Sunday threw some big waves our way.

Is everybody tired of talking about Irene yet?

Did you stay, where’d you go, when did you get back? Did you surf, and when?

For the record, I got in on Monday, and was content to merely point a camera at the big swell with the curl near the Music Pier in Ocean City on Sunday night.

The biggest waves were a mess, but later, when Irene was beating up Vermont, came the cleaner, surfable waves.

It also brought in some humbling moments for us summer surfers, who are more used to easing in to ripples than suicide drops.

The paddle out was longer, and tougher, and no matter where I went or how I timed it I’d be struggling into the teeth of the next set, pushing against a wall of whitewater and arriving at the lineup gasping for breath and collapsing on the board.

Eager to conceal my innate kookdom, I’d bandy about practiced phrases like “These are fun little waves,” or “The real swell is gone, but I figured I’d paddle out tonight, too.” I don’t think I fooled anyone.

Especially when I’d tumble over the falls – cascading down out of control in the whitewater – or get my board taken out from under me on a shoulder takeoff.

There was a thrill of fear on each takeoff, each time paddling out, an undefined dread like that moment at the top of a roller coaster.

But once in a while I’d catch one, bouncing with the chop, speeding along the face, in a ride that lasted almost forever – or at least for many, many seconds – all the way in to the shallows.

In those moments, the fear seemed silly. It wasn’t, of course. “No fear” is not a state to be emulated; it’s a sign of a serious and dangerous deficiency. Sometimes, if you’re not afraid, you are just not paying attention.

Like when you’re a kid starting to play hardball. The coach, or whoever, is telling you that you can’t be afraid of the ball. But as an intelligent little kid, you realize right away that the ball is exactly what you should be afraid of. It’s hard, and it’s moving toward you very fast, and it will hurt. What the coach is trying to get across is that it will hurt a lot more if you don’t catch it right and it bounces into your face than if you keep it in the glove, where it just stings your palm.

What’s more, the fear that keeps you out of traffic and keeps you from mouthing off to the big kid with the moustache and the temper who is only still in your grade because he keeps flunking out is also almost certain to distract you enough that you are sure to screw up, and bounce that line drive right into those braces you just got tightened.

It’s the same with almost everything we do, or try to do. Fear keeps us safe, but it also keeps us from asking out the prom queen (or prom king), saving the sinking ship, or paddling in to that moving hill that’s cresting behind you.

So the trick is to feel the fear, but not let it cripple you; to realize that there are dangers aplenty in the waves, on the road, at the salad bar, or on the couch in front of the TV, where eventually that steady flow of ice cream will kill you.

I was afraid to try the waves Sunday, but it wasn’t a senseless fear. I could see guys getting these really nice rides, but I could also see where I would most likely get pummeled. I also took a look at the Irene-powered swell on Saturday morning. One surfer, Dan Frankel, told me he was getting some fun rides out in the pre-hurricane rain, but nothing about that looked inviting. It looked like a big, churning mess.

Anyway, I was feeling sort of outclassed in the big wave department. I got some fun rides, and that of course is the whole point – some of the best surfers I have known always say the best surfer is the one having the most fun – but I didn’t brave the overhead swell.

Then I saw the video out of Tahiti this week. Did you check any of this on the web? The swell at Teahupoo was big enough to cancel the ASP World Tour – they switched to tow-ins when they got too big for anybody to catch paddling a board – and in the video you can see a tiny figure in a huge barrel, the wave way bigger than the boats hurrying out of the way.

The wipeouts were just terrifying. The force of the waves seemed way beyond what a human body could withstand, as this tiny ragdoll got tossed and subsumed in tons of rushing water. No one was seriously hurt, but it’s almost hard to believe a person could surface from that wave with just scrapes and bruises.

Sometimes fear is the only sane response.

Anyway, welcome to September. There go the crowds, here come the waves, and the water should stay plenty warm for a while yet. Thursday at dawn they were big and clean, with dolphin jumping and an almost-empty lineup. Here’s to plenty more where that came from.

On Monday morning, the post-hurricane waves were at their most inviting.

Dan Frankel gets some rides in Ocean City’s north end on Saturday morning. The rain had already begun, and the wind picked up, but he said the waves were still fun. His only complaint was that he could not find anyone to surf with him.