Yup.  I hadda ruminate on this for a spell.  It goes without sayin dude was incredible.  I initially balked at it goin clear up to the White House.  Then, I remembered somethin.  Mr Trump has this innate ability to sense greatness in people.  I think he wants to meet this kid.  He don't need a ratings bump.  Totally 110% for the kid.  I think he likes to encounter greatness and root for it too.  😎

That is a great save, for sure. That shorebreak is some of the worst in the world. Hero....

It also makes me wonder, who the fuck is letting their kid play in the shorebreak at 30ft wedge... Like, WTF?

So, to put into perspective how dangerous the rips and cliffs and the Pacific Ocean gets... Here we go....

Yesterday, JUST AT WINDANSEA BEACH in La Jolla, guards had to make 107 rescues IN ONE DAY.... ONE FUCKING DAY.

https://www.surfer.com/news/windansea-107-rescues-san-diego-summer

Over 3,000 saves there since June 1st....

A few people used to randomly die in San Diego from freak accidents. People taking pictures on Sunset Cliffs, not understanding that it''s high tide and a rouge wave will knock them down and just sweep them out to sea. 

My local beach out there, Ocean Beach, sucks up more swell year round than anywhere in San Diego County. It gets hit by every swell from every angle... From the jetty to the pier, it's all beach break. But it kind of gets funneled in at an Angle, hits the Jetty and creates an absolute nightmare of currents and rips all the way down to the pier.... 

So, if it was a true 6-7ft+ swell, I learned to never surf the beach breaks there. Yes, it can be done, and I have. But even with a surf board, when you take a set, you just get pounded and pounded and pounded in rips and shit.... And the beach goes from shallow to deep quickly. If you are hanging on the beach there for a winter swell and decide to wade out to take a piss, there is a very good chance you will get pulled out immediately. The guards there are pretty good. But people have no idea what they are fucking with out on the west coast. 

And this time of year, it's summer break. Everyone wants to hang on the beach and swim, but do they not realize that there is a fucking 12ft @ 23 second ground swell in the water?

Over 100 people had to be rescued in one fucking day out there in La Jolla. I have seen some shit, but I have never seen some shit like that....

And I know back in my day, Windansea was still the most Loc'ed out spot in San Diego.... So the fact that the locals and OGs there weren't cussing people out of the water all day is beyond me. I mean, I have never seen 50+ people at Windansea on any given day, much less 100+ swimmers in the water...

All the rescues there were on swimmers. Not surfers. Surfers break their boards there and swim in. Is what it is. 

Anyone have any real life ocean rescue stories? I had let some swimmers on the west coast grab onto my board to bring them in from rips before, but it was never a drowning situation. 

And in California, a lot of places, La Jolla and Sunset Cliffs specifically, a lot of guys, even in my day would do the no leash thing. There is a summer reef called "No Surf" that I would never wear a leash to... 

Anyway, part of tackling big surf out there is being able to handle yourself in the water. So, I have seen broken boards, I have seen guys swim in a mile. All of that. But I have never seen anyone out in real distress, even in the big shit. Granted, when Blacks, or LJ Reefs or Sunset Cliffs was "going off", there was always water patrols on skis and boats traversing the various lineups. But I have never seen them put to good use. The only life saving I have seen was always guards and swimmers/tourists. At most of the decent surf spots, everyone out is a capable swimmer that understands rips and ocean currents.

The main big wave spot I would surf in the winter, after my near death at indicators was called Subs. It sits to the south of "South Garbage" and directly North of "Abs". All of these are reef breaks, but the reason I chose this particular spot, is because I found a hidden little conveyor belt. I was the only one that I have ever seen use it. But at Garbage beach, you walk all the way to the southern most point that sticks out, and there is a tiny little cove. You paddle out about 25 yards and it goes from shallow reef to like 20 feet deep. And it's a channel between the reefs, and out about 1/4 mile where the waves break, it's l ike 30 feet deep. So on huge days, I would casually paddle out, get outside with dry hair, then just bob in the water for a bit, looking at Garbage to the North and Subs right next to me.... Then decide which wave to paddle over to...

Point is: If you break your board, lose your leash, or get just hammered, it's a quick paddle over to deep water and you can be-line the whole way in from there. It's so deep until you get to the beach, there is not even a ripple.....

Anyway, it's things like that that most surfers pick up on over the years, and for the most part, I wouldn't see too many people out in large conditions to the point where they didn't belong.... It happens, yes, but not too often.....

