The OB Big Wave Bodysurfing Challenge

At first light, the fog betrayed nada. I planted a useless flag atop the dune, lumbered to its western edge, and listened to swell unloading on the sandbars of San Francisco’s Ocean Beach to the tune of 10 feet, 15 seconds. The Contest Director wore a crisp blue blazer over his down jacket. We nodded good morning, remarked on the fog. Yes, it appeared to be lifting. Competitors ascended the dune trail from Lawton Street like a herd of Quasimodos — hooded specters with fin arms, deformed by loads of neoprene and towel. By 7:30 a.m., a few dozen jacked up bodysurfers, nervous loved ones, and morbidly curious associates milled about on the turret of dune. Fog dissipated, revealing bombing peaks, a mile in either direction. Half a klick south, the Noriega Left thundered, furling like a huge gray tongue. Although rows of whitewater scoured Ocean Beach’s vast inshore, a promising rip had formed just north of our dune. Perhaps we would get an assist. Contestable conditions, decreed the Contest Director.

The Legend addressed our congregation on the subject of safety. Fearless and wise, the Legend had long navigated the impact zones of Northern California’s biggest, coldest water. She described the dangers we would face. The way water sucked in and spewed out of the San Francisco Bay like a fire hose, scouring Ocean Beach with tidal current. She spoke of desire and fear, of recognizing patterns within apparent chaos. She spoke of wildlife. White sharks? Oh yes, she’d been bumped before. Seen plenty. Not an issue. But cormorants? Deal breaker. The Legend refused to surf in the bird’s vicinity. No explanation why. It just wasn’t happening. Period.

As the Contest Director semi-explained the vagaries of judgement, ever greater fragments of fog broke free and slithered into the sky, leaving patches of clarity suggesting blue sky. I suited up for my heat, slipping into a fog-colored white jersey. “Like a cloak of invisibility,” laughed the Frenchman, who wore blue. The Barber was in pink. A fifth bodysurfer we will simply call ‘Mike’, wore green. The Big Wave Safety expert wore yellow, but had forgotten his wetsuit. He ran to his car, which was parked towards Judah, while we strode purposefully down the dune to the water. The fog had lifted a few hundred feet now. We plopped down in the sand to pull on fins and secure leashes. Far beyond the barbed coils of whitewater, a set hit the outer sandbar. Even at this distance, we could see it was big. “Maybe close to triple overhead,” I said. The Barber wore a gray, finely-trimmed satyr’s beard and possessed magnificent tattoos on his hands. He had flown down from Eugene, Oregon for the event. “I’m really stoned,” he told me. “I mean really stoned, bro.” The horn sounded and we hit the water. 

Once an alternate for équipe de France de natation, the Frenchman was fast, threading the surface of the rip like an eel. He had twenty-five meters on me almost immediately. We were making good time astride the rip. I glanced back. The Barber was not so lucky. He had been snagged on some northerly current, which drew him towards the Golden Gate. As I watched, he redoubled his efforts to the southwest, eventually making some progress. Alas, Mike. Mike was gone. Lost in OB’s labyrinth of nearshore whitewater, Mike would not be seen again for the duration. 

I returned to the task of getting outside to the waves. Even with the rip current’s aid, this involved an extended series of breath holds. Dive, glide beneath the turbulence, be patient, surface, expel carbon dioxide from mouth, replenish oxygen through nose. Repeat. Before long, the whitewater was behind me and I was surrounded by gelatinous green ocean. Further out, a set flexed on the second sandbar. I kicked up the face of its first wave and slipped over just in time to see the Frenchman slide into a glassy, double-overhead right. His takeoff was elegant: a single butterfly stroke linked to a trio of strong kicks beneath the surface of the forming wave. As it walled, the Frenchman’s head and torso emerged with tortoise calm. Lead hand planing, he torpedoed down the line, a magical sea goblin swaddled in the wave’s musculature. A full five Mississippi later, his blue cap popped to the surface halfway to the beach. Without pause, he stroked back towards me in the lineup. Incroyable.

I swam hard for the horizon. A third-bar beast wobbled into view. Too deep. I turned and frantically swam back towards shore. With much kicking and grunting, I clawed my way over the ledge. After a few, all-too-short moments upon its heaving breast, the wave hurled me to the seafloor and stomped off to the beach. After some time for reflection on the bottom, I surfaced a short distance from the Barber. Beatific awe was writ large on his face as the next wave bore down. I looked back over the shoulder to witness the wave break top to bottom, crisp and violent, directly on the Barber’s nut. When he arose from the soup, his eyes blinked electric and supremely aware of the universe’s infinite potential. “The Apocalypse is a manual of spiritual development,” he sputtered.

Meanwhile, the Frenchman continued to filet clean, double-overhead waves closer to shore, motoring back to the line-up after each without fail. Twenty minutes in, the Big Wave Safety Expert arrived just in time to get caught inside by a set wave. He surfaced and kicked into an enormous lump of water, splitting it with the Frenchman, who seemed to be everywhere at once. The next wave was the largest of the set, but I was too far out again. I performed a late belly flop into the beast, planted my hip bone into its face and readjusted my points of connection to the wave as its energy crackled. The wave’s hollow heart moaned as it overtook me. Until the floor fell out hurling me into elaborate display of hydraulics, I inhabited a many-splendored room of light and water. When I surfaced, the Barber hooted and pumped his fists in the air, another wave poised to break upon his lotus blossom head.

After our 45-minute heat ended, we returned to shore and ascended the dune. The OB, as a rule, was judged by informal consensus from beach and water. By all measures, the Frenchman had dominated. I slipped into the Finals behind him on the merits of the Barber’s illuminated testimony, which had been overheard as he wandered up the beach towards the Dutch windmill on some kind of Quixote trip. While the Frenchman would eventually become the inaugural Big Wave Bodysurfing Challenge champion, and deservedly so, it was clear to me as he wandered into Golden Gate Park, still wearing his wetsuit, that the Barber had won something as well. Something far less clear.