4-Mile Madness

Session: 9
Date: Saturday, 4/16/05
Place: 4-Mile (Santa Cruz)
Time: 5:15 to 7:40
Waves: Varying sizes up to head high, 1 overhead wave that I blew
Stokemeter: 6 for waves, -10 for awful people

This was a crazy session. Mike, Nic, and I went to Santa Cruz and headed straight up to 4-mile. There weren’t many people out, good deal. Waves looked smallish so I was happy that I had brought Nic’s longboard (the Rotella is still wounded; the Poko is too much work). We paddled out, past 3 or 4 shortboarders surfing the inside. Sat outside and started catching lots of waves. The longboard glided into ‘em so smooth. At first I thought I was gonna be pearling but it was actually easy not too. Nic has a nice high performance Vernor 8’6” longboard that is fairly narrow with a swallow tail. It’s very responsive and fairly fast for a longboard, and definitely smooth. So I caught a bunch of waves right off the bat and had fun rides, trying to turn a longboard was great fun – I haven’t done it in so long. I did a few nice ones where I stepped way back and really raised it up and whipped it around as much as I could, good stuff. Longboarding is fun. So we were out further than the shorties inside and we were getting waves but then we paddled out a bit further where one lone surfer was sitting. Nic and Mike paddled past the lone surfer and it turned out to be a girl, wearing a hoodie. Mike went by first, and when Nic followed he saw a look of disgust on her face. Being a nice guy Nic said “hi how’s it goin” but she ignored him. So whatever, they went past her. I then followed a bit behind but didn’t notice the girl really at all. So then being the awesome surfers we are we started catching waves galore. I didn’t think we were doing anything wrong but the girl thought otherwise and was apparently getting pretty fed up with us being in the same ocean as she was. So, I was deeper and further out than she was (not because I just snaked her or anything) and a good lookin’ wave came through so I went for it, but she had other ideas. I took a couple strokes, lined it up, and hopped up and was on my way when she decided she wanted to kill me. So she started paddling RIGHT AT ME, moving from the far shoulder of the wave towards the curl, where I was. Now, keep in mind that until this point I didn’t think we had done anything wrong and I really wasn’t aware of her festering anger, so I thought what the heck surely she’s gonna pull out of the way soon, but no, she kept paddling (no intent of getting up it seemed) straight towards me. I yelled “Hey!” to make sure she knew I was there (although it was impossible she didn’t see me) but she ignored me. At this point she was about 2 feet away from me, a little higher on the wave, pointing her board directly at my chest. I had to actually stick out my hand and HOLD BACK the nose of her board to stop her from spearing me. It was crazy. I have never had anyone so blatantly just try to ride right over me. Anyway I fought her off (literally) and I just pulled right out of the wave. She kept going, but I couldn’t see if she ended up standing or not. So I thought, whoa, what the heck, but I’ve surfed in crowded spots before and have certainly been dropped in on before (although not that bad) so I just more or less shrugged it off, figuring I’d ask her what’s up when she paddled back out. So when she got out again I asked, with what I thought was a friendly tone –

“Hey, did you see me on that last wave?”
She answered, without looking at me and with a dirty look on her face “No.”
“Wow, you should open your eyes then because you tried to ride right over me.”
Her reply, sarcastically - “Ok…yeah, I did see you. Sorry.”
Figuring I’d settle for that, I said “Alright, thanks, that’s all I’m asking for, just try to keep your eyes open, there’s plenty of waves for all of us.”
Her reply; “Why do you have to be out here anyway!”
“What? Because it’s where the waves are.”
“Why! Why are you following me everywhere? There’s waves over there! Go over there!”
“Whaaaat! What are you talking about? You don’t own the ocean.”
“Nobody owns the ocean, but I was here first!”
“But you just said nobody owns the ocean.”
“Yeah, but I was here first, all on my own, and then you guys showed up, and I’m not very good, and it makes me nervous, and I’m surfing here, you guys should go over there,” pointing to the inside smaller waves.
“You just said that nobody owns the ocean, now you’re telling us we can’t surf here? You make no sense.”
“Well I was here first, you keep on following me everywhere!”
“I’m just going where the waves are!!”
“I was here first, you are ruining it.”
“What? You’re ruining it for yourself and for everyone else. Please, just keep your mouth shut.”

Then I paddled away. Then Nic started talking to her. Same effect. What a crazy lady. But whatever, we kept surfing there, and she caught her waves and we caught ours and it didn’t seem to be that big of a deal. So then she went in about an hour later, and it was pretty much just Mike, Nic, and me out surfing the outside and about 6 guys inside surfing shortboards. Then all of a sudden, a guys yelling voice booms out over the water,

“Go back to Los Angeles you asshole!!!”

Everyone looks up. There is a guy standing on top of a large rock inside and to the left, fishing, and now yelling at the top of his lungs.

“GET OUT OF HERE! GO HOME!! YOU SUCK!! YEAH, YOU!! GO BACK TO LOS ANGELES HASSELHOFF!!!”

The surfers all look at each other, surprised by this loud barking dog of a human.

I look at the guy. I see a girl in a wetsuit, with a hoodie, standing beside him, a little to the back.

“YOU! YOU SUCK! YOU ASSHOLE! FUCK YOU! GET OUTTA HERE! THE 1 IS RIGHT THERE! GET ON IT, GET OUTTA HERE YOU SHITHEAD! FUCK YOU!!!!”
I am totally blown away. What the hell? Apparently this girl went in and told her boyfriend or whatever what assholes Mike, me, and Nic are, and now he’s screaming at us as loud as he can.

But what can he do? All he can do is yell. Everyone keeps surfing, keeps catching waves. The people in the water are surprised, I don’t think they’ve encountered this before. I’m a little worried, what if these guys inside are the screamer’s friends? I catch a decent wave, ride it past the inside group, and paddle back out. The guy is still yelling, more or less the same stuff over and over. I ask the group, “Do you know that guy?” and they answer, “No, we have no idea who he is, he’s like a barking dog.” That makes me feel better, at least he doesn’t have allies in the water.

So he keeps it up, calling me (I think he must have been talking to me, I was the only longboarder) “Hasselhoff” and telling me to go back to LA. He didn’t stop yelling for a good solid 15 minutes. Even though we were still catching waves and the surf was decent, it sucked to me. I don’t like being repeatedly yelled at. How could someone be that angry? How could someone teach their girlfriend that kind of idea about how surfing works? It was ridiculous, but he did a good job of making my session worse. Why? I don’t know. But – he finally tired out, seeing it wasn’t doing anything at all, and stopped, and it was quiet again. Just like they knew his negative energy was going away, the waves started to really pick up, and Nic’s longboard is a nice ride, so I was catching lots of good waves and the session was showing promise. By that time we had been out a long while though, and Mike caught one and took it all the way in, and then Nic about 10 minutes later, and I was still out waiting for a good one…but it wasn’t coming and it was getting late so I caught the next one and called it good. I got out of the water, not sure if I was gonna have to fight some raging maniac or not, so I got the leash off and tried to be ready to put the board down and get it outta the way, but it all amounted to nothing. The guy never showed his face, never left his spot a couple hundred yards away (I think he was still over there), and Mike came down fully dressed and boardless and ready to brawl (thanks Mike!), and we all just walked back up to the car. Nic and I changed, loaded up, and we were gone. No slashed tires, no broken windows, no fights on the sand. Ultimately, it was just lots of waves for everyone, unfortunately accompanied by the screaming of one enraged lunatic and a very sadly distorted conception of the ways of the water by one beginning female surfer.