Ghost Wave - Chris Dixon [3]
“If anyone ever tries to surf out there,” Castillo said, “they’d better take the fucking Pope along to pray for them.”
A few days later, Flame showed photos of Cortes Bank to Sam George and Bill Sharp, swearing them to secrecy, as always. They were stunned. The photos raised disturbing and perplexing questions. Being big wave surfers, the most important was: How big was it? In the photographs, the only point of reference was a red marker buoy that disappeared in the maelstrom of white water at regular intervals as the waves passed. Flame didn’t reveal the fact that he and Castillo had actually observed a wave from near sea level.
Bill Sharp recently mused, “If I knew how big the waves in those photos really were—or how big Flame thought they might be, I’m not sure if I would have gone. And if I had, it sure as hell wouldn’t have been on such a tiny boat.”
Eleven months later, and not long after exiting Newport Harbor in darkness, Sharp offered to take the helm of that tiny boat. He had a good basic understanding of LORAN navigation systems (GPS was not yet commonplace), and he was wide awake, so everyone else bundled up and went to sleep. The plan was to motor the twenty-nine-foot Black Watch for twenty miles out and around the southern end of Catalina Island. They would then cross another thirty-two miles of ocean to the southern flank of San Clemente Island, a naval base and artillery range populated by unexploded ordnance and a dwindling herd of feral, shell-shocked goats. From there, it was a simple, straight shot across forty miles of far wilder water. They had deliberately not notified the surfer-filled ranks of the Los Angeles or San Diego Coast Guard sectors of this expedition. “Loose lips sink ships,” Flame told Sharp.
As the boat droned past Catalina, the first rays of sunlight painted the sky a pinkish purple. In the island’s lee, a whisper of Santa Ana breeze carried the scent of chaparral and decaying bull kelp. Rising and falling over the butter smooth Pacific, Sharp uneasily pondered the last-minute nature of this mission. Despite seeing photos, the surfers were essentially flying blind. Once the Black Watch cleared the shadow of San Clemente Island, the swell would become much bigger. But just how big? Sharp was particularly troubled by the rumor that this phantom wave had once scuttled a huge ship somewhere near the surf zone; a wreck was listed right there on the chart. What if some jagged piece of hull lay on the bottom? Getting stuffed by thirty feet of white water into a rusty portal was not a hazard most surf spots presented. What if the Santa Ana winds defied the forecast—as they often did—and wound up to hurricane force? What if a fog rolled in? Sharp thought of VW-size elephant seals and the creatures that dine on VW-size elephant seals. It was as if they were setting out to find and ride Moby Dick—bareback—and Sharp knew how that story ended.
The winds remained calm, but the undulating swells increased markedly. By the time the Black Watch rounded San Clemente Island three hours later, the crew began to stir, and Sharp informed his fellow surfers that they were dropping into the troughs of swells six to eight feet high at regular intervals of between seventeen and eighteen seconds. It was a solid west swell.
Sharp, Hulse, and George had all followed somewhat similar paths into the world of competitive surfing, but by 1990, none ranked at the top of the sport. Each began his career as a representative of the amateur National Scholastic Surfing Association’s National Team. Hulse and George competed atop traditional surfboards, while the iconoclastic Sharp chose to ride his waves on a kneeboard. This kneebound surfing earned ribbing from Sharp’s buddies, but that typically ceased when they saw him charge through suicidal barrels or launch himself onto waves on his short, stubby rocket that standup friends—including Sam—wouldn’t touch. Sharp had developed a particularly