An Unforgettable One

Samson and Finn spot a whale at Its Beach in Santa Cruz. PHOTO: KCS

I awoke early,

during that period between dark and light, just before nighttime gives way to a new day.

At dinner the night  before I had regaled the grandsons, ages 10 and 13, with stories of pirate caves, shipwrecks and buried treasures. I had promised them that we'd go surfing at dawn not realizing it would be the first day of April.

Now that morning was near, I could have announced, "April fools! Sleep in boys!" And the joke may have ended then and there.

But when the elder boy came to my window like a ghost blown in with the fog, I didn't have the heart to quash his youthful exuberance. I read adventure in his eyes.

"Let's suit up," I said. 

I led him into the garage and held an old wetsuit up to his burgeoning adolescent body as if I were dressing a mannequin. "This'll do."

A warm smile defined his enthusiasm.

We repaired to our respective rooms to pull the skin-tight neoprene suits over our bodies. A task that would have Houdini hyperventilating. 

Air temperature hovered at 46-degrees F., water 52, with a nippy offshore breeze sweeping off the land as we carried our longboards down to the surf, the soles of our bare feet protected from the asphalt and concrete by rubber slippers. The younger brother had wisely opted to sleep in.

"None but the brave are out at this hour," I said as we trotted across the cold crunchy sand, the only souls on the beach. The offshore breeze was producing a bumpy texture on the water's surface. A few small rollers washed in, assuring me that this would primarily be a paddling session.

I indicated a point in the distance to give us a target, a goal for our paddle. "We'll paddle out as far as the point where you see the cypress trees," I said. 

We entered the water and rested our stomachs on our boards. We had gone over this earlier in the week, his first lesson on a surfboard. 

The prone position, in which we dip our arms into the water to paddle, begs the essential question about riding a surfboard standing up: How do you get from your stomach to your feet in a split second? You "pop up."

The surf schools promote a method that involves a middle position on one knee. Being instinctively unorthodox, I have always jumped to my feet in one motion.

I demonstrated my pop-up move to my 13-year-old student and said simply: "If you catch a wave, get to your feet as fast as you can."

I doubted the issue would come up, since waves were not breaking. But you want to be ready.

As we paddled farther and farther out waves came humping in, but not breaking, mounds of water created by currents beneath the surface. The chilly water was also rising on the incoming tide.

We rode the humps on our stomach and during lulls between sets we sat on our boards while the sun rose above the eastern horizon. We scanned the landsape from our position in the water. The boy had kept pace on his first lengthy paddle.

"This is the best way to start a day," I said, acknowledging the orange glow in the eastern sky.

I pointed to a fishing boat chugging out to sea. "Salmon season opens this weekend."

The boy just smiled and I wondered what he was thinking. He builds things, has the mind of a scientist not a poet.

The sets began to increase in number and the humps grew in size. We were alone, our hands and feet numbed. The beach where we had parked our slippers on the sand seemed miles away. Water sloshed around us. A black scoter duck landed, dove beneath the surface with a plop. The special smell of the sea wafted about us. 

"This is so much fun, Papa," he said. 

"Yes, Samson, I love it," I said. And I smiled.

Paddling back, we rode the humps that were increasing in number and size. Would they start breaking? We neared the shore and they rose higher. An hour ago before the tidal change, these humps surely would have broken, pitching tons of foamy water.

We waited for a lull before making our final approach to the beach.

The wind had shifted. An onshore breeze from the ocean had blown in low clouds that blocked out the sunshine. The air temperature had dropped. We couldn't find our slippers. The boy searched up and down the empty beach. I began to shiver in my soaking wetsuit.

Who would take our slippers? The boy also left a shirt that had disappeared. Was this an April fools joke? 

We walked across the sand to the pavement carrying our boards and shivering from time spent searching the beach. Our fingers and toes stung with numbness. We faced an uphill barefoot walk carrying our longboards. 

I don't remember feeling so cold or so content.

"When are we going surfing again, Papa?" he said.