Surfing can be a dangerous sport. Anything can happen in the water, and it’s especially dangerous when conditions get crowded with people who don’t know what they are doing. While Bolinas is a relatively tranquil wave, anytime there’s a swell, hordes of surfers descend on the water, many of them with little wave-riding experience. This past Friday, there was a south swell just starting to show in the water and there were literally 50 surfers all vying for the same, mostly 3 foot wave. Granted, this particular left, which was breaking just north of the groin pole, was above average in quality despite it's small size. The volume of surfers littering the lineup was creating very dicey conditions. The majority of surfers in the water were beginners, and they were easy enough to surf around. However, one inexperienced surfer in particular was wrecking havoc with everyone around her.
She actually hit me, but I got off easy compared to the next guy she hit. This particular young lady was probably in her late teens or early 20’s. You could tell she was a natural athlete, developing a feel for the sport on a soft top board. That was one of the reasons I let her hit me as I surfed past her, I figured her softer board wouldn’t do much damage to me or my board. I ended up with just a bruise. The situation was bizarre, to say the least. I started riding a wave and she was paddling towards the wave to get over it. Instead of paddling away from me as I approached her, or directly over the wave, she paddled straight towards me. I could have straightened out and dodged her, but I didn’t want to miss the rest of the wave. So, I went by her with no room to spare, her board striking the calf on my front leg as I rode past. She didn’t knock me off my board, and I got to enjoy the rest of the wave.
I paddled back out and watched her a bit. She was riding waves, which is always great to see from a beginner. Getting the proper balance, strength, and timing can take many months and even years for some people. It took me a few years to learn how to get the hang of it. However, there are naturals in the sport who have no problem jumping onto waves from the get-go. I sensed she was one of those athletes and probably excelled if every sport she played.
Another wave came and I watched as she dropped in on a surfer. Since she was well ahead of him on the shoulder, she posed no danger to him. I was a little pissed off at her and decided to drop in on her on the same wave because (a) she had hit me, and (b) I was far enough in front of her that she posed no danger to me. Sure enough, I got on the wave and I closed out it out in front of her so she couldn’t catch up to the open face. I continued to ride towards the shore, weaving my way past several beginners who were harmlessly bobbing in the water.
Paddling back out, I was almost to the spot where the waves started to break as I watched the woman paddle into a nice set wave which might have been pushing 4 ft. She popped up on her feet and rode straight across the face towards the open shoulder, just like she knew what she was doing. I was thinking to myself that she looked pretty good, except she was heading right for another surfer who was paddling over the face. Mind you, he wasn’t paddling toward her, as she did to me, he was simply trying to get straight over the wave. My brain was screaming, “Turn, turn!” Meanwhile, she was not turning. Had she known what she was doing she could have done a bottom turn around the other surfer, but she continued going straight across the face and ended up T-boning him with her board! It was a brutal collision.
When they surfaced the other surfer seemed to be okay. He was checking his foot for cuts, and ended up taking the next wave in. I imagined him limping back to his car. I was sure he’d be feeling all of that collision the next day.
Here’s the thing, you should never, ever hit another surfer with your surfboard. It’s extremely dangerous, and that should go without saying. The way her board plowed into the other surfer's mid section it was easy to imagine him suffering broken ribs and a punctured lung. If the board hit him in the head, he could have gotten a concussion and lost consciousness in the water. So many bad things could have happened and they were both lucky the situation wasn’t worse. In the space of 10 minutes this woman hit me, then she demolished the other surfer. She couldn’t have registered a more direct hit if she was trying. It made me wonder (a) how many other surfers she had already hit, and b) how many other surfers she would hit before she learned how to avoid them.
I like surfing at Bolinas. It’s a fun, user friendly wave. There are lots of beginners out there, and most of them stick to the inside where they are no danger to anyone but themselves. Decades ago, my brothers and I flew down to Cabo San Lucas with a few friends to surf a spot called Monuments for a week. We arrived on the first day of a big swell, the waves were 10-12 feet and firing. One of our friends had very little surfing experience and he paddled out without realizing what he was getting into. I’ll never forget him turning to me and saying, “I do not belong out here,” before he paddled back in without catching a wave.
Clearly that woman in the Bolinas line-up didn’t belong out there. She just didn’t know it, and that made her a hazard to everyone in the water. If you go out to Bolinas be on the lookout for an athletic young lady on a blue, soft top, Wavestorm surfboard. You could be next on her ‘hit list’.