The Drifter 8-14-05

I met Brett and Joe at seventeenth street on Sunday morning. The promised swell had begun to show. Waves were chest high on the sets, with a few nice standout waves less frequently.

Joe was a newcomer to the surf. He was the husband of a girl that I work with. He’d tried surfing in Hawaii on a big kahuna board, and decided to take up the sport. Through email, I’d advised him a bit during his board buying process. Joe was a good sized individual, and for learning, I told him bigger was better. He’d picked up a nice big 9’ plus board, plenty wide and thick.

Joe had met me for dawn patrol one other time, during the long flat spell where the waves were indistinguishable from the oil tanker boat wakes.

Brett had spent two of the last three weeks in Texas on business, cheerfully doing his part to help design bigger and better instruments of death for the Department of Defense, so that no future developing country might be deprived of the opportunity to sacrifice their young to the corpse pool. Needless to say, he was desperate for a few waves.

We jumped into the warm water and paddled into the whitewash. Having suffered the pain of weak arms the day before, I was prepared. I set my concentration out to sea and paddled over a few waves and through a few more. Minutes later, I sighed and sat upright.

Brett was to my left by several yards. I looked right and left. Joe was nowhere to be seen. I looked back to shore, and found him. He was well to my right, struggling with the inside waves, and rapidly drifting away from us. I looked at my position relative to the shoreline. I hadn’t realized how strong the northbound current was during my paddle. It was pretty strong.

Brett and I dabbled, catching a few waves as we drifted northward. After my second wave, I’d completely lost track of Joe. Then, I saw him walking at the shoreline. Brett and I waved our arms to let he know where we were. He matched our position on the shoreline, and entered the water a second time.

“You know” brett said. “he should’ve kept walking. He’s going to drift right past us again in the whitewash.”

I shrugged. Sure enough, the current at the shore being much stronger than the current outside the break, Joe drifted right past us. This time, however, the waves cooperated. We were between big sets and Joe was able to paddle out. He then turned south and swam back to our position.

“Man.” He said, recounting his ordeal. “The first time, I didn’t even make it past the insdide break. I looked up and saw the cliffs, and said fuck it. I got out and walked back.”

We drifted a bit longer. Brett caught the wave of the morning, a long left. Then, I made my suggestion.

“Hey guys, you feel like walking?” I asked. “The grass is defiantly greener back there. We’ve drifted too far.”

Brett agreed. Joe hesitated.

“Come on.” I chided. “We got to get you to paddle out one more time! Only this time, in bigger waves.”

I clumsibly caught a small wave, riding it on my knees. Brett came in just after me.

“Boy, I’m telling you.” I said. “I could have been a kneeboarding superstar.”

We sat in the sand to wait for Joe.

We’d drifted nearly a half mile, so the walk was long back to lifeguard tower 12. We’d met at 6:00 a.m. and it was nearing 7:30. Both Brett and Joe had places to be in the morning. By the time we to tower 14, Joe had made up his mind.

”I’m taking off.” He said.

Brett stuck it out, pushing the clock for an extra couple of waves. His morning appointment was to help a friend of his wife move, so my egging him to stay must have reached receptive ears.

I stayed even longer after Brett left, because I saw Venice on shore and I waited for her to paddle out to say Hi before I took a wave in. I hadn’t seen Venice in weeks. Dan was on shore with a camera shooting pictures of her.