Well, I think that shot was taken in one of the lulls. Trust me, sailing on what folks are now calling “Big Thursday†was many things, but “relaxing†was not one of them.
I checked the pager right after I got out of a meeting at 1  clocking 25 at Swell, so I canceled everything else and headed out. The needle just kept ticking upwards – averaging 27, 29, 32, 35  as I raced down 84 east.
The first thing I noticed pulling into the lot was that there were more people on the bluff than on the water. By the time I hit the rigging area, there were limp bodies everywhere and folks were feverishly lacing up shit like 2.9s. I saw one guy with his wife’s 2.2 and bitching because they didn’t have anything smaller. I was looking at the 3.7 in my hands and wondering just how tragic a mistake I was about to make when Bob Larson  one of the best guys on the water any day  staggered up from the launch wearing a 1,000-yard stare and carrying a rarely used 3.0.
“What’s the call,†I asked gamely.
He looked right through me and said, “It’s. F&$king. Mental.â€ÂÂ
No bueno. I ran back to the truck and fished out Lee’s 3.3. It was the smallest thing we had, about the size of a snot rag. I also grabbed her small stick  69 liters.
I’m 190, so you do the math.
When I hit the launch, it was averaging 38, but the gusts were bone rattlers. The swell was logo-high-plus, with long streamers coming off the tops. Guys were disappearing inside them out in the channel where it gets the biggest. One guy actually paddled out on a surfboard at the Hatch.
Wading out, I suddenly felt very alone. But what the f%$$k – I was here, I was rigged - both erasing any doubt anyone may have harbored that I was getting any smarter - so I launched.
Tail walking was the order of the day. I was doing everything just to keep the rig on the water, but the ramps were so steep that you either wound up going sub-orbital or getting tossed into unintentional back loop because so much air got under the board. I saw a buddy hit the eject button about 25 feet off the deck  he was in a neck brace yesterday.
The first time I cleared the sail to waterstart it sounded like a snapping piece of paper in a gale. I made one jibe on the outside and felt like I deserved a medal. Turning down a face created that warm n’ fuzzy feeling that suicide bombers must get just before the hit the trigger. It was full-on banjo-eyed, white-knuckle central.
I lasted 35 minutes. By then the wind had shifted North and I actually got backwinded by an errant gust going full bore. It felt like getting bitch slapped by God. I lost one jump that generated wreckage on par with an outtake from The Matrix  my rig just snapping end over end down the river.
When I came ashore, there was no blood in any of my fingers  they were colorless, stiff, and cold. My vision was a little blurry, like my brain had somehow been rattled off its moorings inside my skull. As I stumbled back into the rigging pit, someone looked me over and asked, “What happened – just remember that you forgot to pay that last life insurance bill?â€ÂÂ
Yeah, something like that.
tb
