If it was not for the town of Ventura in the foreground I would have thought I was back in New Zealand. Then the moon popped out of the clouds and was just this perfect little sliver sliver of light.
I looked at Trevor who was on his way back out from a sick little right hand tube and said “We certainly could have a worse lot in life”. He looked a me and smiled then told me about how in church this morning Al Merrick’s son Britt Merrick announced that his 9 year old daughter was dying with very little time left from cancer. He said the whole church was just crying. Its a real shame. I too had recently gotten similar news about someone close to me in my own life. Then I thought of all those poor people in Connecticut both those killed in the shootings and their surviving families.
Life is so short and precious. Here we were two young healthy men drinking ourselves to death for no good reason. For that moment in the ocean surrounded by all the beauty and power of the world around us we could not ask for anything more. “Everyone dies. Not everyone truly lives”. All we can ask of ourselves is to use the time we are given here on Earth in the best manner possible. I know for me personally I have made many changes to my life over the past few years to do just that. I still have a long way to go. Rome was not built in a day after all.
I don’t the answers to life’s big questions. All I know is that we must live and for me life has always been surfing. As of late that is where I have been focusing my time and energy. I have also been focusing more on my music again cause that has been a source for me for as long as I can remember as well. My number could be up at any moment and all I know is that I want to have as many moments like the one I had this evening as I possibly can.
Frame grab from some really terrible Silver Strand this past Tuesday. Read more in the Surflog.
Surfing Ruined My Life 