Later that night the sky clears and the air goes still, save for the faint murmur of the ocean in the distance.
We arrive on the beach the following morning to a grey band of fog hanging over the sea. Then we realize the grey band is moving. Fast. It’s not fog; it’s a wave speeding relentlessly down the point. We’re driving 30 miles an hour along the beach and are barely keeping up with the wall of water as we pass other cars where figures scramble for wetsuits amongst shouting and hooting. But when we park our vehicle, all we can do is stare in disbelief.
The swell has arrived and the benign waves from the previous day have mutated into powerful eight-foot sets. It’s not so much the size of the waves as their girth, lifting and sucking all the water into the lip, which explodes a few meters from the shoreline. The color of the water has changed too, no longer an inviting green but a dark, grey-brown mass filled with foam and grit.
A few shortboarders scurry tentatively into the lineup where the might of the current immediately drags them down the point. Not long after, a skinny kid who rode his first wave masterfully washes up on the embankment, concussed and limping after being smashed into the concrete-hard sand. His ankle is broken and he doesn’t know where he is as his friends help him back to their car.
