Walrus Wrapped in Saran Wrap

OK, get something to drink, because this is going to be a long one.

This adventure did not start out as a surf trip, it just happened to go by some of the best surf spots in the world. Hey, what can I say…I’m a surfer. We will travel thousands of miles, carrying lots of gear, and hoping the waves and weather cooperate. So far I have not really scored in the wave department. Fiji was breaking, but the wind killed it every day, and the first two stops in New Zealand were either plagued by wind, a surf contest on the best break, or no swell at all. Now I was heading for Raglan, a wave that is almost magical in its beauty. If you haven’t seen a picture of it yet, Google it and you will see what I mean. The way the swell will wrap into the bay and peel down the line is almost like a machine. I still remember the first picture I ever saw of it. It was on the wall of my friend’s summer beach house around 1980. It is where a small bunch of us grom surfers would hang out all summer and do nothing but surf, skate his ramp and talk about surfing far off perfect spots – Raglan was top on my list because it was a left point break. I never thought I would get to surf it because it was on the other side of the planet, and when would I ever get there?? Well on Tuesday, December 8, 2009 at approximately 5:35 PM I got there, and there were waves!!

Driving into the bay on a very windy road (not unlike the rest of the country), you come around one bend, and there it is. A picture of it is great, but watching it peel into the bay in real time is so much better. The swell was not epic, but I will take overhead glass any day. As much as I wanted to jump right in the water, I had other things to do. We had been on the road all day, and we needed to find a place to park the Campervan and get some real food. There is a great campervan park in Raglan, about five minutes from the break, and walking distance to town. Besides, I had budgeted up to three days here, and the New Zealand surf forecast I had found said the swell was going to peek over the next two days. God I love the internet!! We set up shop and headed into town for a pre-surf dinner feast. I got the biggest steak I could find and washed it down with a bottle of local red wine (Mistake #1). The next morning I tried not to rush everyone, but I felt like a kid on Christmas day – when you know there are presents waiting for you. As we pulled into the parking lot, the surf forecast was coming true – it was a solid 5’ – 8’ and not too much wind. After watching the waves for about five minutes, I realized that this was not a break for Mat or Charlie. They were very bummed, especially Charlie, but the waves broke for so long and there was so much water moving through the bay, that we could get too spread out and that could get bad. What I didn’t realize at the time was that it was stronger than I even thought.

I pulled myself into my wetsuit because even though it’s summer here, the water is still in the mid 60’s. I then realized that either a) I had eaten too much the night before or b) the damn thing had shrunk while in my attic over the last couple of years… I felt as nimble (and svelte) as a Walrus wrapped in Saran Wrap!!! I pulled out my shortboard (Mistake #2) and headed out over the rocks to jump in between sets like everybody else was doing (Mistake #3). Now, I gotta do a Big Kudos Shot Out to my brother in law, Bill “Gear Man” Gassett for lining me up with the new Vibram “Five Fingers” footwear. These things fit your feet like a second skin and have a great protective sole. They saved my butt a couple of times surfing in Fiji when I got pulled across the shallow reef, and they were coming in quite handy as I was gingerly hopping over the slick rocks on my way out. Unfortunately, they did not help me make a good decision on when to jump in. I mistimed the sets and jumped in as a new five wave set was hitting the bay (Mistake #4). Needless to say the swells were so strong that they immediately pulled me all the way into the bay, losing all of the advantage of jumping off the rocks. Mat would later say “Hey Dad, I saw you paddling like crazy but you were going backwards – what’s up with that??” I was so mad, I used all of my strength up to get out and was totally winded by the time I got to the lineup (Mistake #5). At this point, my “Trucker’s Butt” kicked in. I had never really experienced it before but now I know – if you spend all day sitting in a truck, changing gears and braking a thousand times (Did I mention that New Zealand has very windy and hilly roads? It is kinda little West Virginia but the locals have different “funny accents”, better teeth, and more sheep than you could possibly want?? I know that’s wrong, sorry… I digress, back to my trucker’s butt) then your hips get extremely sore and it’s hard to jump up, quickly. This is a very important part of surfing; especially in strong waves ….that will beat you if you take off too late (Mistake #6). For the next two hours, I got my ass kicked every way I could think of and a few I had not tried before. I could not get it right – either I was too far out, too far in, picked the wrong wave, didn’t get up fast enough, or fell on the take off. I had swallowed so much seawater, I felt like the little fat German Boy in Willie Wonka, who gets stuck in the tube because he swells up.. “Will somebody pass the Strudel!!” In the whole session, I got two crappy waves and one I rode on my belly just to get back in. Now the real fun started. I had watched other people climb back out over the rocks instead of paddling all the way into the bay and walking up the boat ramp – seemed easy enough, if you know how to do it. This day, I couldn’t walk a straight line, much less high tail it out of angry surf over slippery, yet sharp rocks. I ended up getting literally dragged over the rocks up onto shore, cutting my hands and feet – Vibram didn’t think that morons like me would drag the top of their feet over the rocks! By the time I had climbed up the hill to the parking lot, I was physically drained and mentally beat, and it wasn’t even lunch yet. Dreams do crash hard.