That day I was talking about at indicator, when I got hammered and held down. There were easily 20 people in the actual lineup that were about 75 yards inside of me closer to the beach.... After that cleanup set destroyed me and those other two guys, we looked in towards the beach and there was not a soul left in the water. I can't imagine what it looked like from the cliffs or the beach, but not one person made it back out, or even attempted. They all got trashed back to shore and called it a day.... Fucking freaky. 

The only time I probably "truly" could have used some assistance was in Mexico. A spot called La Fonda or La Mission. It's a hotel overlooking a cove maybe 2 hours down into Baja. You have to pay off the valet dudes to watch your vehicle, but after that, you are on your own. Mexico = no life guards. No hospitals near by. Nada.... So it was just me and the wife. The road is WAY up from the beach, so you have a birds eye view of things, which can be deceiving. The first set I was came through the south end of the cove, hit the point, jumped up into a true Black's beach barrel that went like 200 yards perfectly through the cove up into the north end of the beach. From my vantage point, it looks slightly overhead and perfect. I am frothing. Throwing my wetsuit on. 

Now, on the way down to this trip, I knew my leash was broken, so I stopped at the only surf shop in Tijuana and picked up a new leash. Brand new in the package.....

So anyway, wife is on the beach, and I am paddling out with the new leash and what not.... As I am paddling out, I look down and the water is about 5 feet deep. Crystal clear. You can see the ocean floor. Anyway, as I get closer to where the waves are breaking, I feel the ocean just sucking out from under me... Pulling out hard to sea. I look down. Water 4 feet deep, then 3, then 2.... I am like, oh shit... what the fuck is this? I have never felt that.... So a set comes, I am almost to the lineup. And I am scraping and scraping, the water is sucking out from under me and even though I am paddling outwards, the distance from me to the waves was increasing. So, I BARELY make it out, barely.... So, I wait through a few sets to catch my breath. I am the only person in the water and the waves are so big, I can't even see my wife on the beach unless the sets completely stopped and there was a lull.... So anyway, set comes, I turn, first one looks perfect, I get into it, I am angling and pumping down the face, time a nice bottom turn then stall back up into the face, setup for the barrel, I start pumping through the barrel and it just outruns me, instantly, so I do the thing where you just cut the nose of the board back into the wave face and do a knife kind of dive right through the back of the wave. Works perfectly, but then I feel the "Pop".... Leash. Gone... I feel naken immediately..... So I am out there floating, I start trying to paddle in. The ocean is ripping me back out, and back out.... I am in a rip, so I have to just relax and take it... It sucks me all the way back out to the lineup, but I am like 100 yards north of where I was, so I just keep swimming and drifting and swimming and drifting.... After like 8-10 minutes, I am 300 yards from where I started and I am all the way at the north end of the cove, where the water was finally getting pushed into the shore.... When I finally got into waist deep water, the undercurrent was still ripping at me, so I finally dive into a closeout and body surf in.... Get to the beach.... Lay there for a minute. I walk all the way down to the rocks where my board is just flapping against them. And I see another dude. He was on a mid-length gun kinda thing. Snapped in half. He is sitting against the rocks, looking half dead. I flop down next to him and say "I assume the same thing that just happened to me, happened to you"... "Yeah".... So, we do the walk of shame like 400 yards back up the beach around the point. I finally get to where my wife is. She is sobbing. Crying. Screaming at me. "I thought you were dead" I saw your board floating up the current and couldn't see you..... 

Anyway, I ended by day of surf, went up into the hotel for beer and tacos....

On that day, I could have used some help, but I made it. And that is the risk you take in a place like that, paddling out alone into what is DOH+ when you thought it was half that size. Lesson learned. I never surfed that spot again, anytime it was more than head high. 

Won't ever get that kinda ocean rescue at my spot.  Mine was more slomo.  The frozen lady in March.  It was a nice 60 somethin sunny day, with 54° water.  I was hoodin still.  As I head out, lady in a one piece swimsuit walks out past me.  People visit here from all over Earth.  I usually never say anything.   Hell, she's probably one of them professional ice swimmin ladies or some shit.   She goes out a ways and starts swimmin down the beach towards the rocks that were almost 2 blocks away.  With the medium current.   I'm waitin for a wave... she's almost down to the no swim zone by the rocks.  A block away now.  I'm like Dangit!  I come in, run all the way down the beach to the rocks.  She's not far from em now.   Time to meet the rip.  I'm hollerin out to her like HEY! ARE YOU OK?!?  She's just floatin and randomly wavin her arms in the air.  Definitely not a thumbs up.  Meanwhile, this group of like 5 people show up same time.  Nobody sayin anything.  I haul ass out to her.  Maybe nostrils deep, so no real swimmin.  I get to her, and not only does she speak German or somethin... she's all mentally disoriented and shit.  I get her in where she can touch bottom.  Oh, yeah.  All them people are all at the end of the rocks.  Still silent.  I walk her in around waist deep.  Gently let her go to see what happens.   Both legs just GAVE out.  Caught her.  She was shiverin HARD.  Big time hypothermia.  Got her in to shore.  Half the crowd was her people.  One her Dad, I think.  They got towels around her and went back to their blanket, etc.

