Surfers vs. Rocks

One time at Pumphouse (the LAST time hopefully) that I got rocked, was about 10 years ago. Spoiler alert - if I had done properre sand reconne I would have never been there in the first place.

It wasn't huge, but it was a well overhead north swell with an east wind on it, so lots of current heading south, and wonky takeoffs. The tide was going out, so my thought process was, based on past experience, if you made the left past the jetty into the inlet, you would get pushed back out with the tide. Then a hard paddle north against the current to the outside peak and repeat a few times till done. The outside left looked chunky and gnarly, but makeable.

If you are not familiar with the break, it's right on the north side of the Lake Worth Inlet, and Reef Road is a bit down on the south side. There is the Port of Palm Beach inside, so there is a shipping channel about 45 to 50 foot deep that runs through the middle of the inlet, which gives the waves some punch when they hit the bar. The sand transfer plant on the north side pumps sand into a pipe that runs under the inlet and then it goes south to Palm Beach, so they don't get their billion dollar homes sucked out to sea due to lack of sand, due to the interruption of sandflow by the jetties of the man made inlet. But I digress.

So lately the Pumphouse for which the break is named from has not been able to keep up with the sandflow from sand projects up in Jupiter, and the mouth, especially inside the north jetty has been getting clogged up with sand. No one out. Took me a while to paddle out and line it up, and a big set came. So when I took off on an outside warbly left, backside, maybe three foot OH on the peak, I made the bottom turn, went for top, and got caught up in the lip and ate in right in front of the jetty. As more set waves are coming in. And I was laughing, because what the fuck am I doing I am truly a moron, and now I have to paddle for all I'm worth and finally make it out a tad, and clear the jetty as the set subsides.

So instead of getting sucked back out the inlet to safety as planned, the wind kinda shifted a bit out of the southeast, and now I'm being pinned at the mouth, not going in, not going out, but getting washed towards the rocks. So I paddle against the current to get inside, to get out of the mouth of the inlet, and the only way is to get close to the jetty, otherwise the current coming out the middle of the inlet is way too strong. But the problem is the closer to the jetty, the more likely to get washed into the rocks.

So after about twenty minutes of fighting my way into the inlet, not nearly far enough to get way from the surge, but at this point nearly spent, I look for a way to get up the rocks.

The surge was 5 foot easy, sucking out fast, then boom! back in against the jetty. So I'm trying to time it, but getting fatigued, so on the next incoming surge I rode it in on my belly, board first and it took the brunt of the impact, and I scrambled up the rocks.

After the adrenaline wore off I saw I sliced my foot good on the barnacles, and paid for it with a nice staph infection. Had to take lots of cipro or some kind of antibiotics that made me belch dirt burps. Almost lost my big toe.

Sunday's score

Barnacle Bill 1. SISurfdogg 0.

 

I got rocked one time. I was surfing a spot on Maui called windmills. I had surfed it maybe 3-4 times in the 2-4 foot range prior to this sesh.

This day was different. There were solid 6 footers coming in. Steep and fast. The lefts were just throwing...almost too fast to even pull in. It was overcast and the swell was pulsing...sets were pushing in very nicely!

I caught 6-8 waves of quality and it was all I wanted. Seemed like the swell was about to get unruly. Perfect offshore though.

Anyway, getting in and out there is tricky, big huge lava rocks at bottom of cliff. I got washed in by a set and could not get over to the shallow section to go in (which is super sketch anyway). I figured I would time the set and get up on the rocks and walk back (which I had done before on smaller days).

I took a surge in and it grew right before my "landing". I knew I was going to get it. At the last minute, I grabbed rail and pulled board out and held it up. the wave slammed me on a big round rock and I slid down to my feet. I scurried up the bank and got the hell out of there. Still got a rail ding and bruised my knee badly. Fun times...

 

This one doesn't really have rocks or a surfer for that matter but it always cracks me up because of the total kookery. This is how I always pictured EMasspicolli's famous "teach a friend to surf" thing (where his buddy almost died or whatever) actually going down.



Personally I stay well clear of rocks and other fixed objects when surfing. At my age nothing good happens there.

 

Ah, well, look at that--that video has been posted on this site at least a million times over the years....and there it is again!!
How novel!! How original!!!
Can you please save it so you can post it again next week?? Pleeeeeaaase???

 

Wilbur was legend