Spiritual Tube Riding

imperative to avoid wiping out at any moment, other less immediate problems tend to fade away temporarily. It is sort of like leaving your troubles on the sand for a little while. They don’t go away. They are still there when you paddle in, but for a short time a brief respite can be found out in the water.

On this particular day the conditions were more than a little unusual. The surf was up – well overhead all up and down the coast, but visibility was poor. It was late afternoon and the light was otherworldly. The sun was low in a very overcast sky blanketing everything in a dense, warm fog. There was no wind. It was hot and the water was like glass. The moisture in the atmosphere cast everything in a hazy yellow light. I couldn’t see the waves from the shore, but I could hear them and I knew it was big.

When I paddled out into the lineup I found myself in a strange ethereal world. I couldn’t see the shore through the fog nor could I see very far out to sea. The waves would emerge suddenly out of the mist – huge, silent, amber walls rushing towards the shore and crashing out of sight.

There were only a handful of surfers out and we all clustered together straining to peer out to sea to catch the first glimpse of the next set. Because you couldn’t see them until they were already upon you – you had to be ready to instantly spin your board around, paddle hard and take a late drop into the wave. And the waves were awesome – set after set of perfect tubes. They were hard to see coming and hard to catch, but a last second takeoff, a scary drop and a bottom turn would project you right up into a glassy cylinder big enough to stand up in. There was no almost – you either made the drop and the first

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