Wow, close call! One of the many things that could happen when charging bombs, paralysis by neck whiplash caused by the impact with water. Scary! Hope he is well and getting better. I surfed Ocean Beach once and it was not even half that size and I can tell you, that wave packs a punch.
http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/mike-parsons-injured-in-norcal_90990/
I lived in SF back during the early '70s. OB is the scariest beachbreak I’ve ever ridden (though, granted, I’m not a veteren of Puerto Escondido). Came close to drowning out there a couple of times on smaller than 3XOH days. It’s a break that demands respect, no doubt about it. In addition to the cold water and power, there can be extremely intense currents to deal with. You’d better be in top physical and mental shape before you hit it: it WILL work you.
Ocean Beach it was my first cold water experience, went there around 2009 I think and bought 5/4/3 with gloves, hood and 5 mil booties at Wise. Needless to say, I was “overgunned” wetsuitwise when compared to the locals but hey, Caribbean dude in cold water… Suit kept me toasty but i felt like I was on a space suit. Caught some really good overhead barrels and got my ass kicked a couple of times getting back out. I have never been to Puerto Escondido but a kneeboarder friend of mine, Frencho, he has been to both places and tells me that Ocean Beach is the cold water version of Puerto Escondido…
on big days, common to spend half an hour or more fighting to the outside lineup, taking dozens on the head, some days just won’t make it out…once outside, the rip is relentless, literal drift surfing, come in a half mile from where you launched…surf a lot of winter OB and then head over to HI, you’re pretty much good to go…at size, as physically demanding as anywhere…and at it’s best as good as anywhere…
Same thing happened to Ricky Grigg at Waimea in 1958 or 1959.
For anyone who hasn’t read this account of sufing OB, here’s a lengthy article, mostly about Mark Renneker, but with very good first person narrative about the hazards and rewards of the place:
http://kingofkooks.blogspot.com/2009/12/playing-docs-games-new-yorker-1992.html
Good stuff, lots of old friends, and plenty more not named, especially the small Sloat crew before Renneker showed up.
Kelly's had a crew of legendary surfers, actually better surfers than us down S, because they'd been surfing longer and hung out in a pack, the "power squadron". 5 Valeras, a couple of Conroys, the king Phieffer, a couple of Scobies, crazy Kingmas and Trueloves, some Butteroffs and Madisons, Tamby and Eddie, and a host of other's we all looked up to.
My first gun, a self made 9'7" x 19" x 3.5" thick pintail, made in time for the winter '66 season at Sloat.
I missed that legendary Patch day, when they hit both N and S patches, deemed S too shifty, and actually paddled out at N patch, PeeWee and Doc in EddieTaviasiev's Whaler with twin 90's
The original crew of DOH club was Rod, Rocky, and of course, me, out of Wises at Vicente St.
Names I haven’t heard in a long time.
Yea, the KC boyz had the cove dialed in and locked down. which left plenty of beach for the rest of us.
Pheiffer and his red board.
Krazy Kingma and Truelove…trouble wherever they went…
last time I saw Rod, ran into him while flyfishing a coastal river maybe 20 years ago. Said he didn’t surf much anymore, was getting ready to move 'out to the country".
Tamby’s sister, Tanya, used to live in our house in the 70’s.
Wise on Vicente, in the early years, Bob shaping and selling boards of his own. His rails were always too damn hard…lol
Always thought that Doc article fairly inflated. But then, it was about someone who tends towards self-inflation…
Oh, I was the shaper for Wise who shaped all those flat deck, thick down railed semi guns, lots of diamond tails. Shaped out of his warehouse out on ThirdSt. and Underwood. PeeWee and RalphEhni glassed mostly.
Haven't seen the Recluse since the earliest '80's.
Gary Kingma used to hang at my house at 45th and Santiago, while I was shaping or glassing back in the '70's. Couldn't get rid of him.
MikeWall too. You know, the blonde guy who hangs at Wises now.
Used to date JimSunovia's sister.
Yeah, that Doc thing was a little over the top, but his Med Conventions out at Sunset were great for us poor guys.
Good times, haven't been back in the Sunset now for 24 years, but going down to VFW's, still see lots of guys from the old daze.
remember those boards…and Ralph…and props to Doc for the free clinics, and for saving Bob’s life when his auto-immune disease just about took him out…
I lived down the coast, worked in SF for decades, get off work early afternoon, be at OB in about 10 minutes…surfed it pretty much full time until I quit working in the City in 99’…seemed just about everyone had slowly faded from the scene by the time I did as well…not a wave for elders at any size, too demanding a paddle out …
Lance C
My first board was a 7’0" light blue Wise…Bought it used in '71 for $50…It was a hard board to learn on, and to this day, I doubt that there was ever a worse board to start on…
My first wetsuit I got from Bob too…A Surfer House, with the diagonal zipper…It had that Rubatex smell…
lot’s of good OB shots here:
http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/mid-winter-wonderland-swell-story_91023/
Especially like this quote on slide 24:
Damien Hobgood would not be undergunned. “The 8’4” was perfect, it never felt like it was too big," Damo said. “That wave will kick your butt, I don’t think people understand. We were caught inside for 30 minutes at times – paddling for a half hour straight, watching the best waves of your life go by without you. You’d have to be like, ‘I’m gonna keep paddling – I’m eventually going to get back out there.’”
