Near misses

Don't panic

After consulting the oracle (chatGPT and Surfline) I decided to hit Muriwai beach this morning.

I’ve been sitting in a hostel in Auckland, lowering the selling price of my van by hundreds of dollars a day and nursing a fractured heart — I don’t think quite fair to call it broken, but the dopamine’s been a little low. I was certainly mourning the loss of a life path I had started to consider imagining. Safe to say I really needed to get out in the water. My time back on the north island had not been fruitful for waves… or lucrative automotive sales.

By the time I actually got to the beach the 2-4 ft waves had been upgraded to 5-7 waves and from what I was reading online / chatting with the surfers leaving low tide was not ideal.

If I actually sell my car the next few days though, this could be my last paddle out. So I decided I was fine riding white wash worst case and wet suited up.

I left my car keys under my sandals right on the edge of the path down to the beach. Normally stateside, I would put a bit more effort into hiding them, but NZ had felt pretty safe.

I saw one other dude walking down the beach, and we both wound up paddling out quite near each other towards what looked like the smallest most manageable peaks. It’s a bit funny how things look so much different from in the water and on the shore. About 5 minutes later, I would realize there was a break closer and a break farther out, with a relative green part in the middle. For now, I just saw homeboy stop paddling. I just thought he might be resting for a second, so I kept going myself.

A few minutes later I had still not made it past the second break, and realized I was waaaay down the beach. I then recalled the signs I had seen warning of rip currents. There were 2 other dudes kayak surfing 100m away or so, but I was the only person in this part of the water and I was about as far from a shore as I’d ever been on a surfboard. (It’s worth noting I’ve lived in Nashville for 10 years which is not close to any oceans; I’m not a seasoned surfer).

Okay don’t panic. I took a few deep breaths and started paddling back towards the shore. For a minute or two I couldn’t tell if I was actually making any headway or not. Or maybe like 30 seconds, but definitely felt like a long time when I wasn’t sure if I was being sucked into the ocean or not.

I did eventually feel the waves start to change a bit more, and realized I was actually out past break, and though a bit closer to the shore these would be the biggest waves I would have attempted to “catch”. Or at least hopefully harness the power of to bring me back to shore so I didn’t drown in the ocean.

I think if I was less panicked at the moment, I probably would have sat on my board, tried to catch my breath, watch the break and try to properly line up a wave to catch. Buuuuut my primary objective had shifted just to getting back to shore, so I was still basically just paddling in. I felt a tall boi pass under me and saw it break just a few feet in front of me. Looked over my shoulder and saw another one coming.

Okay paddle hard, weight back, angle the takeoff and WOOF. Think that was the most speed/ accelerating force, I’d felt in my 40ish times paddling out. I felt like I was nearly pushed backwards off the board and kind of forgot to standup for a second. I few seconds later, I was substation ally closer to the shore. I had just successfully not drowned, ridden the biggest wave of my life on my stomach, and stood up just in time to hit the sand.

I caught my breath for a minute. At least it was nice weather. I had a fun hour or two time ridding some white wash, waves breaking closer, and still getting pummeled by the sets even though I was standing on 2 feet.

After I was substantially wobbly, felt like I had a minor win to end the day on, I walked back to find one of shoes turned over and my keys missing. Wasn’t sure if there were any native birds around that liked to fuck with peoples stuff or if this was the work of a human. I combed the sand for a minute, but keys were not to be found. I left my surfboard to mark the spot in case they were still buried in the sand and ran up the hill to see if my car was stolen.

It was still there, maybe there was a Kea or something around that grabbed my keys. I went back down the hill, combed the sand a bit more, but yeah no keys.

Okay don’t panic. There were a couple of ladies on a picnic blanket nearby, I asked if they had seen anyone in the area who was maybe messing around with the sandles.

They said no, but pointed out that there was quite a large group of young scouts in the area, some of who had just gone up the hill.

I walked over to a large group of children (30ish?) with half a dozen adults still wearing my wetsuit.

“hey sorry weird questions, but is there anyone in your group who maybe grabbed a set of keys down on the beach”

They said no, but one of the scout leaders offered to let me borrow his phone to phone someone. I didn’t even know who to phone. He suggested AA would be able to open the car door at least. Fuck, I’d now be paying a locksmith to open a car I’m supposed to be selling to get my phone and clothes out. I don’t even know if they could go about making a new key that would start the car or not, or if at this point it would be going to the scrap yard.

I walked over to the sink to wash the sand off my hands before touching his phone, and heard another scout leader say “are these them?”

Sure where. Waves of relief.

I went back to get my board, change out of my wetsuit etc. A minute, later a third scout leader came back, apologized again, offered me a cookie, and told me they would be talking to the kids that evening.

I was just so stoked to not be stranded at the beach, that I thanked her again.

Washed with relief, I was reminded of another narrow miss

~2 months earlier.

I was driving down the east coast of the South Island. Somewhere south of Christchurch, north of Dunedin. I no longer remember the specifics, guess it doesn’t matter. But our story starts nearly the same. It was a nice sunny afternoon. I had just purchased a wetsuit. Had been driving most of the morning and was itching to surf.

Saw a sign that said Beach Road and figured I should go at least have a look.

Became a dirt road driving down.

There was a hill obscuring the actual waves as I arrived closer. The actual beach/hill seemed to be made up of small dark colored stones rather than sand.

There were some car tracks going from the road onto the rock beach.

I had just done Rob Roy glacier track, which has a really tough road into the trail head, and was perhaps a little overconfident in the off roading ability of my 1998 2 wheel drive Toyota TownAce.

To be fair I didn’t really think about it that hard. I was trying to get from point a to b and wanted to see the waves. I followed the dirt tracks from the dirt road onto the rock beach. Adventure baby.

It got bumpy. My wheels started slipping a little. I was having fun… until I wasn’t.

First off, the waves were breaking way to close to shore to ride.

Secondly, I had lost all momentum and my tires were spinning without going anywhere. I was stuck.

Okay don’t panic.

I’ve been stuck in the snow before, let me try the floor mat trick. My rear tires had definitely dug a little bit of a hole already.

I did my best to put a floor mat between each tire and the very smooth surf washed stones. Got back in the drivers seat, and slowly pressed the gas pedal. Maybe a slightly large then just more spinning. Fuck.

One floor mat pushed under the wheel the other not. Deeper holes under each tire, now to the point the bottom frame of the car was touching the cold, hard stone floor.

okay don’t panic

There’s no one near me, but I do see a fisherman maybe 600 m down the beach in the fog. let’s jog over.

“Whatcha fishing for?”

“Yeah really anything”

“Uh weird question, but is your car 4 wheel drive, I think I got my van stuck”

He kind of chuckled, but set his reel so it would just keep letting out line and agreed to help me. Friendly dude who moved over from Australia and had lived in the area 10 years or so.

We drove back over to where my car was stuck, attached a racket strap to the back frame of my car and his towing hitch.

By this time a third vehicle had gathered to watch us try to pull me van out. At least, I was no longer alone.

We talked through the plan a second, then both got in our cars.

I put my van in reverse, waited until I felt the slight pull of him towing, and gently pressed the gas pedal. This time the van moved. I was flying backwards. Realized my rearview was a little blocked and didn’t notice him motioning me to stop. I had come very close to backing into his truck.

But I was clear from the rocks. I felt elated.

I thanked him profusely, offered to buy him dinner. He declined, said it was no problem.

I got back on the road feeling #blessed.