Dawn patrol is getting later, the water is cooling and the beach is emptying out, but the lineup is still packed, at least on weekends, and the waves just keep coming.
Most years September is clear and loaded with blue skies, but this year there has been a steady roil of gray overhead. But for the past two weekends, an overcast Saturday gave way to a spectacular sunset to the west and a huge rainbow over the ocean on the other side.
The rides are there, at least for those who know how and where to catch them.
There were plenty of closeout sets as well, and some rough water. Over the weekend I managed one nice long left, and a bunch of spectacular wipeouts, as I tried to find a clean line in a pretty steep wave.
It seemed like those places where the wave was the sweetest were also crowded with wetsuited surfers angling for their chance. No surprise there.
So I tried to find a quiet corner and do my best, even when that turned out to include a tour of the ways to fail on a wave, including hitting the bottom, getting held down by whitewater, managing to hit myself in the head with the board, and purling on the takeoff.
That’s when the nose of the board dips underwater – a standard screw-up for beginners. It’s easy to do when the waves coming in are not like the waves you had gotten used to. It’s often spelled “pearling,” but the old Scottish word to purl is the rippling sound of flowing water, so I think that fits better.
I had one perfect takeoff with a nicely executed bottom turn, and was just setting up for a good, fast ride when the wave collapsed on me like a semi jackknifing. I felt like I came up about an inch shorter and was limping for a couple of days until another wave stretched me back out.
It made for a couple of frustrating, humbling sessions, and for a while that was what this summer’s penultimate column was going to be: about frustration, skill, and the blessings of being an amateur.
On Saturday, I watched a couple of women trying some whitewater rides on foam boards, getting knocked around, struggling to their feet, and having a fine time. They brought a couple of little kids out with them, and sent them in on the whitewater, too. The little girls looked like naturals, popping to their feet and charging in to the shallows, or falling off with a laugh.
On the outside, a lineup of long and short boards were at the business of catching waves. A lot of them were excellent surfers. They looked liked they were having a blast.
I considered writing about the feeling I had – that maybe I was so caught up in the process of evaluating whether or not I was any good, and wondering if I looked like an idiot, that I wasn’t having very much fun.
Or I thought I might use the rainbows I saw as a metaphor for how a gray day can turn around into a miracle.
And then Sunday happened.
On Sunday afternoon there was tragedy that should keep everyone who gets in the water late in the season up nights. It put a terrible perspective on how trivial it is to miss a wave, and made it hard for me to try to say anything of interest about playing in the water.
It happened at Ocean City’s south end, at 55th Street, and the details have been well-reported elsewhere. A New York man was in the water, probably out on sandbar, and unable to get in by himself. The lifeguards are done for the year, and at least three people were caught in a current. One got in by himself, and firefighters launched a water rescue to help in two others, a man and a woman. The man, who was 27, didn’t survive.
I had been in the water, trying to catch some waves breaking on the sandbar, about a half hour before and about two blocks away. Around the same time, there was a big crew surfing near the old 59th Street Fishing Pier a couple of blocks farther to the south. So I can’t help but wonder how differently things could have turned out if only someone had been nearby with a board.
Where I was, there was a man and some kids playing on the sandbar in about waist-deep water. That little bump of sand makes a big difference. It breaks the wave out farther and creates a calm, deep pool between the break and the beach. For surfers, a bar usually makes for a nice ride, and also means when you’re done you can bail into deep water. Bathers also have fun swimming out to the bar.
But a sandbar also collects all that wave water rushing in and holds it back. That water has to find a way back out, so typically it travels along the beach until it reaches a channel and then heads out in a rush.
It can be amazingly strong.
Even the strongest swimmer will have trouble bucking a rip. That’s why over and over you read or hear that you shouldn’t fight it, but swim parallel to the beach until you are out of the current, and then head in.
But panic makes it hard to think clearly. Panic can make you strike at rescuers and struggle in the primal choice of fight or flight.
This won’t be a call to stay out of the water. I’ll be back in the next chance I get. But know the water you’re getting into. Know where the jetties and hazards are, and use your head. You don’t have to take on every big wave. You don’t have to stay in until your hands are too numb to hold the board. Don’t surf alone.
Most of all, look after each other out there.
My deep and heartfelt sympathies to the family and friends of the young man who lost his life. That won’t help at all, I think, in the enormity of the heartbreak they face.
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