Jason (Day 92)

When I arrived at 6 am, it was dark and slightly crisp. I decided to wear shorts, anyway.

"The water is warmer than the air, and the sun will come out while we're out there." I told Brett. But with his wetsuit already pulled and zipped up, he couldn't have cared less.

We walked down to shore in the pre-twilight darkness. The sand on the beach was cold on my feet. We walked down the beach for a stretch, until Brett stopped and looked out to the water.

"Did you really want to walk to the pier, or are we just walking to wait for more light?" Brett asked.

"We're just walking to wait for more light." I replied, and began tugging on one arm with the other over my head. "And, now, we're going to do stretches to kill a little more time."

We entered the water with only the barest light of twilight showing in the over land. There was a deep, dark blue color fading towards purple at the bottom of the eastern horizon.

A few waves later, I noticed Jason paddling out.

Jason was Hispanic, in his early thirties, with a shaved bald head and closely trimmed facial, and clean features set into a round face. Jason had been fairly regular at seventeenth street in the early part of the summer, showing up for morning surfing session at least three times per week and sometimes more. He would arrive between 6 and 6:30, and stay in the water up to several hours. Jason lived in Downey, 28 miles north of Huntington Beach, a commute almost as long as my own.

From August to September, however, Jason had been missing from the line up.

"Hey." I said. "It's been a while since we've seen you here."

Jason smiled. He told me that he and his wife had just had their first baby, a son, and that he was adjusting to the sporadic sleep pattern horribly, like most new parents do.

"I haven't been this tired in a long time." Jason sighed. "I guess it's tiring for everyone."

Brett, father of two, paddled into reach of the conversation. He smiled and sat up tall on his longboard with his chest out. "Just wait till the second."

Brett and I immediately shifted to into Daddy mode, recounting stories of our kids. I envied Jason the experience of those first weeks of life, and told him so.

"They'll never be that small and fragile again." I said. "Before you know it, they'll be running out of the room and coming back with your favorite pair of scissors."

Jason was a very good surfer. He paddled well, found the shoulders of the waves, and got good speed in his take offs. He had quick feet and turned with power, showing the balance and control that only experience brings.

In the long lulls between sets, we talked about the recent swell, and the day of offshore wind conditions. Jason had been in Huntington that morning and, retrospectively, envied our choice to surf at Newport.

"That must have been pretty crazy down there." He nodded distantly, as though imagining the difference in waves between the tow beaches.

We drifted with the current while the sun painted vivid colors of orange, pink, and yellow against the blue gradients of the south sky. We talked about surfing trips, and my vacation to O'ahu.

"I lived there for a while" Jason said.

"Navy?"

"No. my wife went to school at U of H."

I told him about my trip. I mentioned surfing in Ewa, at Hau Bush, Barber's and several breaks "in town".

"Town's nice, isn't it?" he asked.

I nodded.

"That's the real deal, out there."

Jason asked if I had gotten to do any surfing on the North Shore. I told him that I had been in May, and that nothing was breaking on the north. In any event, I told him that I doubted that I would actually surf on the North Shore as I didn't consider myself to be a good enough surfer.

"No.", he attempted to assure me, "You'd surf there."

Jason recalled his experiences. "Man, even the car ride to the beach was exciting. I could feel my heart pounding. You really learn your limitations. But, if your like most of us" he pointed to the water with his palms, "and always learning - then it's great. It was a great thing for me, for my surfing. Now, when it gets big here, like early this week, there's less fear. There's still fear, you know, but I have that experience."

Jason tells me that there were three key thing he learned as a result of his winter on the North Shore of O'ahu.

"First, paddling. You really learn how to paddle after a wave, where you put all your energy into catching it. Then - the duct dive. [It is] Not like here, where you just sort of push up, but, to really push your nose down under the water. You have to duct dive there, or you'll never make it out."

Jason and I paddled towards the pier a bit, fighting the north current. The sun was fully out, and silhouetted Jason's head against an orange backdrop as he talked.

"And, then there's the late take off."

"See" I said, throwing my palms up in a surrender, " - that still scares me."

Jason was calm, eluding the surfer wisdom of experience. "Well, Newport is a late take off. It's pretty hairy there. Especially when it's big."

"Yea, well that's why I cheat at Newport. I bring a longer board and paddle earlier."

"It's still late. Waves that break that strong - you can't catch it until it's late. You learn the late take off over there. You get a lot better at it. And... once you're committed to a wave.."

Jason raised his eyebrows to finish the thought before he paddled away to an incoming set of waves.

I knew what he meant.

More Later

-trav

copyright 2004, Travis R. English