Well... here's a brief recap of the trifecta I've enjoyed over the past three days of this fine May swell.
After having been too-long surfless and too-long away from the sea, the Olo awaited me. Back in Christchurch, it had been dutifully (with impressive care and craftsmanship) restored to serviceability by earinfector after a fin crack was discovered. I’d been back from a trip to India for nearly a week when I turned up at earinfector’s for a handover of the Big Wooden Board. It was like a rendezvous with a long-absent, beloved family member.
The intensity of India had burnt me into a summer mode, and stepping off the plane back on the South Island earlier in the week had shocked my system. Lack of swell and cold mornings had allied themselves to mute my stoke, and I’d not been in the water at all since my return. Thankfully, this weekend the siren song of some wave-lusting Lorelei called me back to the sea.
Friday afternoon saw solid overhead to pushing double sets and a relentless march of white walled soldiers lined up in ranks to guard the most precious of the swell’s treasures. Dumbell came to shoot photo, and I tenuously prepared for my first surf in over a month and a half... wondering how badly I'd be worked.
Only one other guy was visible on the horizon, sitting well outside the pier and picking off an occasional bomb; beautiful a-frames plumed in the offshore wind and despite the cold I felt a charge of heat and excitement. It was the old familiar energy of a big winter swell.
Heading well down the beach - a good 500 meters - I picked a rip and paddled out. Thought I had the timing perfect, riding the outgoing currents and staring intently at the horizon as I stroked hard. The longshore current was immediately dragging me visibly northward at an alarming rate, the inside not too bad yet, big walls of white but relatively easy to slide through. I made it about even with the end of the pier and started feeling good, the edge of the outside foam lines drawing into my sightline and not too far off.
Then the horizon stood up.
The first wave wasn't actually all that bad. I rolled under and held hard to the nose, feeling a truck roll over me and pass pretty quickly. Rolling back topside I felt my lungs burning from the combined effort of breath-holding and nonstop stroking. Wiping water from my eyes, I grimaced.
The horizon had doubled.
This time as I rolled under, I had a sick feeling... seeing that I was almost directly under the lip. I wondered how long this would last, and how I was going to swim with the olo snapped in half. The impact wasnt the thing, it was the recoil. As I held to the nose with all I had, the backblast from the wave's impact lifted the olo, me and my whole universe well clear of its current reality and flung me into a sort of oblivion that must be reserved for REALLY crazy people. By the time it was all over, I was gasping, my feet were wrapped together by the leash, I was flailing in 6 inch deep foam and chasing breath while every limb tried to reattach itself.
Then the third wave hit me.
I can't really remember much about it; except I do remember a lot of flailing, a lot of pressure, and a general sense of demise. From which I somehow surfaced, ready to call it quits. But like a guy given a pardon three seconds before the firing squad let’s loose, I was off the hook; there were no more waves. An eery calm had settled over the scene. A seagull lazed by in a shoreward crab angle, mocking me with a sideways grin. I paddled and as I did so I marvelled that I was now nearly to the pier. But I was making up lost progress and I was in a rhythm with the horizon growing closer by the stroke.
I nearly made it too, if only the next set had held off for thirty seconds.
When I'd walked back up the beach again, and well beyond my first attempted entry I waited for what seemed to be the right timing and I hit it once more. This time was a near instant replay of the first, except that I managed to get whacked by a few insiders as well as getting worked like a rag doll in an industrial wash machine. But just as I was ready to call an official forfeit, as I ran out of steam and lay panting so deeply it sounded like a cough.; I was out the back and into grey-green water unmarred by any foam. It was quiet now, and the world dropped away as I felt a charge of joy and a feeling of serene goodness. I was well beyond the pier now, and paddling over several sets to get the feel for their timing and rythym.
I'm sitting out there and paddling after several sets, but not getting the timing or the takeoff spot quite right. There's a lot of water moving and I've not surfed in quite some time, so it takes me some time to feel confident going for anything.
