Chapter Eleven

The tropical storm stalled off the coast and the waves came rolling in. On shore it was warm and sunny and the water was even warm enough to surf without boots or gloves. That’s something rare around here.

At seven on Thursday morning, I rode my bike with my board to the beach and found Tara standing on the dune, looking at the lines of six- to seven-foot waves rolling in at the Reef. Cars were pulling into the parking lot,and I knew it would be completely mobbed within an hour.

“You want to try surfing some place totally different?” I asked her as I walked up from behind.

“But this looks so perfect.”

“Yeah, but look.” I pointed to an suv with seven boards on top.

“So you’re willing to share your secret spot with me?” she said, smiling.

“If you promise not to tell anyone. Besides, you’ve been there before. I saw you on the headland.”

“Let’s go.”

Fortunately, Tara had her father’s station wagon and I could put my bike in the back. I strapped my board on top of hers and we headed east.

Ray was already in the water at the Farm when we arrived. Mickey D greeted us and walked us out to the point.

As we paddled out, the tide was low enough that some big boulders were exposed as the wave sucked out on takeoff. I watched Ray make a drop and carve a killer bottom turn around a seaweed-covered rock and then arc high up onto an overhead wall of water. He made it look like it was the easiest thing in the world.

We were paddling in deep water and moving quite fast. “We’re in a rip,” I told Tara. “There’s one on either side of the break.”

“Is that dangerous?”

“Could be,” I said. “But right now it’s helping us get to where we want to go.”

“Yeah, but if you wipe out and snap your leash?”

“You’ll get sucked out to sea.”

“Keep an eye on me, okay?” she said. “This place is kinda spooky.”

“We’ll keep an eye on each other,” I told her.

We paddled across the rip now, still feeling its seaward tug. On a surfboard, it wasn’t a big deal. For swimmers it would be another story. The only way out of a rip is to swim across it, never against it. People who didn’t understand this basic fact of ocean life had died on this shore.

A set of six waves was headed our way as we reached the takeoff point. Ray nodded and smiled when he saw us but didn’t say a word. The way he caught the next wave and pushed himself up on the steep drop showed that he was a master surfer. I turned my board to face the shore and caught the one right behind him. Three deep strokes and I was in.

And then I saw the rock, exposed in front of me. I tried to stop but it was too late. I was already making the drop. As I stood, I began to carve hard with my left foot on the tail. The board began to turn. I hadn’t meant to go right, into the collapsing wall of the wave, but I had no choice.

I felt my fin nick the big boulder as I slid past it. Close call. I was sliding across a large, steep wave and headed into a small canyon of water. The waves were so powerful that they were jacking up and throwing out, creating a tube.

For the first time in my life I was standing up and truly inside the wave. As the wave hit the shallow rocks beneath, it became hollow and there was water to my right, to my left and above me. I screamed. This was amazing.

But instead of heading away from the collapsing part of the wave, I was headed into it. And in a split second I was swallowed by it. I wiped out hard, as the wave hit me first in the head, knocking me off the board and tossing me under, then pulling me back up the wall and slamming me down hard in a big pummeling mass of white water. Ouch.

When I came up for air, my board was nearby and I was smiling so hard I thought my face would crack. I paddled out of the impact zone, back into the helpful rip, and let it drag me back out to the break. Tara was sitting there on her board and so was Ray.

“I thought, if you lived, I might try one too,” Tara said.

“Dude,” Ray admonished me with a grin, “you’re supposed to go away from the break, not into the throat of a monster like that.”

I shrugged. “Who put the rock at the bottom of the wave anyway?”

“Glaciers,” Ray said. “Long time ago, one of them thought it would be a dynamite joke to plant a boulder like that in the middle of the best surf break on the east coast of North America. They waited a long time, but they finally got some yuks out of it. Nice wipeout. A classic.”

Tara was giggling as she started to paddle for her own wave. She positioned herself so that she’d be able to go left and avoid the rock entirely. She took off as if in a dream, made the most graceful drop and carved hard at the bottom with her long hair flying in the bright summer air.

“You gonna marry her?” Ray joked.

“What?”

“She’s beautiful, smart and she surfs like a goddess. What more could a man want?”

Tara was riding high on the wave, but it looked like it was about to section. I was thinking about those other rocks I’d seen as we’d paddled out. She’d have to keep her wits about her the whole length of the ride.

I decided to paddle for the next wave and be nearby in case she got into trouble. As the wall jacked up behind me, I suddenly felt something in the back of my brain. It was fear,pure and simple. As things went into slow motion, I felt the fear of another wipeout, the fear of getting smacked in the nose with my board. It caught me off guard and I almost lost it, but I looked back at Ray and he was staring at me, two thumbs in the air. I decided not to fight the fear but recognize it and use it.

I got cautiously to my feet. I made sure I had perfect balance before making my bottom turn, and there I was, going left into the deep bay with a perfect overhead wall of blue-green water ahead of me. The ride was steep and fast and I carved a few turns—slow and steady like a guy on a longboard should.

And when I kicked out at the end of the wave, Tara was there in the water, climbing back onto her board. We were out of the impact zone and in the rip, drifting back out to sea, getting a nearly free ride back to the break.

We surfed until our arms were noodled and our feet were pruned. Tara and I were saltwater stoked and soggy and had to lie down on the smooth warm stones of the shoreline before we could find the energy to walk back to the car.

Ray sat there on the stones with Mickey D, looking back out to sea. “I needed that,” he said. “Guess that was why I drove across the continent. Kind of puts a nice touch to the end of the story.”

What story? I wanted to ask, but Ray had already picked up his board and was walking back to his van. As he was walking away, Tara rolled toward me and took my face in her hands. She kissed me hard on the mouth, and then I kissed her back. She tasted like salt, and I guess I did too.