A while back there was the thread about finding bodies and such in the water and a few mentioned it was not a great situation to be in. For me, that would be a pretty scary situation. I started wondering what scary surfing related situations you’ve all encountered. A thread like this might have already happened, and if so, mods feel free to lock or delete. If not, let’s here some good ones!
Howzit Monkstar,Always thought the rattle snakes on the log in the line up at San O after Ca heavy rains a couple years back seemed like a scary thing.Aloha,Kokua
The largest tiger shark fin I ever saw crusing by just outside the lineup on a muddy water day at Chun’s
2 wave hold down bouncing off a rock reef in 1’ OH Baja. Like stepping on a stingray, that will only happen once!!
Ride on,
Tom
near drowning experience. strong, long range 12+ swell.
Getting caught inside at Point Panic on a surfboard. (I know…it’s for body boarders, but it was my first ever self-made board, so I took it out anyway). I used to be Young, Handsome, and Strong. Now I’m just …and.
The surf was about 4 - 5 ft, and I lost it on the first wave…no leash. The lava cliff was at my back and the waves were in front of me as I got more and more tired, and kept getting washed away from the channel. One of those times when one part of the brain says, “You can’t possibly keep going.” But the survival instinct makes you keep going anyway. Took 45 minutes of constant paddling to get out and around to the channel. I took home rubber arms and a good dose of humility.
Doug
A tie:
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Getting washed into the cave (when there was a cave) at the Point at Steamer Lane on a high tide 2XOH day.
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Watching my good friend’s board tombstoning inside a remote point on a huge day on a way-out-there island in Indo.
this is kinda funny cause there was no danger at all at the time but the fright factor was worthy…
Sitting off the point at Byron bay and being told by a good friend who is 5 metres away “DONT MOVE!!! DONT MOVE!!! LOOK DOWN!!”
A HUGE manta ray was right below me - I could have touched it with my feet but it took me a good second or so to figure out what I was looking at and yes, the first thing that entered my mind when I saw it was;
OMG thats the biggest fkn shark in the world and Im lunch!!!.. oh, wait… its a manta… Im going to go and change my underpants now…
I had one of those weird but funny moments when you kind of freeze and tense up… sometimes let a little noise out… still brings a smile to my face… haha.
Apart from that Ive been getting ready to paddle out at phillip island and watching friends in the surf and seen a massive white pointer (5-7m) about 80m away from them heading in their direction… that was a bit intense… lots of yelling and pointing from the beach…
Also in august 2005 a pod of Orca’s swam around us at Bells beach on my birthday but that felt like a present from my Bro rather than something to be scared about it was amazing and exciting. It was my first birthday after he passed - will never forget it.
rif.
I was sitting on my LB at Leadbetter point in Santa Barbara about 8 years ago. The waves were about 1’, but if you have ever surfed there, then you know that it can be fun. You just stand up and cruise down the point on what appears to be a boat wake behind you. Anyhow… I was sitting around on my board and waiting for a wave. Suddenly, something grabbed my leg and pulled me sideways. I almost fell off of my board. It scared the $hi# out of me, because I was the only one out in the water. I looked around and saw a seal looking at me with a big grin on his face. He had swam in between my legs and had done a sharp turn around my knee. Afterwards I though it was funny, but it was freightening while it was happening.
After a long session at a break about 2km from land, a group of about 6 guys and myself were paddling back in…
I had an old O’Neill sharkskin steamer on, heavy as anything and a short board…paddling last about 50 metres behind the main pack…
The others hit the shore and looked back at me…then started screaming at me…paddle faster!!! paddle faster!!! and pointing behind me…
I looked around and saw a fin heading straight at me, it was only a glimpse, but enough for me to lift my legs up out of the water and turning into a paddlesteamer…
I pretty well paddled up the sand, and everyone was cacking themselves laughing…
Bloody dolphins!!!
They reckoned I had a huge wake behind me while in my panicked state…
my earliest memory of drowning . Being knocked off my foamie , dragged out to sea in a rip , and going under for the third time , before be pulled up by the hair and swum to shore .
I was 10 years old. [Robbo , this happened to me at Harbord.]
More recently ,
putting a twin fin deep into my groin join. The sight I saw when looking down in the shower later was not a good one …
ben
haha, that’s so funny hicksy! laugh out loud funny! i can picture it: you beside yourself on the sand, white as a ghost; your mates rolling around on the sand in stitches.
ahhh, what are friends for…
Scariest moment… watching my brother get pushed up against a cliff while I watched helplessly. Somehow he managed to find a slight gap in the rocks as he made impact and was able to paddle out after a set or two or moderate pounding.
Any one know of Killers just north of Morrow Rock in Central Coast? The one where you have to walk across the field with the cows and the bull.
Well I was out on a pretty good sized day and an elephant seal surfaced in the middle of everyone in the lineup…looking really freaked out…like it was being chased…by a White.
