Nuttin' but Surfin'

Day 4 – Nuttin’ but surfin’

So after a restful sleep in the middle of Beverly Beach State Park (http://www.oregonstateparks.org/index.cfm?do=parkPage.dsp_parkPage&parkId=164) amidst a thick maze of giant mossy trees, we started our next day of fun. In no real hurry to get anywhere or be anywhere, we made the transition from sleep to awake mode with a snail pace. Other than a feeling of mental clarity, there was not much of a shift between the modes. We are on vacation! There is no room for stress or rush on vacation, just relaxation and fun J But we were hungry and we were well equipped to provide ourselves with a nice big breakfast to kick off the day. This is Shannon’s forte, not to say I cannot cook a mean breakfast, because believe you me, I sure can. Cooking brings Shannon great pleasure and gives her a chance to exercise her culinary imagination, which means an awesome breakfast for me! The breakfast consisted of the same amazing fire-cooked bacon, eggs and hash browns as the day before. It was delicious then and was, once again, delicious now. Very enjoyable! For those of you reading this blog that might be feeling like I am constantly being spoiled by my wife, you are right. However, I do pull my weight, in this situation I earned my meal by creating the means to cook. I am the one in charge of the fire creation. I do rely on a number of hacks to create said fire, but I do not believe that takes away from its value.

So with breakfast being a thing of the past, and our breakfast beer drank down to the dredges, it was time to pack up and head for the beach. Time to get our surf on! We decided to head to another location to do our surfing, on this day we were off to The Devil’s Punchbowl (http://www.oregonstateparks.org/index.cfm?do=parkPage.dsp_parkPage&parkId=156).

It was not difficult to find our destination. It was less than a mile up the road from our campsite with well marked signs to lead us in the right direction. Finding the right place to surf was not as easy. We drove right up to the look-out point and took in an eyeful of mind altering scenery. The Oregon Coast is unlike any other coastline that I have visited. This is not to say that it dramatically different in any obvious way; it just has a distinct personality. I would compare it to a pair of fraternal twins. They may look similar to each other, but you can tell they are not identical twins. What really makes them stand apart, though, is their personality. When you move past the outer shell to get a better understanding of who they are individually, that is when you become aware of the striking differences. I do not think this is unique only to the Oregon Coast; I use it only as the immediate tangible example since this blog is about my trip to Oregon J

The view was spectacular; the weather was cold....and really windy. The weather did not take away from the beauty of the sights to be seen, but it did move my mind to think of how it would play out with the surfing. It was not a negative feeling like, “oh man, this is going to suck!” it was more like “well I was looking for an adventure...let us see how this will go down.” The look-out point was located on a small peninsula. While looking west, towards the water, straight ahead of us was the name sake of the park, the infamous Devil’s Punchbowl. I have a few pictures that I will include in this post, but I would encourage you to Google search the images of professional photographers who have had the opportunity to get up close and personal, some truly amazing pictures. The Punchbowl is a rock feature that has been created by the weathering forces of the water and wind to create a natural rock arch that leads in to a lagoon-like pool surrounded by towering rock walls. Simplistically, it looks like a rock tunnel leading into a giant rock punch bowl....hence the name J definitely worth experiencing.

Off to the right was a rocky cove and beach that, due to its proximity to the Punchbowl, creates a landscape capable of producing large, aggressive looking waves. The type of feature that is impressive and awe-inspiring from a distance, but not an environment that leaves many non-expert surfers salivating for a chance to ride the waves. Being less than an expert surfer myself, I was aware that I was holding my breath while deep in thought about what this surfing day was going to include. My next thought was that we should look at what was happening on the left side of the Punchbowl, you know just to make sure the waves were not more menacing on the other side. Obviously, the more menacing the better for me lol.

The right side was similarly gorgeous, in a more calm and peaceful way. The waves were significantly smaller, neater and generally more appealing to me. I will take this chance to explain that it is not the size of the waves that make me question my choice to surf. It is specifically the rocks that bring up red flags in my mind. I am a tough guy. Getting utterly thrashed by a wave is not something that bothers me. In fact, often times when I surface I am just as exhilarated as I would be after riding a sick wave. Rocks tend to hurt more and cause a lot more damage than waves do. I know that this is not always true when you are talking about giant, bone breaking waves, but those are outside of my realm of focus for this post. I am looking for an enjoyable time out in the water, and being constantly worried about getting impaled by a sharp rock is not enjoyable, for me at least.  So given the choice, I was looking more towards the calm waters without the prison-shank rocks peaking out of the water like blood thirsty alligators.

Luckily for us, after inquiring with the lovely young lady in the gelato truck (I tried to find a link for her but was unable. We didn’t try any of the gelato ourselves, but the other tourists spoke very fondly of her craft. So I will recommend her nonetheless) she told us the place we were looking for was on the calmer side. She said her brother has been surfing there for years, and that was plenty good enough for me.

So we went back to the parking lot to get our gear and descend the, exactly, 100 stairs to our newly found destination. While unpacking in the lot, a van rolled up and the man inside told us that we were in the wrong spot and that we should be down in California catching the big waves. He was basing this on the fact that both Shannon and are sporting Gun short-boards. We informed him that our boards were in no way a reflection of our surfing style or ability, but instead a symbol of our mutual love for a great deal.