I went out, caught my 1st wave, and stayed out 2hrs.  They watched the whole time.  Went in and she was ok.  Thanked me and I went home.

I don't think that lady woulda made it in by herself.  Your body shuts down.  Stops functioning. 

Last summer, we had like 3 people drown on Hilton Head Island. 2 of them were at my surf beach, Burkes. And I felt all kinds of ways about it. That particular beach is surfing 365. But in the summer, it's the same shit show as everywhere else. And if there is no decent surf, locals avoid the crowds anyway. There is a guard stand right at the end of the trail, and there is about 300 yards of sand bars going each way, with a folly/rivermouth to the south... There can be wild currents down there, because the tidal creek rips and and out with 8-10 foot tides swings each day....

But at any rate, this happened in the middle of the day, in the middle of the summer, and I am like, how did a guard not see it, or get to these people in time. And with a million people on the beach with boogie boards and floats and shit, how did no one see this distress until the person was dead. 

And earlier this year, when I went to Daytona in the winter for my daughter's dance thing. We stayed at a hotel right in front of the main pier. I surfed the North side of it mostly, and then traveled to those two spots DP told me about. Anyway, the north side of the pier wasn't crazy of anything like that. Anyway, the week after I left, some woman drown right on the north side of the pier. Right where I was surfing every day. And again, a million people on the beach. A pier full of people looking at the water. Guards everywhere. And a swimmer drowns right in the middle of a summer day....

Not sure what makes people think open ocean swimming is a good idea, any time really, unless you are a very seasoned swimmer. Like, what possess these people to swim out paste breaking waves and start swimming around... Fucking crazy.... 

I still can't get over 107 people having to be rescued in one day at one beach.... What the fuck people? 

Yeah man, it's pretty crazy how some people have no idea how much danger they are in, and when they finally do realize it, it's usually too late. I mean, I probably could have used some help in PR when my shoulder was dislocated, and there have been a time or two at home where I was in a bad situation, but I knew the risks and was fine with it, knowing I have the ability to get myself to shore barring anything extreme happening, but it took me a long f'ing time to feel that brave HAHA, then when I nearly drowned, it set me back about 5 years, and had to work through it, but to me that's just part of being a dedicated surfer. What I'm talking about, is people with NO sense of awareness what so ever. These people should not enter the ocean unless it's 100% flat and can't get too deep too quick, like the Gulf most of the time 🤣 .

You guys remember that story I posted a few years back about saving that swimmer at one of my local spots close to the house? It was after work, I only had about an hour of daylight to get a session in before the sun would set, and it was kinda pumping out there, chest - head high if I recall, somewhere in that range, and it was really consistent and NOT a day for swimmers, you really needed a board or something unless you're an avid ocean swimmer, which there aren't too many around here who just swim like that when it's hectic out there.

Anyways, I paddled out on my 6.0 Coil, it's a small, light, HPSB, and I was having a great session ripping out there, when all of a sudden I hear a voice in distress, couldn't hear what it was saying at first, but sounded like trouble, so as I am paddling in and out catching waves, I am looking around trying to figure out where it's coming from, and what they are saying, then I hear "HELP!" And in that moment I located this poor dude out there struggling to stay above water and beginning to panic, as the rip pulled him pretty far out by this point.

At first, I'll be honest, I wasn't sure if this was really happening, I honest to God was in disbelief that I was going to have to rescue this dude, and I was hoping that he was just kidding or messing around with whoever was in the vecinity, so I asked him if he needed help, and he said yes, so I told him what he needed to do in order for me to help him, but he did NOT calm down, and he did not make it easy on me to get him to shore. First, this was a guy in 20's or 30's, he was about 6'4" - 6'5", and about 240 - 250lbs or more, and this was his FIRST time in the ocean, he just moved down from Tennessee or Kentucky, or WV, can't remember which, but just a big corn fed Country dude, with no swimming ability to save his life, but here he was, out in the ocean for some reason.

