Ghost Wave - Chris Dixon [156]
A Chilean charger named Ramon Navarro has caught a cab all the way up from San Diego. His driver was an elderly guy with white hair and a beard like Gandalf who lit up when Ramon mentioned the Bank, claiming to be a fisherman who used to surf out there. “He knew all about the place,” says Ramon.
Subsequent phone calls to the cab company only reveal the guy’s name: Ziggy. I never hear from him.
Before we turn in, Nathan Fletcher, a quiet and intense guy I’ve never met before but come to like a lot, briefly recounts a tale related by his uncle Flippy of an experience just off the southern edge of San Clemente Island—a spot we’re due to pass in a few hours. “You don’t know what to expect out here, really,” he says. “It’s at the edge of the continental shelf. Anything can happen. My uncle was out on a day and it was, like, 15 to 18 feet. All of a sudden a 100-foot wave—a rogue wave—came and they were motoring up it, and the boat went backwards over the falls. He had to jump off and swim to San Clemente Island. He said it’s still the biggest wave he’s ever seen.”
Flippy Hoffman had not mentioned this story to me. I tell myself that we’re on a big, safe, modern yacht. What could happen? At dawn, a rogue wave seems unlikely but not out of the question. Strong high pressure leaves a gauzy haze on the horizon, making it impossible to tell where sky ends and sea begins. The mirror-smooth water teems with tiny, hookfinned dolphins. We’re still several miles off Bishop Rock, making a southerly approach and passing right along the top of the Cortes Bank with nary a wave in sight. Still, the ocean is oddly woozy, just as Sharp had described on his first mission out here twenty years ago. In fact, he says, the morning’s almost a carbon copy.
Half an hour later, my heart leaps at a strange apparition. I lift my binoculars to see the solid lines of the new long-period swell. The first wave rises majestically beneath diffuse morning sunlight, a perfect A-frame peak. Straight out is the CB-1 buoy, waving back and forth. A sea lion rockets out of the water and climbs aboard. His cousins bark angrily for a moment before returning to their languid naps. Ten minutes later, we’re close enough to hear a wave shatter the morning quiet. I feel the strangest déjà vu I’ve ever experienced—a homecoming to a nowhere I’ve never been. On seeing the waves and actually being out here, the fear and trepidation of the previous few days is just instantly subsumed. All I want is to get out there and see it up close.
A hardy young fisherman named Nate Perez has ferried the surfers out to the middle peak, clad in nothing but a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. I soon jump onto his ski, heart in my throat, wearing jeans and a windbreaker and clutching my unprotected Nikon. A hundred yards out, I think of Joe Kirkwood and his fur boots, and sense this is a mistake. I know it’s dangerous, and really, I’m scared half to death. But for some reason, I don’t really care and I don’t have complete control over my decision to jump on the ski. It’s a strange, almost out-of-body-sensation. I’ve never been hypnotized before—by humans or the ocean—but I think that’s what’s going on.
The waves aren’t giants by Cortes standards, which actually makes them perfect for an inaugural paddle surfing mission. The very biggest are perhaps twenty-five feet from top to bottom. Still, they’re just incredibly powerful—shifty humpbacked bulges of frictionless energy that glide through the ocean with preternatural speed. Some hit far up on the north peak, capping over and rolling down the line like mutant runners at Trestles. Others rise into explosive, cone-shaped wedges that Kelly Slater says remind him of Sebastian Inlet, Florida, on steroids. These cones make it obvious why Captain T. P. Cropper once thought he was above a volcano. Other waves shift a little farther toward us and jack onto Larry’s Bowl in deep, barreling slabs. Out off the middle peak, the surfers hoot. Greg knifes cleanly into a butter-smooth twenty footer. He draws a beautiful turn and angles for the exit