I live in N. San Diego County so surfing is just something to do I guess. But after this shit I try not to go out alone anymore. I should've been a bit more cautious about getting in the water when I got down to the beach and saw the waves breaking up over the beach and sweeping the sand out, but it looked epic so I went. Granted there were maybe 5 other people out there but it still wasn't safe at all. I heard there was a big storm offshore but I'd never seen the waves as big as they were that day. After I got rocked I went up and asked the lifeguard the estimate on the avg. wave hieght, they saw the wave I got hammered by and said that one was about 15 to 20ft, it felt like it... So onto the story, it's real short. I did my pre flight ritual wax, stretch, meditate and I took off. For how big the waves were there wasn't much of a current so I wasn't to scared. It was pretty hard to paddle out, but ig only got worse the closer to the lineup I got. All of a sudden I see this wave building up about 100yds out from me and I know this ain't gonna be fun. It was cruising, and building fast, I couldn't paddle out fast enough to punch through it so I took my chances and ducked. As soon as I did that the wave was peaked and proceed to pummel me with it full weight. I would sa for about 30 seconds I was spincycled underwater from being almost close enough to the surface to take a breath only to be dragged across the bottom a split second later. After I got back up another wave had already crashed and was on top of me just as I poked my head up. My board was being pulled with the wave, and if you surf you know you can't get any floatation in heavy white water without your board. Eventually reeled it back in and got to shore as fast as I could. I was pretty shaken up, I just sat there wondering what would've happened if I was under for just a second longer. Good thing is, I'm still here, and my board didn't break. The only bad shit that's happened to me since was an incident with a stingray, but life's been good since. You ever get a chance ride the trestles down here, just be careful...
'...Smoking's bad, smoking killed my dad. Yeah, he was driving down the highway one day and as he was lighting his cigarette, it blew out the window. So he jumps out the door to save it, and ran himself over. Uh, you mind if I smoke?' -Olie Ollaussen, Ski Bum extraordinaire