Jennifer Massoni Pardini

The Rocks at Kelly’s Cove, Ocean Beach, SF

In the words of Duke Kahanamoku, the famed great-grandfather of the sport who surfed his native Oahu and waves the world over (he is credited with launching the sport in Australia at a surf exhibition in 1915), “Be patient, wave come. Wave always come” (Moore, Sweetness and Blood 30).

I believe this is the first lesson of surfing. We study the conditions, familiarize ourselves with wind direction and how it effects the waves, the offshore storms that propel the size of the swell, the timing of the tides. Here at Ocean Beach, there are two lineups. One in the water, where you can see at least a handful of surfers on most days of the year. The other is on the shoreline, where any number of us cross the Great Highway to stare out at the waves from the graffiti-ed esplanade or from the shelter of cars facing West in the parking lot. We’re all contemplating something. Daniel Duane describes it like this: “When Vince rode his bike to the cliff each morning to calculate the day’s optimal conflation of elements, he was, in a sense, looking for that moment when the world would intone just what he—and I—most wanted to hear….The world then seemed to have a humane design; or, to take the other tack, my own relationship to the world seemed finally clear enough to realize nature’s capacity for precise expression” (Duane, Caught Inside 79).

Case in point, I haven’t gotten in the water yet for this project, and this seems the first realistic requirement of the mission. Two lessons have been called off, the most recent on account of the last storm and south winds coming in at 17 kts, exactly what you don’t want at a south-facing beach like Cowell’s. Onshore winds mean the waves will collapse faster, creating froth and uneven breaks. “I’m dodging storms for you,” my instructor Ed says. He has been the owner and operator of Club Ed International Surf School and Camps for the past 20 years, and he’s spent the last 40 surfing the region. “There are no guarantees with the weather. It’s a roll of the dice.”

The next day I can get down to Santa Cruz will be the best swell all year, creating waves far too big for my beginner’s fears, questions, and awe. By the end of the week things should have settled enough for me to have a good experience, Ed says. “At 2PM on Thursday, the tides should be perfect.” Ed also reminds me that all this dodging and rolling should give me a good sense of what it’s really like chasing good waves, something to write about, in other words, which is the prevailing passion in this equation anyhow.

In the meantime, I dive back into my books and articles and films on the sport, and read that surfers should stay out of the water for 72 hours after rainfall, but many will not if the right conditions present themselves. Indeed, the very next day was stunning, well into the 70s here at Ocean Beach, nothing but sun, folks of all ages lost in all kinds of play, easily 100 surfers in the water, and my eyes on the break rolling in with all the reliance of time. No guarantees.

Yesterday morning, 7:30 AM, another roll. The ocean so glassy it looked like lake-blue sheets, occasionally wiped smooth by a palm between soft rows of ripple. I imagined a goddess at leisure periodically dipping her finger many miles offshore to test the temperature, to see what might happen. The water was calm enough for two stand up paddle boarders (SUPing, as it’s called) to enjoy the entire stretch of Ocean Beach between Lincoln Avenue and Kelly’s Cove. It was all theirs. It was all ours.

This morning, so much foam collected on the beach that the sand almost looked like it had broken out in a rapidly spreading rash. I’ve read recently about California’s Contaminated Coastline. Another fallout of the economy, recent state budget cuts have meant a suspension in beach testing, so who’s to know the exact levels of bacteria in the water these days? Coastal residents are hoping that the testing programs can resume soon, but it’s all a question of the economy picking up, or not. All I know is that there wasn’t one surfer in the water. But Surfline confirms the waves were on the sluggish side this morning. The swell is on the rise, however, and double overhead can be expected across the region by this afternoon (Surfline.com, Surf Report Ocean Beach, 11.2.10).

So, patience is the key and conjures a presence that is just as demanded of you whether you’re in or out of the water. I’m content in watching the ocean change, in figuring out how I might change with it (after all, I’ll be moving 6,000 miles south and 100 miles inland come June). I’m taking part in a timeless gaze, and I’m far from the first compelled to write about it. Most of the books I’ve read have mentioned literary legends who have penned their impressions, from Mark Twain to Isabella Bird to Jack London (Comer, Surfer Girls in the New World Order 9), though they offered the perspective of writers rather than surfers. Today, surfers who became writers rightfully dominate the field. Matt Warshaw, for instance, started surfing in 1969 and began writing about it 1983, one year after he was ranked 45th in the world on the professional surfing circuit.

