Sunday Surf
9 06 2008I headed to my friends house at Agate Beach on Sunday to check out the surf. I took both board and kayak, but opted for kayak after i saw the surf. Given the short period and strong winds (and the absence of the headland rip), I figured it would be easier to punch through all that whitewater in a boat-i’m so lazy!. The waves were okay, but more importantly I worked out timing of throwing blunts in the ocean. I surfed my bottom and top turns until the wave was closing out. At the top of the wave, just when the wave was closing out seemed to be the time to throw them…and when i tried this timing I was hitting them pretty much each time. I wonder if its possible to throw them in short playboats on the green of the wave? Pete made a good comment about risk assessment about throwing playboat moves and it is most definitely worth reading.
Photo: View of Agate surf from Vero’s place. Nice…!!
I’d take care throwing hard in the shallow reform. I read a scary post a few years ago about a guy doing that who caught his tail and back endered. Pretty common occurrence in play holes, but in shallow shore break he landed square on his noodle and broke his neck! A passeryby saw it all and saved his life by flipping him and dragging the boat up onto dry land.
No joke, it sounded like he knew what he was doing, and yet his paddling career (and almost his life) where terminated from a routine playboating maneuver.
Not to rain on your parade, just something to think about. Playboating evolved in holes that are upstream of relatively deep run outs, so we can back flip with little risk of landing square on the noggin. Fast moving shorebreak, on the other hand, gets super shallow, super fast.
Pete, thanks for the heads up. I’ve surfed this break for the last 5 years, #>200 sessions here and you are very right to point out the dangers. I feel i know this break like the back of my hand, but….all too often familiarity breeds arrogance and hence danger.
Although the dynamic nature of the beach, sandbars, rips, tides, winds, swells, other wave users, all factor into my assessment of the risk when i head out, I sometimes don’t think about the playboating aspect and throwing big moves. Maybe because i couldn’t do playboat moves and i just used to surf bottom & top turns, do spins and cutbacks in my surf boat. I remember reading about a world champion surfer who broke his neck at Mundaka in the beach break. It can happen to experts too and I agree, consideration of the shallow beach break should factor into risk assessment for surfing.
A point of consideration is, in general, a wave will start to break when it reaches a water depth of 1.3 times the wave height. If the swell is 5 ft, the wave will break when the mid point of the wave depth is 6.5 ft. Think about 3 foot swell- it will start to break when the depth is just 3.9 ft…Thanks for your valid points, Pete!
Yeah, I know you’ve hit the ocean a lot, but I thought for others reading it would be worthwhile to make a safety-nazi post.
I have playboated in the ocean and it can be very tempting and fun to play in the reform. I.e. the whitewash that recreates after the waves has broken. After all, these boats are designed more for foamy stuff than pure green waves. But I realized that pretty often I would end up trying to get one last end after I had washed up into <2 feet of water. That’s when I decided there where better toys for the ocean than playboats (although however you play, probably the drive to the breach is the most dangerous part).
Thanks for the words Pete and I hope that readers take them into consideration- I’d hate for any accidents to happen out there, whatever watercraft people are paddling.