April 11, 2022
In case some readers are unaware, Hossegor is a famous surf spot where they hold the Quicksilver Pro France each year in early October. Kelly Slater has his footprint in the concrete right out in front of our Airbnb actually. I tried but I couldn’t fill his shoes literally or figuratively it seems.
We are in the offseason so the surf is relatively uncrowded but there are still some cracking good waves. When it’s flat or small at Hossegor (La Sud, La Nord, and/or Graviere), there are waves a short drive north at Les Estagnots. Today was one of those days, so we drove 6 minutes up the beach to Les Estagnots and it was epic. Magic Seaweed reported 4-7 feet with offshore wind but the waves seemed like a minimum of 7ft and I would say up to 11 or 12ft. The height of waves is measured from the back so it could be that the face was much larger due to the cavity that may be formed when the water is sucked back out and up the face. Anyway, the waves were big, hollow, fast, and powerful. It took me 15-25 minutes of hard paddling and duck diving to make it out past the whitewash. On the positive side, there were only a few other guys out there for this reason so it wasn’t very crowded.
Since it is a beach break, the waves shift around with the sand banks forming under water. On this particular day, they seemed to move around quite a bit so that one minute you might have a nice peak and a smooth peeling wave and the next a massive close out. So, you had to choose your wave carefully. There was a peak coming through on my right hand so I turned and paddled hard. The face was smooth and I popped up solid on my feet and began cutting across the wave. The water rose up in front of me but kept rising and I could see it begin to feather at the top. I tried to cut back up the wave to escape but it became clear I wasn’t going to make it over the top. So, I crouched down and leapt into the face of the wave, attempting to punch through to the back of the wave. Unfortunately, the wave was too powerful and I was thrown over the lip. To make matters worse, my board was whipped up into the lip as well and I felt the side of the board slam into the left side of my neck like a karate chop. The next second was just the sensation of falling through the air backwards, my feet were higher than my head and I knew I would feel the pounding of the wave in the next second. I only hoped my board wouldn’t hit me again as I bounced and spun under water, trying to conserve my energy and protect my head. When I felt a split second of calm, I swam back up to the surface, gasping for air and glad that the board hadn’t hit my esophagus. I grabbed my board and started to paddle back out.
I wanted to share that story because this is probably a normal type of lesson for an intermediate surfer. For sure, you can bet I am considering 1) wave selection – did I choose the wrong wave? 2) slow reaction – did I stay on the wave too long after I realized it would close out? and probably most importantly 3) once I realized I had to bail, how could I have done so in a better way to reduce chances of getting injured?
HOW TO FALL OR EJECT IN A CLOSEOUT BARREL/ GET LESS WORKED! – Nathan Florence
Wipe Outs – What to do – Nathan Florence
I really like the first video explanation. Basically, on my particular wave, I should have jumped feet first in front of my board and wooshed with my arms to drive myself down and hopefully out the back of the wave.
I think learning anything in life is like that. You try to avoid as many mistakes and hard lessons as possible but every now and then, it takes getting worked over to make you step back, think, research, learn and then try to do better next time.
Oh, my. That was scary!!!!
Yes! My neck will be sore for several days I’m sure. Glad I didn’t die.
Oh man! Glad you came out ok!!
Thanks! Me too!