The sea undulates, lifts me, gently sets me back down into her troughs and then lifts me again. I'm drawn into her trance and the world feels fine. Great manes of seaspray shower back over me with the passing of the larger set waves and the energy infuses me. The battle of the paddle has been well worth it, for this moment alone.
I finally manage to be in position for a likely-looking ride and I stroke hard for it. The olo takes its time getting into these waves. They’re big, but still not super steep, so the rocker has to fight against the speed of the wave but I'm into it and popping up and my eyes are blurred with a haze of spray. Midway down the face I'm able to see and the bad news before me is a great big unmake-able section. Still the wave puts on some solid speed and the energy below travels up my feet and fills my heart and I'm soaring. After all the paddling I'm spent and my shoulder throbbing a bit, so I transition to a parallel stance and just ride the big foam ball to shore after the whole wave has broken into a roiling white steamroller.
Back on shore I thank my photog for the afternoon; Steve had come out despite his being just over the verge of getting sick, to stand in the cold and watch me paddle for an hour and a half. At least I got one wave - if only a mediocre one. Nonetheless I'm charged up and feeling glorious as I peel out of my wettie in the chill of the carpark. People stop to admire the olo and ask questions about it. I give them the abridged version of its origins and its journey. Invariably they smile.
I find myself grateful for having had my part in this story. I load up the olo and head home for the day. Not a bad finish to a Friday, and a fantastic beginning to a weekend.
Saturday morning it was a bit bigger, but also a lot less consistent in shape and at the pier things were pretty disorganised. The paddle looked even worse than the previous day and at 730am I wasn't really up for it. I decided to make a run to scarbs and Taylors to check things out.
Scarbs was big, but fat, fat fat and breaking well outside the headland on the sets. It'd be an easy paddle but I figured it'd be typical mush and disappointment scarbs. Over the hill I went. Taylor's was crap. High tide and a poor angle reduced it to a waste of time. Three souls sat hopefully well over in the northern corner, radiating optimism that a few stray lefts would get through with some shape and size. I watched them for 20 minutes and nothing broke anywhere near them. I decided to bag it.
Coming back down the hill, I second guessed myself and decided to paddle out at scarbs. At least I'd get wet and the paddle would be easy. And indeed it was. I hopped into the rip and was right out the back well past the headland in minutes. There I spent 30 minutes or so chasing back and forth trying to find a workable takeoff zone. After much scrabbling I resigned myself to the recognition that these big fat outsiders were much better-suited to a board with no rocker whatsoever.
I paddled in and sat just inside the jetty picking off a few smaller reforms that at least had some pitch off the inside bar. Another 30 minutes of that and I'd had enough scarbs for a lifetime so I called it a morning and headed in.
This session was energizing. Just being in the sea again with big ground swell energy moving through and around me had lifted my day.. But also it cemented two certainties for me; Scarbs is never worth bothering with unless you're on a no-rocker noserider log, and the olo does NOT like fat mushy waves no matter how big they are.
Still, I went home with a smile and was stoked to find a few local grommetts pass by and inquire "is that the olo!!??" It’s become a legendary board in its own little right.
Sunday was looking seriously big. Meaty, heavy waves reared up outside beyond one legendary paddle fraught with walls and rips and mountains of churn. I wasn't feeling tremendously motivated - yet the thought of another couple hours wasted at Sumner spurned me into a brief moment of bravery and I decided to give it a burl at the Pier. Three guys had just headed out, and I watched them hike forever to the south and make the paddle. Took them about 15 minutes, maybe 20 all up and by the time they were out the back they'd nearly passed the pier. But if they could do it, so could I.
The paddle itself was indeed a mission. I got tossed and churned and I paddled so hard and so long I felt my arms were going to simply fall off and my shoulders were ready to explode like ripe pumpkins dropped off the SkyTower on a hot February afternoon.
