An Interesting Day, Part Two: The Art of Dying

After ten days of watching from the sidelines, to say I was eager (“keen”) to get into the ocean was an understatement. I hitchhiked back to the hostel, where I ran into Phil, the owner, who was putting his surfboard in his car. He invited me to surf Indicators- he was leaving now. Was I up for it?

Yes!

There are a few things I must convey to put this story over properly. First, one of the striking things about New Zealand’s geography compared to the U.S. is how quickly the weather changes. A typical day might alternate between bright sun and pouring rain many times. A familiar sight is someone rushing to the clothesline to rescue half-dried laundry- or philosophically re-hanging it. The clouds at times race across the sky like time-lapse photography. It’s quite striking, and sometimes off-putting. It’s a foreign place.

I also need to give you an idea of the shoreline at the famous surf breaks. Raglan has three point breaks- three rocky headlands that shape the surf. You enter and exit not on beaches, but over rocks. Black, volcanic, razor sharp, pitted, barnacle encrusted, supremely abrasive, man-sized rocks. Until one develops calluses, they hurt to walk on barefoot.

When we arrived, the surf looked to be head-high or a bit bigger, and fun. It was also a bit intimidating. The tide was high, and the waves were sweeping in and smashing hard against the rocks.

Stepping from stone to stone, we made our way to “the keyhole”. The keyhole is a tiny nook, perhaps twenty feet wide, where a pile of cobblestones has accumulated between lava outcroppings. The water is a bit deeper there, just enough to soften the impact of the shore break. This is the entrance point, and at certain tides, in surf under a certain size, the exit point.

Past the southern spur of the keyhole is a shallow bay, which would be a marvelous exit, but is bordered by a twenty-foot vertical cliff on the north end. Beyond the Keyhole’s northern spur are submerged rocks that extend to form the next break up, Whale Bay.

We were both eager to get in. Phil and I commented to one another that we thought the tide was at full flow. This information was important. If the tide were now receding, our eventual exit at the keyhole would be safer; the friction of the rocks under shallower water would diminish the force of the waves.

We jumped off the rocks and paddled like mad through the inner surf zone toward the safety of deeper water.

The waves were exciting- but spooky! Each set seemed bigger than the last. Several times, our small pack was confronted by rogue waves that crested a hundred feet further out than where we sat. Sets of three or four waves became sets of seven, of eight, of ten! Like the swirling clouds, the personality of the ocean felt wild…extreme… different than back home.

After a time, weary and tense from the growing surf, I made the decision to ride one in. I caught a wave, zoomed down the line, straightened out into the broken whitewater, and dropped to my belly, prone.

Now several things happened very quickly.

As I raced toward the shore, I saw to my dismay that the fury along the rocks had increased; the tide was in fact much higher, the surf much bigger; the keyhole was a cauldron of foam; six-foot waves were breaking on bare rock.

And then I made a terrible mistake.

I aimed for the keyhole, but frightened of hitting the rocks on the south spur of the cove, veered toward the section of shore just to the north. I maneuvered and let the wave I was riding pass me by, then turned and paddled hard to the mouth of the tiny cove.

It was then that I realized my mistake, and again, several things happened at once. A powerful current, a TERRYFINGLY powerful current, was rushing north, away from the keyhole. With a sinking feeling that fizzed with adrenaline, I realized I couldn’t make headway toward my only safe exit. A six-foot wave was bearing down on me. I turned to face it; as I dove beneath it I felt it pulling me violently toward the shore. I lost my board, and scrambled back on. I was twenty feet closer to the rocks. My throat tightened. A second wave was advancing. I dug in to meet it, my arm muscles suddenly feeble. Glancing northward - Oh god! - the rocks now actually protruded further out to sea than where I was! I dove under the second wave, and felt the same sickeningly powerful pull shoreward. Another wave was approaching. There seemed to be no end to them. I had done everything exactly wrong!

It sounds asinine to speak of luck in a situation like this. But I suppose the events up until then hadn’t been bad luck; they had been the results of exceptionally poor judgment and ignorance. What happened next was luck. I was thrown onto the rocks, but the wave was more of a surge- one moment I was paddling in swirling foam, the next clambering, grasping jagged lava rock with one hand while cradling my board under the other arm- all during a blessed interval between waves. I felt my foot being cut, but I was on dry rock, moving higher, higher and then, safe. Adrenaline pulsed in my temples. Blood began to stream from cuts on my hands, legs and feet, especially my right foot, which had white strips gouged in it.



Incredibly, my surfboard was barely scratched

I hobbled back the next day and took photos. The first shows the keyhole (with people standing on top of the southern spur):



This photo shows the dimension of the keyhole, but because the waves are in fact bigger this day, they’re breaking further out. They’ve had a chance to roll and dissipate more than those of the day before, when they were actually cresting and landing on the rocks.

And here are waves rolling in toward the place where I made it in, taken from the same vantage point as the last photo:



Nobody was out- it was too wild! For what it’s worth, if a figure were riding the wave in the foreground, the wave would be about three to four feet taller than the surfer’s height.

I got a queer, very physical feeling as I sat there and took these photos. I KNEW I could have easily died- I’m very serious, folks. It really hit home, and I think I know why. My other mishaps were close calls with drowning- losing my board and having to swim against riptides. Drowning- as close as I’ve been to it, at least- is a “slow” event. The event at Indicator was potentially much more violent, the danger more abrupt. The memory of fear was particularly physical.

Anyway, I now know how NOT to get out of the water at Indicator- a lesson I’ll never forget. And as occasionally happens while surfing, the reality of my fragility and mortality, which I usually take for granted, is made apparent. It’s not a bad thing to meditate on.

What a contrast from the experience earlier that day with the loopy eye doctor.

It was an interesting day.