Worst paddle out

I've lived on the east coast, hawaii, and cali, and I think the worst consistently difficult paddle out for "regular guy" surfers like myself is Ocean Beach SF. It is such a pain that most of the reports include a paddle-out time ("took me 45 min to get out").

 

eh, I've made plenty of walks of shame, no biggie on the east coast breaks. It's nice actually, the ocean self regulates here. If you can make it out, go for it. No channel to stumble out into and then get raped on a wave you shouldn't be surfing in the first place. I did paddle out on the wrong side of a pier once, realized this about 1/2 way out when the first set came though. That was interesting. Broke the board and shredded the wetsuit on the barnacles

 

ocean beach, ca sf hardest paddle out ive had http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KvBx5EJEno

 

i've surfed blacks when it was around head high, but never bigger. i can imagine surfing there during a big swell is a recipe for some rough beatings. one of the worst paddle outs i've experienced happened a few years ago at overhead marias in pr, ona board that was way too short on a day with a ridiculous current. i ended up finally making it out there and caught a wave at dogmans, broke my leash duck diving a clean up set on the way back out and ended up swimming/getting pummeled all the way to the inside where my board was floating. A friend of mine also lost his board to the clean up set and had to swim in with me. He definitely helped keep me from panicking on the swim in, as I had never experienced anything that heavy before. Im pretty sure he ended up paddling back out, but after the initial paddle out and the subsuquent swim in, I was done. Besides this experience,any winter swell at home (NY) has the potential to leave you stuck on the inside, paddling till you're exhausted, without having caught a wave.

 

Hey Gaff that link's not connecting, not sure if it's just my computer though. Roughest paddle out for me was at a R.I. beachie during a 'cane swell in '03, the storm before Isabel. Oddly enough, one of the easier paddle outs I've had was on the day I rode the biggest wave of my life, the Luis swell in '95, at an undislosed point. Made the decision to paddle up the point after getting my ass handed to me on the sand bar, had no clue how big it was till I actually got out there.

 

My toughest paddle out/most memorable, would have to be down in Rodanthe a few years back. There was a huge south swell, with a good 8 mph south to north current. I didn't want to paddle out, but I let my two crazy friends talk me into it. We paddle out just north of the pier and by the time I made it out, I was just passing S Turns (around 2 miles down the beach). The waves were just freight training rights, a couple feet overhead and more rectangles than round, just throwing out thiiiick barrels. I kept missing waves, half because they were impossible, half because I couldn't bring my self to jump over the ledge. Finally I realized that I couldn't see Rodanthe anymore and that I was going to have to make it to shore at some point. I paddle as far in as a I could and caught a medium sized one, and it was by far the fastest wave I've ever caught.

I was so stoked I paddled out for one more and in the process, took the heaviest lip to the head during a duckdive that I saw stars. My head almost got smashed into my board and I was immediately sucked back over the falls upside down and throughly thrashed, but I didn't let go of my board, even though it was way oversized for me/conditions (6'2 Santa Cruz fish, I only weighed in around 145).

Anyways, I finally made it to hwy 12 and started the 5 mile walk back to Rodanthe with my thumb out, trying to hitch a ride. I must have seen 20 empty pickup trucks drive by (fishermen hate surfers I guess) before a chick in a tacoma with only room on the tailgate to sit, gave me a ride back to town. It took me a couple nervous hours to find my other to buddies by driving down HWY 12 and running across the dunes looking for them up and down the beach.

 

These:

Ocean Beach--It just gets insane
Moss Landing---Can be almost as bad as O beach
Puerto---Can really be rough when it gets well overhead but then it just lets you out sometimes

Any descent sized beach break when the h20 is low 50s or below----ugh

Strictly for length of paddle, Santa Catalina is a journey there and back--like half an hour

I was also on a boat trip to a no name break breaking half a mile off land in Nica one time and a dude and I drifted down the break a bit and it was IMPOSSIBLE to get back out after catching a couple waves --- and of course we had to to get to the boat so we had to get back out. I managed to punch through after about 10 minutes but the other guy was ducking diving waves for 45 minutes about 15 feet away from me...it was crzy

 

DOH plus at Hermosa. It was brutal. Nobody was out except a couple of guys towing. My friends and i were going out nor matter what being that we just got off the plane and were so stoked to surf...
After 45 min of duckdiving I made it out. Took 1 wave, got the barrel of my life along with 2 of the best turns. I should have kicked out after the barrel but I was too stoked. A 2 story wall of water crashed on my head and I got thrashed for what I felt was 2 minutes, probably closer to 20 sec.. But, when I tell people it's 2 minutes. The black sand made it so dark.
I washed up in to water I can stand in, got my **** together and walked outto applause on the beach. I thought they saw my barrel and I felt like Slater. Then I pulled my leash to grab my board and realized why they were clapping. My shorts were on the other end of my leash. Thank god it didn't snap or my walk up the beach a lot more embarressing.