For the sake of the boys (and my ego)…, we decided to go back to the public beach (i.e. beginnerville), have lunch, and maybe surf the sandbars. Well by the time we got there, the wind was howling, and the waves were totally unrideable. At this point, I made an executive decision. Let’s eat lunch back at the bay, watch the waves, and see if we could ascertain the solution to my earlier dilemma (Correct #1). When we got back, the swell had slacked off with the tide change, and it even seemed OK for the boys. We all headed out by going down the boat ramp and having a nice easy paddle out (Correct #2), and I used my longboard so Charlie could use the shortboard (Correct #3). I hung with the boys on the inside trying to help them get into some small waves, but after about an hour and getting caught by some clean up sets, they had had enough and headed in. I had work to do. I paddled to the outside lineup and got into position. Having the longboard made all the difference. I could paddle faster and catch the wave a lot easier, my “trucker’s butt” was gone, thanks to the handful of Advil Sally gave me, and I had an energy surge from my PBJ sandwich. I got a few nice ones, but I still didn’t feel it. I needed something to shake off the morning’s disaster. Then it hit me – a headstand. As some of you may know, I have this thing about doing headstands while surfing. It’s pretty strange, but it’s so fun and gives me a “Fred Flintstone” kinda feeling. In fact, it was that cartoon where I first saw it – he and Barney won the surf contest at Rock Beach. Yabba Dabba Do! I have done them in Va. Beach, in Costa Rica, and even in Hawaii, but I had never done one in the South Pacific Tasman Sea. The next wave was perfect, about head high and nobody in front of me to hit. I pulled off a nice one and even got a few smiles from the locals on the paddle back out. I don’t know if they were smiling because it looked good, or because they had never seen a Walrus wrapped in Saran Wrap stand on its head. I didn’t care, it felt good and that’s all that mattered. Two waves later and I pulled my gonzo – two separate headstands on the same wave and both were as long as I have ever done one before. The wave broke for about three hundred yards. I was back in the game, and my mojo was humming. Yeah Baby!! Well all that fun had to turn to terror at some point.

I was ready to take my last wave of the day and in rolled a big set. Who I didn’t see was the biggest, grumpiest, local Maori guy in the lineup going for the same wave as me. I don’t know how I didn’t see him, he was about 6’4’ and a thick 250. Well, he took off, I took off, and then I realized I was in his way. I tried to pull out but only managed to dig the nose of my board on the takeoff and went over the falls directly in front of him on a solid 8 foot wave. As I was being pushed to the bottom, I was secretly hoping I would drown, so I wouldn’t have to deal with him on the surface. It was a bad wipeout. I had to literally pull myself back up my leash to get to the surface and there he was staring right at me. I immediately apologized for my actions, but he wasn’t accepting apologies that day. He gave me a good verbal lashing, which I deserved, and I thought it might move to the physical stage. Luckily, he wasn’t in the mood to kick my ass, maybe it would be too easy. After about thirty minutes, I realized my time in the lineup was done for the day, and I crept back to the parking lot hoping not to get pummeled in front of the family. Grumpy Boy was nowhere to be seen, and I thought all was good until Mat walked up and said “Hey Dad, I saw you wipeout in front of that big guy and make him fall. He looked like he was really mad.” I wish I could get Mat to pay that much attention in school!! This story does not end on a bad note though; the next morning was the best.

All surfers know about “Dawn Patrol”. It’s when you get up at the crack of dawn, check the conditions, and try to surf before anybody else gets up. I awoke at 6:00 the next morning, looked out the campervan window at the flag in the field and saw that there was no wind, and knew the tide was coming in. Now normally, you jump out of bed and drive your car to the break without waking the rest of the family. Problem was, I didn’t have a car, I had a mobile shaggin wagon and my family was still sleeping nicely in their beds. Here’s where its gets good. Not to be deterred, I unplugged the Campervan, stored all the loose items, and slowly drove out of the campground on the way to the bay – family still sleeping. Now I know it’s not the safest thing to drive a campervan down the road while your family sleeps, but it was 6:15 in the morning, and there was no one else driving on the roads – except for a Walrus wrapped in Saran Wrap! All was worth it though; got to the parking lot safely, family slept the whole way, and I headed out for an epic Dawn Patrol – never driven my home to the break before. Waves were great, and I got my fair share from the beginning. And then he showed up… Not the grumpy Maori that I almost killed the day before, but the true Big Kahuna of the break. He literally paddled out of the sunrise right at me. I looked up and saw a Maori Warrior on a stand up board that looked like something out of a history book. He was as big as Grumpy Boy, but rock solid, even his ankles looked muscular. The Maori are a pretty impressive culture. They traveled over thousands of miles of ocean to find New Zealand and did it in dug out canoes. I had seen this guy the day before; he took every wave he wanted, even ones that other guys were riding and nobody said a word, and he ripped. The Maori were also known for eating their enemies… you don’t want to piss off THESE locals. I was thinking “ Great, I am going to do something stupid, this guy is going to beat me to death with his paddle, and the news report will be “Maori tribe feasts on foreign Walrus wrapped in Saran Wrap, video at 11:00!!” Well that didn’t happen, and he turned out to be a pleasant fellow. We both got our fair share of waves, and I started wandering what my last wave of this place should be. You never want to leave a good break, but sometimes you have to.

Then in came the set of the morning; me and Maori Warrior were the furthest outside in position to catch it. He started for it, and so I stopped paddling, not wanting to have an apple stuffed in my mouth, or anywhere else for that matter. For some reason, he couldn’t get it and stopped paddling…I was in position, so I turned and stroked as hard as I could. And then the Gods smiled on me.. The guys in the lineup, including Maori Warrior, all started hooting for me. Hooting is done in the line up when a good wave comes through and somebody is in position to get it. It’s kinda like “Hey, great wave bro, go for it…. and don’t F*** it up!” Well I went for it, got it, and didn’t F** it up. It was the best wave I’ve ridden in a long time and probably the longest left I have ever had. It broke all the way into the boat ramp. I kicked out and realized it was time to go. I had been beaten, I had made mistakes, but in the end I had gotten what I had come for – the wave of my life and good vibes from the locals. As I walked up the ramp, Mat met me and said “Hey Dad, I saw your last wave…it was really good.” God I love having kids!!

See "Pray for Surf" for a few pics.