Hainan Surf Blog

It took a little bit of ridiculous haggling with the drivers who showed up with a taxi cab despite our insistence that we have a car with a flat roof (for the surfboards). We ended up just shoving Steve's board in the trunk and jamming mine into the carriage of the car. With 2 shortboards and a boogieboard for Mario, we managed the quick 1 hour drive up the coast to Shimei Bay despite somewhat crammed conditions.

With 16 ft buoys reporting online, we were expecting strong surf, with the high possibility of heavy poundings and tough paddles out. Our excitement was high, and as we passed the first visible glimpses of the ocean around exit 16, we knew we were in for a big day. We checked the firing squad at Riyue Wan first, and then quickly went up to golf courses at Shimei. The swell lines were clean and well-organized, but too small at Shimei, so we went back down to Riyue and joined Brendan and his crew of 4 beginners who were learning in the whitewash towards the shore.

Outside, and just to the left of the reef at the north side of the beach, the shoulders were peeling with strong consistency- in the middle of the beach, fun 6 foot A-frame peaks were standing up with shoulders racing to the left and right; a bit closed out in sections, but make-able in the right position. A strong rip current was pulling us south away from the takeoff spot for the reef point, and forcing some of us to paddle in and walk back up the beach periodically to keep from being washed down to the next bay.

After floating around in the middle of the beach for about an hour, and paddling hard to maintain my position on the beach, I decided to paddle up to the reef, where beautiful lefts were peeling perfectly over the semi-exposed rocky reef. I took two smaller waves right over the reef: realizing the treacherousness of the situation upon jumping off my board to find only 2 feet of water beneath me and the reef. I moved outside, and after having to negotiate one punishing sets with a series of duckdives as a consequence of positioning myself too far inside, I put myself in what I presumed to be the right takeoff spot and waited.

After just a few minutes my efforts were rewarded. I saw the first wave of a very large set coming and made sure I was correctly positioned. I let the first two waves pass, and then saw it: a 7 foot face rolling silently towards me with a long shadowed arm stretching all the way across the bay. I pointed the nose of my board at a slight angle to get into the pocket of the left and paddled hard as I felt the wave lift me up from behind. I was instantly staring down the smooth face of a large liquid beast as it fetched up and threatened to toss me onto the shallow rocks staring up at me through boils in the foamy water below.

I raced down the face and planted my backfoot into my traction pad to initiate my bottom turn. For a moment I thought I had missed the shoulder, as a large section of the wave crashed down behind me, and I could see the should racing away from me, just a few feet in front of me. I stomped my back foot down and my board responded- spitting itself forward and onto the base of the shoulder. I pumped a few times and found myself racing down the clean face of a solid 5-6 foot face- and was racing down a wall that seemed to continue to grow in front of me in walls and peaks as I turned up and down the face to keep the speed I would need to make the sections.

As I floated down the line I hollered at the top of my lungs with my arms spread out towards the sky. My friends on the shore noticed at this point and were hollering back as I continued to ride out this perfect wave. After what felt like minutes (but was realistically about 25 seconds), the wave had spent its energy and died out in a reform as is washed over the inside channel. I picked off a small peak onto the shore and walked into the dongshi pile (= "stuff") with an ear-to-ear grin on my face.

Later that day I caught two more similar rides; and left for home with a feeling of being physically spent and emotionally fulfilled. It's amazing how nicely surfing lines up the work/reward aspects of the work and toil that goes into surfing considering how little time is actually spent standing up on a wave and riding the board. If I'd missed that wave, I wonder how stoked I would have been on the day as a whole? So much of life comes down to patterns, schedules, and routines, so much planning it would seem, yet what is the payoff? Surfing may at times seem like a draining unfulfilling bitch of a passion, but when it all comes together, it is truly one of the most amazing experiences in life.