Outdoor Life

My wife, a line-up buddy, and I paddled outside of the lineup to chat without having to dodge the 6'ers that had been steadily rolling in from the NW.

My wife spotted it first and of course shouted the cliche "Outside"! I looked up and saw this huge swell rearing up maybe 20' from us. We all started paddling for it, my wife admitting later that she pulled back a little to avoid a beating in case she blew the drop.

I was on a 9', a little ahead of our buddy (a big guy) who was on a smallish fish. I got up just enough speed to catch the wave right at the peak. As I stood on the board I had a rooftop perspective on all the looks of shock on the people in the lineup, most already bailing off their boards, with a few of the braver and smarter ones trying to paddle over the cleanup mini-rouge.

I had only been surfing for about a year, and managed to weave through the lineup and rode the wave all the way in. That was about 5 years ago and is still my biggest and most memorable wave.