Shallow Spots

Salsa Brava CR.

 

to that spot, i would simply say, "no thank you" & stay in the boat. shallowest spot i've surfed w/ actual consequences was a spot called p-land in panama...dry suck rock at the take off, lots of rocks lurking just below the surface on the inside.

 

Blew the take off and bounced off the jetty in SL NJ once... full suit saved my a$$.

 

I was surfing quepos on the other side of that point in CR, I was watched a guy come out of the water at Salsa Brava and it looked like his arm went through a meat grinder.

 

playa negra at low tide

 

I've surfed P-land too! On 11 foot, it'll take you all the way from P1 to P2 (I think I have them in the right order) to Leftovers, the longest ride I've ever had on a surfboard. Literally had to kick out midway through Leftovers because my thighs hurt so bad! Anyhow on day two I decided to log there and my fin actually hit one of the two big rocks that expose there and chucked me right over the handlebars. One of the crew that goes with us was from Fort Myers and was way out of his league and actually dragged inside at P-land over that whole reef and it's like a foot deep and really sharp. We almost had to leave him overnight on Silva Island because he was afraid to paddle back out and couldn't find a channel. He eventually made it back out; we had to suture his foot shut that night with about 30 stitches and get him pretty rummed up. Sketchy spot at times. You definitely have to steer around some big rocks when it's sucking out.

 

oh man! that's gnarly! i "found" a few of those rocks my first trip there after getting worked & caught inside. nothing like your friend, but gnarly enough to spook me away from the spot for the rest of the trip. definitely left my share of flesh on rocks. claimed my step up on my second trip, too.

 

I can't find a link to the photo, but there is a pic of a Tasmanian slab on Surfline's most recent "social absorption" article. Go check it out.... looks heavyheavyheavy!

 

shallowest spot ive surfed was a place called Icelands Rights/Suicides in the Mentawais. Second day there and we were "docked" in a cove for the night waiting for morning. Got up and moving to find this 8' right breaking around this point...... the longest most perfect right ive ever seen in my life.

however looks can be deceiving. jumped off the boat and paddled out to find this "epic" right. two problems- once you actually caught a wave, you realized it was pretty much unsurfable cuz the wave broke so fast down the line, there was no way you could keep up...maybe with a ski. second problem, once you realized you couldnt keep up with the wave you had to straighten out and ended up on dry reef. then you had the pleasure of trying to duck dive 8' sets off of dry reef. real fun.

 

little hawaii in avellanas CR at low tide

Surfed chaterra (pr pipeline), crashboats

I've surfed all over the world but to this day the worst shallow water wipeout was in rodanthe during a tropical storm. I take off on a wave, the bottom drops out, I pile drive into about a foot of water. Broken board, broken nose, dislocated shoulder, sprained wrist, extremely hurt feelings and pride.

 

fort point, sf; middles, pr; sands in sb can get iffy at times. middles is sketch sometimes though. literally the water "feet" in front of you sucked dry with riding the left. hate reef bouncing. taking the duct tape off at the end of the trip is even worse! thats for sure.

 

Lagido and some surrounding breaks in Portugal. Nothing like being slammed and stuck inside on a lower tide with millions of sea urchins. I'd take a coral reef slam over infective urchine needles on a hard rock.

 

Another good one is Piniones outside san juan in then "haitian town" got out at low tide had one go right through my left big toe, lost the nail. good thing the locals came up and had me laughing. told me to piss on ,my toes and pull slowly and sure enough it came out with limited pain.

 

Most of the waves I surf on the east coast are very shallow... However they are sand, so it is a bit different.
When you surf shallow reef, you can get pulled into the reef easier then getting pulled into the sand, because generally the reef isn't completely solid and has a porous nature that lets water flow through it, and can suck you to the bottom along with it. And, of course reef hurts a lot more.

Sand bottom breaks none the less, can give you a beat down. My buddy dislocated his clavicle on the last big swell we had.

 

Puerto Rico definitely has some gnarly reef breaks.

 

Done that a few times haha.

 

the Salsa Brava I'm referring to is in Puerto Viejo on the Caribe side

 

Lacerations--Nusa Lembongan, Indo
Shallow isnt as important as what's on the bottom. Getting bounced off sand vs live branch and fire coral is no comparison, and Ive never seen anything as shallow and alive as Lembongan.

 

Shallowest spot would be this spot in Kona called Robs Reef. About 1 out of every 5 waves would suck dry on the takeoff. This Australian guy was out there with us and found it hilarious when you had to pull back from the wave to avoid hitting dry reef. He would just give you this **** eating grin and say "not much water under that one huh mate?"

Worst beating from hitting the bottom though was at Pendleton during Leslie. It was about a head high barrel that was wider than it was tall. Was too deep in the barrel and got slammed into what felt like 6 inches of water. I thought I broke my hip, my side was bleeding, wind knocked out of me, and probably had a bit of a concussion. Super pissed I didn't make that wave. That thing was HOLLOW!