What defines a "big wave"? How big does a wave need to be before you the surfer start feeling fear. These parameters are down to every individual surfer and is something very personal. Of course a professional surfer would laugh at the waves that I consider "Big". But if a new or inexperienced surfer was out in the lineup today they would have been shitting themselves. I have been surfing for only ten years. I started later in life and I still consider myself a beginner. Calling myself an intermediate surfer seems far too grandiose and a title Im not deserving of. One of the things I have struggled with and what all surfers struggle with is committing to a big wave. Because once you decide to turn and go well ur either making it or eating it. Lets look at a screen shot from Magic Seaweed today that shows what the waves were doing...:)
The wave height is measured from the back of the wave. The wave height forecast is the average wave size. During a 2 - 3 hour session there will be what we call "bombs" - bombs are much bigger than the 5 - 7 feet that was forecast. Now lets touch on what it means regarding the measurement from the back of the wave - as the wave sucks water off the reef and builds in height it will have a face roughly double what the measured height is, so most of the waves that rolled though today were what we would term "double overhead" ,meaning the face of the wave was around 10 - 12 feet. When a bomb came through you could be looking at a face well over that. Today I was out there for three hours and only made three waves - all of them were bombs with a face of at least 12 foot upwards. Try to gauge how high that is by looking at your ceiling - pretty high right? I ate it on two additional waves aside from the three I made and took a pretty good beat down on both. That makes paddling for the next one a little extra challenging...:)
Next number to pay attention to is the period. This is the time in seconds between waves. The higher the period the more power and size in the swell. A period over 15 secs is considered a big period and will result in large powerful waves - what we had today.
Committing to a wave that is "big" takes courage, your idea of big might only be 4 - 5 feet on the face, but if it puts a knot in your stomach then you are surfing your big wave. Its one of the hardest things in surfing. As you paddle hard with that wave rising up behind you, the water suddenly starts sucking away from beneath you as you are carried up to the crest of the wave. Now is the time to swallow your fear and keep paddling hard. You need to stay out in front of the lip. You need to wait until you feel the power of the wave carrying you before attempting your "Pop Up" (standing the hell up) Now is the critical time! You are at the top of the wave and the wall is becoming vertical. You stand up and angle your board in the direction you want to go - to the relative safety of the peeling wall and away from the crest you have just owned!
Your fear vanishes instantly, the hardest part is over, you have your balance and the wave is opening up before you - a gift. This wave has travelled thousands of miles across the ocean and nobody has ridden it until you. You have tamed it and now you own it. Their is no feeling like making a "big" wave and spending the next 20 - 30 seconds carving up and down the face of this beauty before she dies below your feet on the shallow reef.
Where are the photos I hear you all asking? Well sadly our guy was not there today but he was around yesterday. Yesterday it was not very big like today and he was positioned at the end of the wave when it was considerably smaller than the take off zone. Here are a couple of pics from yesterday....
I'm Jobiker and I swallowed my fear today (along with a lot of seawater) Peace!
