I surf mostly at a beach break (Ocean Beach, San Francisco). It can get really big (triple-O). There’s not really any channels, and not always a handy rip, so grueling paddles can be more normal than not. I’ve surfed it with everything between a 6/6 to 10/4, and I’ll go out up to solid double-O conditions.

Here’s the key difference between long and short. Duck diving a shortboard gets you under the wave and squirted out the back. With the right wave shape, the lip will help push you through as you take the lip right about on your backside. You can learn to come out paddling.

Duck diving your longboard

With a longboard, your focus isn’t getting under the wave so much as maintaining control of the board as you take the white water pretty much in the face, so that you can resume paddling as fast as possible. Here’s how:

1. paddle as hard as you can into the wave
2. plant the nose right where the white water meets the green
3. grab the board *tightly* on the rails and push your body up. The board isn’t going to under the water so much. You want the water to go through your arms.
4. Get as much of your body off the board and in the air as possible, letting the whitewater go through your arms and under your body. I keep one set of toes on the board and put the other foot in the air for balance and to act as a “rudder.”
5. As soon as the whitewater gets under you, “plant” the tail of the board as deep as you can and roll it down forward. If you’ve ever used a post hole digger, it’s the same sort of motion. The natural bouyancy of the board will tend to want to push you forward as the tail comes back up. You’re going to be too far up the board to paddle without perling, so when you come back down, get repositioned for fast paddling asap.

If the whitewater is stacked more than about 3 foot, you’re better off turtling and rolling back over. This is not that easy either and it’s hard to hold on to the board in bigger water. And you have to get back on the board and figure out which way to paddle afterward.

If the wave face is standing up pretty good, paddle as far and as fast up the face of it as you can, then stick the nose through the lip duck dive style, right before it curls over. You can do this pretty high on the wave and not get sucked over the falls.

In this last case, you want to think “Michael Phelps” and give it that extra effort; paddle as hard as you can all the way up the face and through the lip. If you slack off… you risk going right back over the falls and getting blown back to the beach. With an out-of-control longboard coming down who knows where.

Since I’m on a roll…

Advanced duck diving

DON’T try this crap if you aren’t comfortable in the water and don’t know your break, and don’t have some rapport with your fellow surfers. I’m just putting it out here because it’s what I see in practice at OB. In practice… by old dudes 60+ yo who go out in big conditions on their big boards. I was asking one of them (M____) this winter how he managed it and he told me: “If it’s too gnarly I just swim it out.”

If the surf is big enough to matter (10′-11′+), and the Big Boys got their Big Toys out, watch what they do. I’ve seen a lot of ditching and swimming, and to be fair, when it’s big, you are NOT going to be able to hold on to the board directly, the white water will tear it from you. Conversely, when it’s 8′,9′,10′+ and you’re caught paddling straight into the peak on an outer bar, the safest place for you to be—for everyone involved—is swimming straight down to the bottom as hard as you can. This turns you into a “boat anchor,” keeping you from getting blown back to shore in a giant spin cycle, and believe it or not, helps control your board. It won’t go flopping all over the place when your pulling down as hard as you can from the end of the leash 9 foot under water.

Otherwise, trying to hold your board under big, snarling whitewater is just going to get it ripping uncontrollably out of your hands, may get you a torn shoulder or cut by a fin, knock you unconscious, or hurt someone else in any of a myriad of ways.

However, you can often control the board pretty well by holding where the leash is fastened to the tail. If you’re getting worked bad, this is a good way to get back in without hurting yourself or anyone else. The other surfers will watch you to see whether you’re in trouble, but if you’re holding on and getting washed in, everybody’s cool.

Don’t be a kook

Obviously, do NOT even do any of this with anyone in the general vicinity. Take your lumps back to the beach and try again. This last winter (2008-2009), I was denied at OB probably 4 times, and once it took me 5 tries to get out. I’ve seen people paddle continuously for close to an hour… then get blown back to the beach. It happens. It’s worth it.

If you do ditch your board in small conditions, and when it’s crowded people are going to think you’re lame and they’re going treat you like a kook. I learned all this stuff by paddling out in really crappy conditions when it wasn’t crowded, and finding my own peak ride on.

I just read about this guy who drowned at OB yesterday: Tom Kennedy.

Ok, ok, I’m not really doing much on this blog… I have big plans, but other projects are even bigger. But this story pushed a bungh of my buttons, and I’m in the mood to write, so here it is.

Now, I don’t mean any disrespect to a man I never even heard of, but what the heck were they thinking? I would *never* voluntarily go for a swim at OB without

1. A wetsuit: the water is cold year around. How cold in degrees doesn’t matter. What matters is “cold enough to put you in full-blown hypothermia in 20 minutes.” Without a wetsuit, you’re going to die. Fast.
2. Checking the tide: slack tide, low or high only. If the tide is mid-range and moving, forget it. Current will kill you.
3. checking the swell: A friend of mine invited me out today for a big south swell, 16 second period. I didn’t go, other things (those projects I mentioned) going down. That means it was building yesterday. Here’s the deal: If your in knee-to-waist deep water and the waves are breaking at your eye level, that’s about 3-4 foot faces. That sounds pretty small, huh? It’s not. At the size, a set wave will knock you down. If the tide is mid-range and moving, you might get sucked out. Small waves, big danger.
4. Is there anyone else in the water? Specifically, are the any surfers out there that could help me out if I got in a bind? If there’s no one else out, forget it, it’s way too rough (and people will surf pretty rough conditions at OB, so if you don’t see any surfers out there, you have NO business being in the water).

For what it’s worth, I spent 4 years in USMC Amphibious Reconnaissance, living on Onslow Beach, and I’ve surfed OB since 2002. I’ve also done a significant amount of wet caving in Southern Indiana, where the water is as cold as OB. Our mantra: “Keep moving. Or die.”

I know what I’m talking about.

In this particular case, I read that someone sitting on the bluff watched it all go down. It was a nice day, a nice Sunday. There were probably loads of surfers out there. Had this man rode the rip into the line up, I am sure a couple of surfers would have had him on a board and back on shore in minutes.

The irony of course is that rips are surfers greatest friends at OB. I’ve spent hours, literally hours paddling like a madman at OB to get into the lineup, getting pushed back to the beach over and over and over. It’s incredibly discouraging to paddle for 20 minutes as hard as you can, only to find out… you’re in waist deep water, and it’s breaking at 6 foot over your head!

In fairness to myself, those were pretty big surf days, 10-12 plus.

But I see it all the time. People running around getting into the surf up to waist, chest deep. Or even worse, letting their kids mess around. It’s stupid. The outer bar is breaking at 11 foot, and some dude is letting his little 5-8 yo daughters run in and out of the shore pound in bikini swimsuits.

In short, if you hanker to swim in the ocean in Northern California, you’re pretty much out of luck for a safe place to swim. I do know a couple of places, but I prefer to keep those to myself. You can get a tide table and topo map and find them just as easy as I did. Just about every other place I can think of… you’re taking a real risk going into the water, even with a wetsuit, even with a wetsuit and a surfboard.

Be careful out there!

Update: I have to say more… as I mentioned, I have a fair amount of experience in the water, including the ocean. Even now, or maybe because of this experience, when I’m driving down to the beach on a big day, I feel FEAR in my body. Shortness of breath, tension, focus, a total elevated state of existence. Just even thinking about going into big water gets my blood pressure up. I believe this is normal, and I’m thankful for it. Sometimes, it takes me 30-45 minutes watching the water before I go out. But when I do go out I’m ready.