P.R. November 2005

Page 9 - Lisa’s Gone

After Lisa left, the waves were up and down in the thigh to shoulder and sometimes above range, but the wind seemed always to be a problem, excepting the first day after she departed when Domes was just flawless offshore perfection in the thigh to waist range, with shoulder high occasionals. The exception to that was Thanksgiving day and the day after. But with her gone, it just wasn’t the same. I miss her.

Thanksgiving day popped up overhead, but it was all warbly despite near calm winds, and I didn’t bother. Claudie and Maryanne finally showed up and they both went out and tried to get me to go out, but I declined. Dome’s had some fairly respectable size, and the wind was favorable, but there was a lot of west in the swell and it was a mess, looking like gonzo warped-out beachbreak instead of a proper surfspot. A few intrepid spongers were on it, but everybody else was over at Marias.

And I DO MEAN EVERYBODY. Thanksgiving day crowds are upon it in full force and effect. While Claudie and Marianne were out in the morning, I did a head count and while working down from the point I had reached fifty, with another god knows how many more strung all along with no gaps, all the way to Dogman’s (which was also packed), and quite counting at that point. Holy shit! The whole world’s here! Lisa would have HATED it. Hell, I wasn’t liking it much either, although in truth it was the wave quality, or lack thereof to be precise, that was keeping me out of the water.

The swell had the most west in it I’ve seen. With the island of Hispaniola sitting where it’s sitting, it’s hard to imagine how the swell could have been as west as it was. But it was. And the funny angle was keeping the middle peak at Maria’s from sorting itself out from the rest of the break, and was also making it much larger down toward and past Dogman’s. Lisa would have hated that, too. No size decrease over that way. And not only that, it wasn’t really peaking up much either. Long walls, closing out for the most part. Feh.

The next day though, it redeemed itself nicely. Except for the crowd, of course. Swell dropped to about head high to a little overhead, and it was just ruler edged lines. Gray. Smooth with light straightaway offshores. Lack of definition on the middle peak was causing it to break here, there, and everywhere along the point, with sets coming in more or less wherever they wanted to and if you were under the set, then you got the wave. Unless the crowd got to it first instead.

Claudie and Maryanne were out, once again, and I hung around till about 9:30am hoping the dawn patrol crew would decide to come in, but they didn’t, and went out anyhow, crowd bedamned.

Pooted around here and there, snagging some really fun ones and not really having too much problem with the people, although my wave count was fairly low.

After a while, I decided to move over to the head of the point, just for shits and giggles.

Serious knot of people over there, and the competition for waves was stiff. Rob was there, sitting way outside on his big three stringer bomb, and I just sort of insinuated myself into the mob and began sitting it out, waiting for something to maybe fall my way.

Ten or fifteen minutes go by and nothing at all has happened, except for me seeing a LOT of waves being ridden by other people. And then, way the HELL outside, I get a quick glimpse of what looked to be a substantial wave. Ok then, I’ve got nothing to lose, so I make a quick move out and away from the rock, and sit tight, past everybody. One guy was out there and made a laughing mention of it, and I agreed that it was probably delusional. But I sat tight, and didn’t move even when my interlocutor decided to shrug back to the main event inside. Even Rob didn’t move, but instead just kept on sitting where he was, almost as far out as I was and down point a bit.

And then, all of a sudden, the damn thing is looming outside of all of us, and I’m scratching like hell out and away from the rock to attempt to meet it. And by golly I did. I’m looking over my right shoulder and my disbelieving eyes are informing me that EVERYBODY over that way is HOPELESSLY inside and left of the peak, and I’m slotted under the motherfucker PERFECTLY.

Wahoo!

Paddle like hell right up under it, and whip the 9-8 around and stroke into it like it had my name stenciled on it or something. Nobody inside or up point of me had a prayer, and they were all preparing to deal with some whitewater. The fucker was probably three feet over my head, who knows, maybe even bigger? Dunno. But I just stroked right into it and it was game on! Rob was out on the shoulder, a shade inside of me, and had a pained look on his face as he saw that I no doubt about it had full possession, and he very graciously allowed me to go, alone.

Fired down and across, just beating it out and around the soup, and ran with it down the line almost to the middle peak where it dropped a section on me that I tried to make anyway, and got stuffed in the attempt.