One lazy Sunday while sitting on the couch at home we were looking for something to do. We decided at that moment that we were tired of renting surf equipment every time we went on a surf trip. We were tired of feeling the guilt associated with peeing in rented wet suits. You are always hoping they didn’t have some special way of knowing that you are treating their equipment like your own personal latrine. So to fix this problem we made the decision to get our own gear. After a few hours of scouring Craigslist for boards we found a few winners, which, if I do say so, was pretty impressive given that we live in Vancouver, not a place you would expect to find a sizable market place for surfboards (not paddleboards). I was able to buy mine for a cool $80, down from the asking price of $100. Shannon not one to be out done tried to go for $75 down from $125, which I thought was a bit sad since it was from a girl that needed to sell a custom board that she had made for her while living in California. She was not able to take it home with her to Japan but still wanted to get a decent price. But there is no place in a haggling battle for compassion. Much to our chagrin, both being competitive people, she was only able to work her way down to an $80 price tag. So we ended up in a tie but as Baseball Hall of Famer George Brett once said “If a tie is like kissing your sister. Losing is like kissing your grandmother with her teeth out” so I guess a tie is not so bad lol. So long story short the guy learned that we were not big wave surfers, but rather two competitive deal chasers who are willing to learn to surf on difficult boards all in the name of good value.

Once down the stairs and on the beach and were pleasantly surprised with the lack of wind and general coldness. We discovered that for similar reasons to why the other side was choppy and grim, this side was sheltered and calm. Very nice surprise J We set up our sun/wind tent, cracked a few drinks and dove head first into.....the chips and salsa....not the frigid ocean, not yet. It was nice to enjoy a little bit of sunshine and warmth after the inhospitable conditions at the view point. This warmth was short lived however, the clouds rolled in once again and didn’t break much for the rest of the day. It didn’t seem to save my face from the being sun kissed, or should I say sun molested. I was quite red for the next few days.

So a few words on the surfing itself, the water was icy cold, the wind as well, and the two maybe for an impressive tag team. I want to be clear once again that I am not some kind of wimp. I am not complaining about the cold, I am clothed in a thick rubbery wetsuit and booties well equipped to guard against the harsh conditions. I am more so attempting to paint an accurate picture for anyone who might be mistakenly thinking of the type of surfing as the type they do in tropical settings. Not the case, these conditions will result in numb hands and numb faces. These conditions are by no means intolerable, just a trait to be aware of while surfing in the Northwest. I am glad to say that I was not the only one out in the water on this occasion. It was nice to have some confirmation that I was in the right place. I was 1 of only maybe 8-10 that actually made it out with their boards and 1 of 5 that stayed out for any extensive period of time. Most of the others we armoured with hoods and gloves in addition to their wetsuits and booties. They were in full on seal mode (#sealmode) J

The waves were inconsistent at best. I tried on several occasions to get out in attempt to catch the big waves. These attempts ended with me doing a lot of waiting and a lot of travelling down the beach, carried by the current. After learning that this was not a great strategy I kept to the shallower water, where I could still stand and was rewarded for my efforts. I will not say it was an amazing day to surf, the surfing population in the water was witness to that, but I was able to catch a few nice waves, and a few of those had enough power to give me a decent ride. One of the best of the day happened right as Shannon was making her way back to shore. After the wave died I popped out of the water hoping that Shannon had seen, what I judged to be, an impressive ride. It turns out she was about as aware of my ride as I was of my board shooting out of the water and smacking me in the head, cracking me teeth together. It is a very strange feeling to be blindsided like that, having no time to prepare of protect yourself. You are left stunned and confused for a minute before you can even begin to think of what it could have been. I was rewarded for my ride with a medal of honor, expressed as a red lump on my forehead. But it was worth it! I was not to proud of my medal and continually tried to numb it in the freezing cold water, which did work, but was painful in a different kind of way, like the ALS ice bucket (#icebucketchallenge) challenge in reverse (http://www.alsa.org/fight-als/ice-bucket-challenge.html). I will admit I am being overly dramatic but only because it allows me to be creative in my metaphors J.

A combination of the wind, the lack of sun, numb face/hands, and a dry beer supply all came together to signal us that it was time to call it a day. As fun as surfing and beaching are it is hard to resist the pull of baked brie. We had dinner plans that made it an easy choice to head back to camp. Our menu included Riesling white wine, baked brie, ciabatta bread, and an array of meats. We had no definitive plan on how we were going to heat the bread or bake the cheese but we had an optimistic attitude and a deep hunger, two things that made sure everything would work out great....and it did J Impressively well in fact. It was a very memorable first attempt and one that I have no doubt will be attempted many more times in the future.

After we absolutely stuffed ourselves to the point of bursting, we got to work cleaning up the campsite and packing what we could. We knew what we would have to leave early the next morning in order to get back home in time for a make-up baseball game of mine that had been rescheduled on a weeknight. Not ideal but doable. We just had to wake up at 4 am to make it happen. There was very little of this trip that was consistent with the ways we usually planned so it seemed a fitting way to end this one.

Once we packed all that we could, we were able to settle in and enjoy the monstrous fire we had built to burn all of our remaining wood. It did not take long for our eyelids to start drooping. The combination of having spent bodies from two days of surfing and the looming early wake-up call for the next morning was enough to have us unintentionally counting the proverbial sheep in our heads. Shannon bowed out first and I was soon to follow after dousing what remained of the fire. The car was packed, the alarm was set, and out we went, like puppies after a romp.

Day 4 is complete J