Last night I got a text from a poker buddy, Jonkey, about dawn patrolling the next day. We made arrangements for Tamarack at 6 a.m. While waiting for him, I sat in the car watching the waves. Again, a peanut gallery had formed on the stairs and there were three times as many people there as in the water (only two heads in the water though). The swell looked like it'd dropped off some and I knew it was going to get crowded, so I thought Oceanside might be working again.
We headed north and while driving on the littoral, the waves looked workable. I started getting really pumped up because I was looking forward to surfing waves with shape, but with power). Wisconsin showed a couple of big set lefts with nice shape so I parked and took out my normal 6'1" leaving my "step-up" in the ride.
We walked down to the sand and turned south, due to the more than likely current from the south. We saw another set that looked doable, but big. I started paddling and got caught in a rip that took me out there in less than five minutes.
The repartee went like this: A wave comes which looks barely makeable, I would paddle for it while watching both shoulders hunch up towards the peak in a Neptunian shrug before collapsing. The onshore and rip made it a bit bumpy out there.
On my fourth or fifth repetition of the above, I saw Jonkey lined up exactly outside of me paddling hard for a big frothy one (the froth on the surface cleaned it up a lot). I yelled for him to go and I paddled south to avoid his apparent line of travel. The wave threw out a nice foamy lip which I tried to duckdive but got somewhat caught up and tossed back. I looked back and Jonkey was a ways back but we were able to dodge the next ones that came in.
A couple of bodysurfers came out and they were the only other heads in the water as far as we could see. I think Jonkey caught one and couldn't paddle back out, so it was just me and the bodysurfers. Not too long after I lost track of Jonk, a wave came and it seemed to not shut down right away. I paddled, caught it late, made the drop and watched this decent 6-7' freight train close out. I kicked my board out in front of me and as I dropped to the water, I noticed one of the bodysurfers right in the way of my board, about ten feet away.
Here we are in this long rectangular surf zone with three of us out, and two of us manage to be a danger to one another!
I didn't hit him, tried to paddle out again but the waves, they kept a-comin', so I turned tail and skedaddled.
As we were desuiting these teaser sets came by, like ondulating sirens, beckoning us to spend some time with them. We didn't fall for it a second time...!
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