But it was a Very Nice wave, and there wasn’t one behind it, so I didn’t even have to eat soup paddling back out. And until it finally dropped that section, it was a very nice ride with a face and wall that allowed for Big Fun.

Shouldda went in after that, cause nothing remotely resembling ever came in again the whole time I was out. But I caught more, anyway, although not on the head of the point, but back down in the middle of things instead.

Tra la la.

Rob had a couple of his buddies from New Yawk come and stay with him, and they’re musicians, just like Rob is. In fact, they’re the members of The Supertones, a surf music band that Rob has been bragging on.

One of the guys was named Simon, and he was a real piece of work. Gnarled up small guy with a bald head. Really had this LOOK going. Apparently, he’s a session guy and has played on some pretty serious albums with some pretty serious top rank musicians. But right now, he’s just another gringo in Puerto Rico and he’s doing a little surfing, which he only picked up just about four or five years ago.

I take an instant liking to him, and he persuades me to go surfing on several of the windy days at Maria’s that I would never have bothered with on my own, and I wound up having a blast anyway.

He also persuaded me to go back out this same day, over on the Parking Lot’s side. The wind had actually picked up from the south, and Maria’s was weirdly choppy. One quick check convinced us that we were going to be surfing somewhere else that afternoon.

A drive to Parking Lot’s showed its usual more size than Maria’s, and it was quite glassy, with just a small bump on it. There was enough west in the swell to give the waves a tilt that favored the lefts over there, and right in front of the parking lot there was a pretty nice left with a dozen or so guys spread out riding.

What the hell, why not?

So me and Simon go surfing.

I’d spotted a couple of outside sets that nobody was really setting up for, so I did my usual deal and paddled out past everybody and just kinda sat around till something showed.

Caught a few, and also got into a conversation with a large mustachioed Puerto Rican guy on a sponge, and we chit chatted for quite a while between outside sets, of which he was the only other guy riding.

Nice guy. We talked about kids, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and other things. He’s working in San Juan, but doesn’t like the city and wants to move back to Rincon.

We traded a few waves and on one, when I was outside of everybody with them all looking and hollering as I was taking off, I just flubbed up horribly and went ass over tea cups off the left rail. Really don’t know what went wrong, but it was VERY wrong. Just fucked the wave all up.

My big friend and a few of his sponger buddies inside were just as encouraging as possible. One said it looked like my foot slipped on a slick spot in the wax job, another said he thought the cord got wrapped around my foot, and all of them tried to tell me what they thought happened, in ways that sought to ascribe the failure to something other than simple incompetence.

I was laughing like a fool and telling all of them that it was plainly and simply operator error and the fuckup belonged directly to me and there was no “reason” for it at all, I just fucked up.

We all had a good laugh about it as I paddled back out past all of them with a foolish smile on my face.

Once again, the people in Puerto Rico have demonstrated their gracious attitude and exceptionally helpful ways. I just can’t IMAGINE how people can get crossways with the locals down here, but whatever it is they’re doing, it must be pretty awful, which, now that I think about most of the folks I deal with in the water every day back home, sounds just about par for the course. I feel very at home with this crew.

Later on, getting ready to leave, me and Simon are there in the parking lot and a guy backs over my board with his car and it makes a LOUD HORRIBLE SOUND and everybody in the parking lot immediately looks over at me and the board, pinned between the guy’s back tire and the rear bumper.

I go over and extract it, and incredibly, there’s not a scratch on it.

Apparently the tire hit the rail near the tail, and the height of the fin caused the board to kick backwards instead of being rolled over by the tire. The fin kicking sideways across the asphalt is what made the Horrible Sound.

The guy was an obvious gringo and came out of his car and had a terrible fearful expression on his face and started in on apologizing for it, not quite realizing that nothing had actually happened. I finally convinced him it was fine, and high-fived him on out of there.

We had a good laugh over it with the crew in front of the little mini-surfshop there and they said that the same guy had buckled his board earlier, and seemed to be having a Bad Day.

No harm, no foul, and me and Simon laughed our way back to Rob’s.

The next day, I took a closer look at the nine eight, and there on the left rail, back near the tail, is a little pressure ding with a weency little line of black tire rubber in it. So apparently yesterday’s little event with the car did SOMEthing, but not much. Not much at all. I put clear tape over it, and it’s sealed up nice and you can still see the black tire rubber on it. Neato.