Time and time again, once I hit the real impact zone, I got blasted back a hundred yards by a set wave after coming paingfully close to beating fate out the back. The pier loomed ever closer and I was panting so hard from all the rolling under, paddling and scrambling to get the olo turned back around that I'm pretty sure my lungs were actually bubbling out my mouth like chewing gum as I exhaled. There was nothing left in my arms or legs when finally everything once again went magically calm. The offshore breeze sang to me and the shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiisihhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....... sound of the seaspray raining down off the back of the last wave to break told me I'd made it.
I stroked a few dozen meters more, to be sure I was well clear of any sweeper sets and then sat up to assess the situation. At first I couldnt find the pier... until I realised it was directly behind me by about 300 meters. I'd never sat so far out here before, and for a moment I wondered what in hell I was thinking. But as the gunmetal grey day sunk into my aching muscles and the sounds and the sea and the wind calmed me, I began to feel that there was noplace I'd rather be. The olo made pleasant wood on water sounds beneath me and gave me a reassuring presence way out there... made me feel safe.
The first few sets I dodged. They looked insanely big and when I realised that on the bigger ones I was physically straining to paddle UP their faces... on thirteen feet of wood with plenty of water both above and below me... my heart fluttered a bit. This would be interesting to say the least. But I was comforted by the fact that I'd been hammered by a few on the way out and lived through that. Ironically, because I was sitting out so far, the hold down wasnt all that bad and despite being dragged and tossed around quite a bit I found the torrent of these waves less lethal than some of the big near-shore thumpers I've dealt with in other parts of the world before.
And so it was that I gained confidence and set aside the twinge of fear to swoop into a bomb set a few minutes later. At first the olo had a tough time. It bogged and I thought I'd be pitched by the rapidly nearing waterfall. Before that happened though, I shifted my weight well forward and the board took off - nearly leaving me behind as it did. Like a big wooden rocket I was swept out into a deep bottom turn and then leaned hard to bring the board carving back up and out of the range of the foamy white teeth bearing down on me. I took a high line and beat it straight along a big wall dragging a hand in the moving water and feeling the board flow. Dropped down and up a few smallish turns, but fearing the beatdown I refrained from any hard turns. Finally I drove hard up and over the back just before a secion collapsed ahead of me.
Alive with a firey stoke I whooped and paddled back out hollering THANK YOU!!!!!! That one wave alone would have been more than worth the entire weekend of beatings.
But I got five more just like it.
I had to paddle hard just to maintain position, and in between waves I found myself getting inside too far on a couple and suffering further beatdowns, panting and losing all strength. Somehow the sea let me up each time though, just as I was beginning to feel I couldn't go on.
My final wave was a right, a big hard late drop that I had to pigdog and hold the rail with just to stay aboard. The olo took off screaming down the line, into the pit and then back up to mid-face with a waterfall-mountain nipping at my heels. A section was bearing down from ahead and the whole bottom was dropping out as the wave started to ledge on what's normally the outer bank.... I straightened out, scooted back to the tail and prepared for a gut-twisting drop that I really thought was going to end in ugliness.....
A few seconds of white and a lot of noise; then I was out in front of a roiling pile of whitewater and I was a man FULLY ALIVE!!!!
I rode that last wave all the way into the beach.... which took a LONG damn time from way out there. I stopped and stared for a long while, and I gave thanks to the Spirit of the Sea for keeping me safe, for bringing me joy and for this incredible day... then staggered back to the carpark lugging the olo.
In the lot a guy came up and admired the board.... I told him the story of the olo, its creator, the hikoi.... he was a softspoken guy with a pretty serene look about him. He was keenly interested as I told him the tale of this unique wavecraft and its journey. Later he sent me a message that it had really touched him.
And it sure as hell has touched me.... There aren't enough stories like this in the world. I'm grateful to have been part of this one.
Later on Sunday night as I walked with my little girl on the beach, the waves were still pumping in the distance and a shroud of mist hung over the seascape, veiling the power and the energy for the night. I walked a long time, until well after twilight. The baby cooed and talked away as I pushed the pram along the shore. The dog raced ahead into the darkness, tearing back to check on us every 100 yards or so. The sea continued to speak to me - now muffled and faded. And I headed back home a happy man.
)i was doing... 