For this project, I’m moving a little backwards, perhaps. But I’m starting with the same material: the ocean. As Ryan says, “Once you take it on, you’re going to look at the ocean differently for the rest of your life. You’ll have more respect for the ocean and more awareness of your surroundings. You’re going to develop this relationship with something that’s life-changing. ”

Cowell’s Beach, Santa Cruz, CA

You never forget the first time. Mine was half my life ago at Cowell’s Beach in Santa Cruz, appropriately known as the first place on the North American continent to be surfed. In 1885, three princes from Hawaii took a trip over the hills from the military academy where they were studying, shaped their own redwood boards, and introduced the practice that has been a defining rhythm of the city for decades (Moore, Sweetness and Blood 2-3).

Fifteen years ago, however, all I knew was that the girls’ water polo team was going to skip practice with the boys’ swim team and caravan over Highway 17’s same snaking slopes and straight to the beach. It was the time of day that curved from late afternoon to early evening. I have no idea what the tides were doing. I can’t remember whose longboard or wetsuit I borrowed, but I remember the board seemed like the golden ticket to a few stolen hours. No matter what happened, the next time someone asked me if I had ever surfed, I’d have something to say. When we gazed up at the bluff, people looked as small and silhouetted as we must have from where we paddled and slipped, freezing and happy, doing our best. I never did catch a wave that day; the waves were small and the sun was setting into the late spring night. Getting dressed between the two open doors of the old Suburban a short while later, my fingers and toes were so numb they felt useless, but used; foreign, but traveled.

And you never forget the first time you stand up. Nearly fifteen years passed before I tried again at the very same beach. By then I had visited two other continents, managed seven East Coast winters, fallen in and out of love and then in for good, and had been back in California long enough to want to try again. I got my hands on a cap and booties this time to combat the mid-winter Pacific even though it was a rare day in January that could have been mistaken for June, clear enough to see straight past Monterey. I trusted Ryan’s watery path across the current, but as we got closer to the lineup, my nerves woke. What if I dropped in without intending to? Or, far worse, collided with another surfer? The ocean moves after all. It’s not like skiing, where at least you can count on the mountain to stay put. The motion is the whole point, the constant shifting, the reading required to sense where to plant your feet against a portable plank of solid ground.

I was a fish out of water in water so murky I couldn’t see the my feet. As we bobbed in place, the front of our boards broke the surface like the arching noses of curious seals. Ryan stopped to point to where the waves were coming in like marching rows of disciplined soldiers. We were a good twenty yards from the other black-suited surfers whose gender or age or nationality were camouflaged by slick neoprene shells. But I wasn’t there to bob, so we paddled over. I sat, my rubbery legs straddled over the wide foam board, and gazed south at the next set of waves coming in until I heard Ryan yell: “Turn! Go!” This is tunnel vision. This is “yielding to the present,” as the Buddhists say. I missed altogether, but felt the powerful slither of the serpent beneath me, the life and breath of it even. I tried again, managed to get up on my knees, but lost my balance and bailed back into the dark water.

But I wasn’t worried about the lineup anymore. I saw the next wave growing, gathering itself up with every second of the interval. To reach out and grab this serpent by the neck, all I had to do was paddle hard and stand, right? And the visualization surfers describe as essential kicked in. I popped up and planted my bootied feet on the board. Time, two seconds really, maybe three, slowed down so my mind could catch up to the feeling, which I can only describe as the closest I’ve felt to flight. As local surfer and surfing historian Matt Warshaw said, when I asked him recently for advice he’d give to a beginner: “It’s an incredibly difficult sport, and the rewards, over the course of a given day, even for good surfers, are measured in seconds. That’s what’s hard, but that’s also partly why it becomes so addictive.” At the close of those first seconds on that first ride, when the white-watered lips plunged down to meet the green murk, I jumped off by choice until my gleeful yelp was swallowed whole.

For Ryan, the glee comes from more advanced maneuvers certainly, but the rewards are no less straight-forward or immediate. His favorite part is getting barrels. “When you’re inside the wave. But that doesn’t always happen. It can’t necessarily be your goal. That’s always desirable, but you can’t always force that. The opportunity presents itself and you’ve got to take advantage. That feeling right before you get the wave and you know you’re going to catch it and it’s coming toward you and it’s a good wave and you can see that, that’s a good moment. That’s right where you want to be.”