Well, during this whole ordeal, he ends up telling me how he had like stage 3-4 cancer, and sounded almost like he was thinking about letting himself drowned but then his fear kicked in. He tells his whole story while I am trying to swim him to shore on my little 6.0 Coil, which was going very very slow, and the sun was setting, and I didn't want to be stuck out there with this dude when it got dark, so I ended up waving at another surfer sitting on the beach, he paddles out and together we formed a line, he paddled from his board while Big Boy held onto the leash, and I swam behind and pushed, and together we got him to the shallows, he was too afraid to put his feet down even though I was standing and telling him he could stand.

He pretty much collapses onto the beach and we pull him up onto the sand where the paramedics came and gave him treatment, his GF or w/e called them, everybody saying "good job" and all that to me, as he vomited ocean water and they took him to the hospital. Pretty sure he made it, but damn, the guy almost took me out with him. I'm 5'9", 150lbs right now, I was probably closer to 170lbs at that time, but pretty big size difference, so if that guy went too far under, I don't think I would have been able to pull him back up, he was like a ton of bricks, not muscles, not morbidly obese, just large. If I had my LB, it would have been much easier, but I had one of the smaller boards I own at the time, no bueno! 

I was happy to have helped the guy, but honestly I was a little pissed off. This dude ruined what was a great session, and he almost killed me in the process, all because he was clueless, and had a death with and then chickened out. But w/e, one save for me, woo.

Damn DP. That is heavy. Literally. Haha. I haven't ever been a lifeguard, but in high school, my best friend's mom managed our high school swimming pool, so she gave us all lifeguard training. And the one thing they always told us, even if just in a pool, is that if someone is in real danger in the water, the panic and a lot of the time it can result in injury to whomever is attempting the save. I can imagine in the ocean, it's 100 times worse. 

While I am teaching my son to surf, the only time I ever get stern with him is on the basics of safety. I tell him constantly, always keep your eyes on the horizon. Never leave your back to the waves, no matter how small it is. Hold your board so tight, as if it is your literally life preserver. As soon as you stop a wave, or wipe out, cover your head as you come up. Locate your board immediately. Get it. Hold on to it..... 

Like last time we were out, he finished a wave and was casually walking it back out. It was waist to chest (adult size), and even though we were on the inside, the reform was enough to be an issue. He just casually pushed his board into a wave and it came right back at him, full force and almost knocked him over. Luckily it hit his side and not his face, but I had to raise my voice at him with the "Dude, hold your board. Tight. Don't ever let go of it".....

The surfing is the fun part, but I am trying to teach him that he and I can't truly go out and share sessions until I am completely confident in his ability to just be out there, and able to navigate and stay safe. 

Like the situation I spoke of in Mexico. There is no more naked of a feeling than to feel your leash rip off your leg in heavy surf. It's a sensation that is hard to even describe. It's something that you don't realize, until it happens. That your board is your everything out there. It keeps us above the undertow. It lets us avoid the rips. It is our literal life preserver. 

And I don't know if you guys every do this, and I don't mean on a longboard, but on a HPSB. Go leashless. The only reason I ever did it was because at some spots as I mentioned, the local thing was to surf with no leash, so if you fuck up, you have to swim a mile in.... So I did it quite a few times, and let me tell you, from the moment you stand up and start surfing, the entire time, your brain is just flashing "No Leash, no leash".... It's so apparent that it's in your head the whole time. But it also makes you surf better and safer. You aren't going to try a sloppy air reverse on a closeout section, and you probably won't even try a laydown hack into an oncoming section, because you know there is a chance to lose your board. 

It's a crazy feeling. So if you haven't done it in a while, try it on a day that is pretty decent, but uncrowded. It's a complete mind fuck. 

Super heavy lol, during the hardest part of this whole ordeal, keeping him on the board as waves were crashing, getting him back on when he fell off, etc., during that time, there was a brief moment where I had to think about the possibility of at some point I may have to let his hand go and save my own life, but right when I had that thought, I had another thought that said "no, you're not letting this guy die, get another surfer to help you if you can", call it my concience, call it w/e you want, it may have been God directing me, but that was the voice I obeyed.

I fortunately never hadda deal yet with a large person tryna stay alive by pushin me under.  That's one of the most sketch deals I can imagine.  I have made sure to keep the boogie board between us as I pulled someone in to shallower water.  No way for em to reach me.