when a young buck would sometimes fight for 40 mins to make it out…in my 30’s a half hour…the older I got, the more I was drawn to a couple out of the way reefs with channels when the swell was really up…OB is a younger mans game…
From OB to Santa Cruz there are more waves year around then just about any other place in the world…
When it get's really big, the only outs are high tide, usually in the morning around 9:30, and the biggest days at the S end, the out would be down just before cliffs past the second parking lot. Then the long paddle N, to set in front of Sewers or CutlerSt. The surfer's from HMB and Pedro would surf there when it got medium sized, but never when it got big.
Got big is when you need a 9' Brewer just to make it out.
VF big, it's usually the channel right at the ramp, again high tides, angling out to clear the end of the big lefts off the VFW building, now a posh restaurant. How many nights did you locals there party well past 1PM, getting into fights, and crawling home? The McDounga/Kingma/Truelove party was going full time.
Only the few really tough guys would paddle out from the middle of the beach when it got really big. The currents there are the strongest, and you could drift a block in less than 10 minutes during the ebbs. I always thought the biggest surf was between PachecoSt., and CutlerSt., with Doc's section right in the middle.
WAAAY back in the old days, mid '60's, I remember somehow getting out on a huge day at high tide, kept paddling to the TaravalSt. buoy, climbing onto the sides, and sitting there watching the outside bar waves break in 30' of water. I dreamed of catching a wave on the way in, but didn't, as I got caught by an extreme outside sandbar set and washed in at Sloat. Found my board too, lucky me. Amazing how loud tthe bell was, and how slippery with bird poo the sides of the buoy was. My bedroom window looked right at the Taraval buoy, and I lived there watching the surf from 1957 thru 1979, which explains why it was comfortable to sit on the buoy.
Cold water and power = more scary than warm water with power. I’ve surfed puerto a few times and I"ll go back. I’ve surfed O.B. once and in the future I look forward to staying a hundred yards away from that beach at all times.
I've never surfed PuertoEscondido.
Pipeline at least 50 days, a handful at SecondReef.
Sunset that many, more than 15 with RickyGreg sitting a mile outside with his yellow board, me goof and taking off well to the right, almost atop Backyards.
But the WORST wipeouts, the most gruelling and grinding, the ones that take the wind out of you and pummel you no end, the darkest, is....
HALIEWA when it get's big.
I've been caught inside at Avalanche, even at that Cloudbreak maybe Himalaya's (to the right of Revelations/Velzyland about 2/3 mile, waaay outside on the horizon, and neither was close to Haliewa. Even a pummelling inside Jockos, easy 10' with everyone big eyed, not close.
Agree Lostinmex, cold water seems to hit harder
Most embarrasing days was not being able to get out when the swell was NW and 7', maybe 10 seconds, even with offshore winds and higher tides.
I was the weakest paddler ever, so always rode floatier boards. Kinda fun punching thru the shorepound with a floatier board. Toss and swim worked a bunch of days, but still getting caught in the deep zone just past the shorepound killed many of my days, not being able to get out past the inside of the reform to get to the one yard line where a lull would allow me to get out.
Those days, I wished I were a Raymond/Bodkin/BillBurgerson. Fortunately, they were only a handful, but a most memorable handful..."where the heck were YOU, we were waiting for you to get out foreever?"
And once in a blue moon, when GeorgeOrb, GregMoir, and TommyAlegre couldn't get out, I lucked out into a really lonely 3 wave experience, hoping to get caught inside after a wave so I wouldn't have to paddle back out to the lonely lineup.
I still surf with J-ray, Bad Bob, Doc-H, Grant W, Doc Star, Mini Doc, Bodkin, and most of the Bradshaw boys-- DOH guys. This swell was weird because I got out dry hair and never got caught inside even when I rode them to the beach—Big gaps-lulls-Fun!!.I saw them pull some one out at the sea wall must have been Mike P. I ate it on the same peak and it tore my hood half way off my wetsuit. The pro surfers that brought out their smaller boards on Saturday went with their Mavericks boards on Sunday, foam is your friend at the beach.
Still not crowded, got to call a friend on the biggerdays.
Wil it be remembered as maybe, “the best day ever”…???..
The pictures i’ve seen from last week of the corduroy horizon remind me of the day after Thanksgiving 1974 when it was easily 25’ faces, offshore winds and perfect like Pipeline…Cartoonishly perfect, and just huge…They ran the Smirnoff at Waimea the day before, if memory serves me well…
