The Wedge

Alex checked the weather report that morning. The waves: 6-12 feet. Awesome. Britty and I were so ready to get way cute in our bikinis and put on some sun glasses and lie down like sandy goddesses and WATCH Alex get thrashed.

We arrived and in spite of the waves being big there weren’t too many people. Just some very, very cool fit guys body-surfing in wetsuits. I wondered, ‘why? The water’s not that cold,’ after dipping my toes in the white-wash. Later, I figured out that it's probably because the waves can't rip the wetsuit off so easily. That's ominous foreshadowing, for those of you who didn't think there would be nudity in this story... you will stand most assuredly corrected. Some photographers sort of prowled about, getting sweet shots of the body-surfers as they flew across the face of the water.

Then Alex got in and started to look real scary. I could tell the water was more powerful than it first appeared, because he was clearly getting exhausted just staying upright on the walk down into the wash. Alex got in and caught some waves and wasn’t so lucky with a few others (“Brit. I think your husband is dead.” – uttered by me, the FIRST time we saw his legs flying up into the air, before he was plowed into the sand). Alex described the necessity to tread water or drown, even just a few feet into the water when he got out a few minutes later (after a struggle). We were momentarily distracted by a sea-lion that had decided to come up pretty close to some of the body surfers.

Brit was scared. I was scared. It looked like roaring white death and of course WE HAD TO GET IN! We abandoned out plan to lie back and watch the carnage, and elected instead to get involved.

Some adorable bikini beach-babes were staring at us like we were crazy as we ditched our worldly affects beside our towels and sprinted after Alex into the water with nothing but our bikinis to combat the writhing beast of the wedge’s surf. I noticed briefly that there were no other women in the water, then stopped thinking completely except for this: 'HOLY COLD, COLD COLD COLD Chillllllliiiiee!FREAKINGCOLDDDD! Ohitsbetternow… okay… wow this is kind of rough. Why are they staring? Oh yeah, hot-girls-in-biknis, forgot, stare away body surfers!' I was wrong though, they weren’t staring in the boy way of staring they were staring like 'What are these dead-tourists thinking? Life guard! ARE YOU WATCHING THIS?!'

For the record it really was a complete and unprecedented blast and we were both fine until we tried to leave.

At the wedge, trying to extract yourself from the waves can incur the wrath of Poseidon. He will try and take something with him. I lost my suit and my hair-ties. I got the suit back before anyone noticed (At least I think no one noticed). The nudity really only lasted for a few frantic seconds of scampering through the water trying to get everything back on and righted before it could all wash away. Forever.

I got ground down into the sand a couple of times and finally had to practically crawl out of the water, with matted hair and sand all in my face and by this time I was collapsing in hysterical laughter as well as physical exhaustion. This combination often leads to a weird mental state in which the possibility of drowning is suddenly HILARIOUS.

The other bikini girls were grinning when we came back to our towels. “We can’t believe you did that,” they said.

The best part was the collection of sand in my swimsuit. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I jumped about and twisted the suit to try and get it to fall out; introducing the sand-poop-ball thing the size of my HEAD. Alex, Britty and I pretty much died.

So, there’s my story about The Wedge.

To conclude. Here is a youtube video of some awesome guy named Matt surfing a big ol’ wave.