So what did mere mortals do during the peak onslaught of the big swell? Well, Jason and I certainly spent many hours watching the big waves from the beach and we also looked for places where the swell was a little more manageable. We found a couple spots in Rincon and Aguadilla where it usually never broke, but during this epic swell all kinds of remote coastal nooks and crannies were lighting up. These spots didn't take the full brunt of the swell since some of them were almost completely blocked from the North/Northeast direction of the swell, or the wrap that did make it to those spots was much tamer. So ironically, during the biggest days of the swell, Jason and I probably surfed the smallest waves, but once the swell started to taper off, we were able to emerge from our ratholes and charge the spots that were previously unrideable.
Some of the coolest (and most photogenic) spots we checked out were Gas Chambers and Manglito next to Crashboat Beach. These two breaks are very similar in that they break very close to shore against rocky cliffs and that they are both very hollow tube-like waves. They are fickle though, meaning they only break on a few occasions each year, when a swell is both big enough and comes from the right direction. The lineups for the waves were extremely crowded, and dominated by boogey boards in a ratio of about 2:1 to surfers. With these kind of waves, it's all about getting barreled, shacked, pitted, tubed (I'm sure there's plenty of other synonyms for the word). And it seems like these waves are more conducive (and less hazardous) to the bodyboarders. Especially considering that there were often rebound waves coming through here: these are waves that had crashed, had hit the rocky shoreline and were now heading back towards the lineup where the surfers were on their waves - quite a few times we saw people on a wave when a rebound wave came in and violently smacked them off of it.
In fact, after watching these waves for a while, I was quite excited about trying my luck at the Wishing Well break close by. It looked a little bit smaller and slightly slower than Gas Chambers and Manglito and at the time I was psyched about surfing anything that looked less than double overhead big.
Now let me explain something about the characteristics of waves, because none of them ever seem to be EXACTLY the same.. but in Puerto Rico, although the waves are quite a bit bigger than your average US East Coast beach break, they tend to be slightly more forgiving. This can be seen in the way most waves in Puerto Rico sort of crumble over, and then peel to one side. This makes the wave easy to get into, and easy to stay on - allowing the surfer time and space to adjust. However, it does require the surfer to paddle harder and push himself into the wave. On the East Coast of the US the wave usually pitches enough to push you in, and then just tumbles over all at once into a close out with very little open face to ride. So back to these barreling waves in Puerto Rico, of which Wishing Wells that I was about to surf is one. They jack up extremely quick, break close to the shore, are extremely glassy and clean and are as fast as greased lightning.
So I drop into my first wave and get wiped out pretty quick. I need to turn down the line as soon as possible I tell myself in preparation for my second attempt. I drop in again but I didn't calculate the angle just right as I am high up on the wave where the lip picks me up off my board and slams me down on the flat glassy water below. Faceplant... hard! It literally felt like getting an extremely forceful open handed slap on the side of my grill.. quite jarring. I shake off the cobwebs, get back in the lineup and try to settle down. "Get the angle right, don't stay too high on the wave" I tell myself. Drop in number 3: I really don't remember what I did that time, but I sure remember the final result.. faceplant! Smacked again. So after that, with my tail between my legs, I paddled out of that situation. I can still remember the awesome view of the glassy tube in front of me, like looking down the barrel of a big gun (and when ridden properly, the surfer looks like a bullet going through it). Cool wave, but it allows no room for error, and I still make a ton of 'em. I can totally see how (good) surfers get all excited about these waves, because it's all adrenalin right from the get go. No moves, no waiting for the wave, just screaming through a tube at top speed like a bat out of hell.
This is what Gas Chambers looks like in between sets... not only do you have to worry about trying to catch this freight train of a wave and trying to emerge unscathed.. but you also gotta look out for the 50 other guys out there trying to do the same thing!
Surfer at Manglito making it look oh so easy, in the right place at the exact right time.
Busy picture? Let's see whats happening here starting from the right: Surfer dropped in too deep and is about to get cleaned out by whitewater. Bodyboarder looks like he has this wave dialed and may actually make it out, while the water-borne photographer is getting ready to snap a great picture.
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