I’ve had a few shark encounters, and got bumped once… but my scariest moment - not just surfing, but of all time - was surfing BIG Hanalei. Titus was calling it 25 feet (Titus calls double-O 4 feet). It had been awhile since I surfed there, and I was on a new board - 8’11" gun. It’s a long paddle out, and the waves don’t look as big from where I jump in - around the pavillion. Getting outside, the waves are macking. Huge, steep, perfect barrels. Did I say Huge? My arms are really tired from paddling out so my plan is to sit way outside and chill for a bit. Tide’s not that high, and you can see coral in the boneyard. I’m sitting outside all safe and cozy when all of a sudden a monster set appears in the distance. I’ll never forget the feeling when I realized I couldn’t make it over, and I wasn’t going to get to the channel. I was dead-center in the impact zone.
Oh by the way Roy… I got an adrenaline burst just then.
I seriously thought I was going to die. I reached down, undid my leash - because I didn’t want to go were I knew my board was, dove for the bottom - which unfortunately wasn’t that far down, and tried to stay limp and calm with my head covered, while I did the ragdoll of my life over shallow reef.
I made it through with just a few nicks from the coral and a new apreciation for life. I figured the worst was out of the way, so I paddled back out and got some of the best waves I’ve ever had.
Since I’m rambling, and since this started with dead bodies, I’ll tell a dead body one… I showed up at the beach one morning - Haggerty’s in PV - and there were a bunch of cops standing around talking to some of the surfers. When I got to them they pointed out towards a dead body floating near some rocks. The cops were hemming and hawing about having to go get it when two surfers offered to get it and bring it back for twenty bucks. The cops took less than five seconds to agree. The guys paddle out… one of them grabs the dead guy’s arm… pulls it… and it comes off in his hands! He drops the arm and the guys come racing back in going “no way… no way”. I went surfing at Rat Beach instead.
The time I was super tired and I came in inside a little pocket beach and the tide was rising - to tired to paddle back out…no, the time I saw a big black shape swim underneath me in the fog…no, the time I was way, way, way outside by myself and I got that serious primal fear I was being evaluated.
What is “OT?”
Made it thru my teens, my twenties, my fourties, without
so much as a twinge. The fifties proved to be quite different.
Two years ago there was talk of two
or three young great whites in the surf zone at one of my
favorite beaches. I thought poo poo, I’m a marine biologist
and I know that young whites eat fish, so whats up with
3-5 ft perfect surf and no one out? I paddled out on
my longboard after the morning breakfast hours (I thought I wasn’t that stupid)
and for some reason was looking in towards shore.
Suddenly something bumped me really hard in the leg
up by my board. I nearly jumped out of my wetsuit, and
and thought that I was dead. I looked down to my leg,
expecting to see it gone at the hip, and there looking back
at me was a newborn dolphin who was trying to nurse
on my wetsuit covered leg!
Apparently he thought I was his mom. After a few seconds
of his attempt to find a nipple on my thigh and after my spincters
had relaxed, he gave me a pissed off look and
slid off my leg and joined his mom who by this time had surfaced
in front of me causing me to wet my wettie again! So much for
surfing uncrowded waves in Cali.
BKB
pau…aloha and mahalo!
3rd Dip. Back when you could still get it alone most of the time. Around 10-12’ faces, but if you know the place, that’s plenty. Island pullout thru a backless one that closed on me, popped up next to my board and started swimming for it. After a couple of strokes I felt myself being pulled backwards. Went over still swimming, looking at my two friends sitting there watching me get pulled back in. That wave wasn’t that bad, but I came up sitting in 6 inches of water with the next wave, well overhead, tripling up and exploding on the damp reef about 10 or 15 feet in front of me. I dove down into the first little explosion of water out in front of where the lip was landing and somehow had just enough water/foam to sqeeze into to get most of the power to go over me, just long enough so that when I did get picked up and flipped there was a little water to cushion my tumbling on the rocks. Came up way, way inside, scraped and bruised up, but fine, really. Had enough of a lull to make it right back out. My friend said I was pretty white when I got back outside. That was the best I’ve ever seen that place, and I’ve surfed it plenty.
Hi Ben, just to the south is Manly Beach and I was sitting with a mate 6 feet away in the summer line up, just lurking,and talking, as you do… and then there was this all-fuckin-mighty eruption between us , the sea flew up between us, and we both saw teeth, grey, and a big tail, all in .5 second .
And then calm… like it never happened, just a few bubbles…and 2 open mouths…
The best we could explain was that a shark saw us , came for us and at the last second changed his mind and turned around. We estimate it was 8 foot based on the water displaced.
We stayed, but when we paddled in we spoke to the surf school operator and he said that he knew there were sharks around but not to spread it around because it might affect his business… also Harbord is known as a family beach but its deadly, even in small surf.
Quote:
my earliest memory of drowning . Being knocked off my foamie , dragged out to sea in a rip , and going under for the third time , before be pulled up by the hair and swum to shore .
I was 10 years old. [Robbo , this happened to me at Harbord.]
More recently ,
putting a twin fin deep into my groin join. The sight I saw when looking down in the shower later was not a good one …
ben