My Wave Story (w/ pics)

My Wave Story (w/ pics)

mattyAndyWave

Still in Maui, loving every minute of it. The wedding event, as well as the trash the dress shoot, are over (pictures on this coming later this week). We scheduled a couple extra days to vacation in paradise after all the wedding busyness before we head back to the mainland. Anywho… had a fun story to share with you all today.

Pictured above is myself (left) and my good friend, Andy (right). Yes, that is a wave coming right at us, and yes, it was quite a few feet taller than we were. Maui had just been slammed with a monsoon. Heavy rains and winds reformed the beach overnight, creating to what Andy and I were to soon find out the hard way – very high, hard hitting waves that only left a few inches of water for you to land in when the wave punished you. This was… about wave 4 or 5, and the biggest and last one we decided to try and take-on that day.

Water, it’s a pretty powerful force. Clearly something Andy and I didn’t have a full respect for until we were completely owned and nearly drowned. We were in about the worst point for this thing too. As it hit, we were both instantly at it’s mercy. It sent me directly to the floor, hitting so hard it knocked out any air that was presently in my lungs (which was most needed at this moment in time), and put me in a tumble of which I couldn’t tell you how many times I rolled as I was still in the middle of the aquatic carnage. Andy didn’t fair much better, as his body board was wedged under his arm and the sea floor, the water attempting to dislocate his shoulder.

I wish I could be all macho, come out of the chaos and be like “that was a cute little wave,” however, with zero air in my lungs and being deprived of oxygen for a handful of seconds, as well as being tossed around like a rag doll… well, I didn’t look the coolest when I finally got my head above water (pictured below). Already feeling the welts on my back as I finally got my hands off my knees, I look up to see a life guard standing in front of me, ready to give us the “dumbass speech.” I’m sure thats exactly what we looked like, so I was definitely going to hear him out. First, he asked if we were ok, which I’m sure was a valid question at that moment in time, us sucking for air. Second, he gave us some advice on how to handle these kind of waves. In short, no one should try to navigate those kind of waves in such a shallow surf. It’s punishment no matter how you slice it, all you can do is dive through them. This much needed information would have been spectacular to have prior to this day.

It was a pretty scary situation, honestly. When you don’t know which way is up, all you can hear is the muffled sound of water crashing and swishing around, sand so thick in the water you can’t see your hand in front of you, and then your mind goes “uh oh, this is gonna get real ugly if I don’t have air in a couple seconds.” Of course those couple seconds go right on by and you still have not fulfilled your body’s request for air, it gets super scary. It was bad enough that the rest of our party came to the end of the surf as the action was taking place to see if we were ok. Enter life guard, stage right, flashing us the ‘universal OK” sign (or is that “you guys are assholes for making walk over here?”).

After the 5 waves or so that kicked our asses, we decided that swallowing a gallon of sea water and going without oxygen for longer than we care for, that we’d wait for another beach and nicer waves to boogie board. We stuck with the swimming for the rest of the day, after all, living is something I wanna do for at least the rest of the trip…

More posts coming with wedding pics, gear used, etc., so stick around!

Tags:
, ,