Collection of less than glorious moments at the Beach (those that mention kelp or reef are not at the Beach).
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This one from 2008?
I should really have kept a copy of my "10 worst wipe-out" post from a few years back....if only the search function worked better.
Still, I think I can summon a few wipe-outs from the long term memory:
1 Decent overhead hurricane swell, after work, rail sandwich, am forced to leave water only view through tears of pain as Friend #1 and Friend #2 rip it up for another hour.
2 Big day, leash breaks, swim in, get thrashed on the inside bar and then in shorebreak, see those red and black spots as I emerge the ocean
3 Medium size day, hard offshore, held up, late air drop, destroy front ankle as board pearls while I try to fight from going over the front...too much force for the ankle to withstand and I go ever the front
4 Big day, late drop, fall through board upon sticking the landing..fiberglass scrapes on nose and back of head.
5 Tangled in kelp and whipped by mace-like kelp bulbs.
6 Tangles in kelp, held under for 2nd wave, inhaled lots of water that time
7 Giant day, swept off cliff rocks by set and "washed" along the inside reef.
8 Giant day, take off on what could have been the biggest of the set waves, channel closes out, am forced to straighten out, leash breaks in the ensuing mashdown, am now in impact zone for rest of the set...each wave I try to swim under drags me up and over. Tunnel vision and hacking up watery fluids by the time I stumble and roll ashore.
9 Cobblestone left point, bottom turn blown, rolled along bottom hitting TV and bowling ball sized smooth rocks. Everytime I try to push up, cobblestones give way under my feet and water too full of airbubbles (so it is not as dense as non-bubbly water) to support my mass...feels like I am drowning inches from the surface.
10 Fall, get hog-tied to board by leash, but not tight enough to bind the board so that it can't whack me. Get hit by a few other waves as I try to get free of leash; each wave causes the board to strike me about the face, head, neck, armpit, while the fins jab me in the thigh.
11 Push my neck and vertebrae to what feels like 0.1 mm from breaking in a dredging inside bar barrel...was certain I was coming out and then Whammo!
I am sure there are other wipe-outs, but these stand out in the moment.
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Or
2002 (link)?
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Every year I seem to have a bit of trouble at the Beach and as such, it is hard to pick out a single story.
But I've got a list of events, and in no particular order:
1) Pitched on the take off and fell about 10 feet into the flats. Came up with a cracked rib. Had to head to the shore immediately. Shooting pain on the bumpy belly ride in.
2) Floating take-off at VFW. Fell through my board upon landing it and jagged fiberglass edges scrape my nose and back of my head.
3) Spin out on bottom turn, over the falls twice with rail smashing my left jaw/ear joint. Nearly blacked out.
4) Deceptively large day has me out on the 7'6". Get cleaned up and my leash breaks. Have to swim under a number of sets with 12-18 foot faces and me only about 20 feet from the impact for each. Finally sense returns and realize that I'll never get in unless I let the sets blast me. So I let them. Then the overhead dredging shore break works me. I cough up and throw up sea water. My board is nowhere in sight. (later Friend #2 comes in with my board...he buckled his board on a fall, found mine, paddled in on that)
5) Sprained ankle on a late drop that I tried to ride out. Could not run out out of the shorebreak and took a massive blow to my back and ate sand; thought my neck was gonna break...didn't know my neck could bend that far back in such shallow water.
6) Nearly drowned...saw red and black spots. Make to shore in a daze and some guy on the parking lot goes "That was a terrible fall."
7) After exhausting paddle-out back out after a decent ride, I see a macking set march in. Adrenalin flows and I get the topsey-turvey stomache and my "hackles" rise. I have to force myself to steady my breathing and relax as I take about 5 waves on my head. By the time it is over, I have a bloody nose and two tweaked shoulders. Next day it feels as if I've been given 20 blows about my head and shoulders with a 50's era longboard.
8) Medium size day, rail sandwich after a bit of chop gets me off balance on the take off. I don't even feel the next few sets hit me.
9) Fin cut nearly severs tendons and ligaments on my side of foot. Wearing no booties means the wound get full of sand en route across the filthy beach water. Washing it out later proves that biting a leather belt does provide a certain amount of pain relief/outlet.
10) BIG fall with the lip on my neck. Ears pop on the way through X number of feet down to the sand which I strike hard enough to knock the air right out of my lungs. I have the "can't catch my breath" feeling and feel sort of paralyzed, or pressed flat. The I feel weightless. Ears pop, and I realize I am going up. Suddenly sunlight. I think I get a smidgen of air in my lungs before I get pulled below. Jammed hard on the sand again, this time on my butt. (my spine remember this for a few days). Leash wraps around an arm and a upper leg and then tightens. Feels like I am having them cut off. More happens but it is all a little hazy. Stumble on shore and stagger about. Getting out of my wetsuit, I feel the left over remains of the fight or flight response which tells me how terrible it all truly was.
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