 

when it gets big on north costa beachies its about a 1/2 mile paddle out. went at it for a half hour just to have a clean up set come through and break my leash. lucky my buddy was headed back out when it happened to assist. still pretty scary

great stories/thread

 

Hurricane Bill in Buxton, NC.

 

another...

Like two weeks ago I decided to go surf first street (...VB). Almost got run over by a pontoon boat and two jet ski's. It was 2-3ft.

 

Agree with the Ocean Beach/Moss Landing guys. It gets crazy out there!

My scariest *moments* were all in Hawaii paddle-outs, but more because of huge freak sets than the setup's themselves. I usually found the paddle-outs to be quite comfortable, even on the big days, so long as I scouted the terrain before getting in the water. That was actually a curse in some ways, because it was easy to get in WAY over my head at a time when my false confidence often surpassed the skillz.

All in all, however, it's still those Jan-March days in good ole MD, when the waves are barely overhead but the water frigid, the air even colder, and the winds howling. I get so cold duck-diving that I literally feel my sanity leaving the body. Sometimes I'll start screaming profanity because it's just so damn agonizingly cold and I don't know what else to do about it...probably really funny for those watching, but whatever.

 

Try tipping it over on it's side and driving the rail down and under with like a scooping motion. That gets the nose down... then use your foot to sink the tail as best you can. This technique works best when approaching the oncoming wave at an angle.

 

This is a fun thread, I've never had the pleasure of an Ocean Beach thrashing but as a long boarder, have had a few days where you can't believe how far and long you have to paddle. I can recall several days at Boca Barranca where if you don't find the right gap, you are thrashing through some very push long-period swell. The bigger it is the farther out it breaks, so you're talking about quite the ridiculous paddle. Probably 1,000 paddle strokes on a longboard to get outside. It is a point break so you have the alternative of paddling around the break, but that can be 1/2 mile.
For me, my most memorable paddle out was an October day at Assateague, MD. It was a hurricane swell and I stood on the beach with a couple of buddies intimidated by the walls of whitewater pushing across the trough and then re-forming to create some incredible shore pound. After watching for a while we decided to suit up and head out. I was a relative newby, had been surfing a lot that year, but not for a long time. I saw what I thought was a gap and started to head out and suddenly I went from being in thigh deep water to being on dry sand and looked up to a huge shorebreak wave that detonated on top of me flinging me and my board up onto the beach.
I've always been a bit hard-headed (ask my wife) so I picked up my board and chose another gap and started paddling. When the first wall of whitewater hit me, I couldn't believe the power in the water and how it thrashed my body as I tried to fight through it. I kept digging hard to get outside as my heart pounded. I was almost completely out of gas and almost outside, when my buddy Hank looks over and yells that a cleanup set was coming. I dug deep and put my chin down and gave it everything I had left to scratch for the horizon. I made the first two waves of the set but the third wave loomed large and looked like I was a goner. I was totally spent yet found a way to keep paddling and just as I was cresting the top I felt as if my leash was tugging me backwards. With two last strokes I broke loose from the grasp and was outside.
I was completely exhausted and wound up sitting outside for an hour before I had the gumption to try catching some waves. I wound up getting some nice rides before I broke my board and had to swim the two pieces in. My buddy Hank graciously offered to loan me a board, but I declined and went birding the rest of the afternoon.

 

Duppies, Barbados @ 10+ feet. The currents are weird out there even when its smaller, this was insane with waves breaking through the channel and a constant current trying to draw you back into the cliffs of death. I even got knocked back on my ass in the keyhole trying to punch through the 6' Waimea shorebreak-esque craziness.

If you've seen it that big out there, you know what I'm talking about.

 

Big Nor'easter swells in New England are definitely brutal for the cold alone, but the worst I've taken was definitely at Punta de Lobos, Chile - double overhead+ with strong onshore flow keeping you pinned into the rocks by the El Mirador section. Spent 30 minutes plus duckdiving waves while essentially stationary, less than 20 feet off the rocks, before finally getting a window and sneaking through a 3-foot wide gap between rocks and getting into the open ocean on the inside.

 

I have to ask, how were those waves at Punta de Lobos? Ever since seeing Jerry and Jack cruise those lefts in "A Broke Down Melody", I've been wanting to surf that place. I actually had a trip planned a few years ago and then opted for Hawaii at the last minute due to passport issues. Anyhow, I just don't know any east coaster's who have been there and am curious as to what you thought about the place. Cheers.

 

pascuales mexico on a big day. that wave is scary as hell and jacks up out of the middle of nowhere. snapped 3 boards in one day.
locally i would say a reef around here which detached my bicept on the paddle out walking on rocks and the board got ripped out of my hand i tried to hold on to it which cranked my arm back and now my bicept looks like i do curls all day (it turned into a positive)