Brock's belated tale of another rumble at The Bay

[Editor's note: Brock submitted this a month ago, which dates it even more. Our bad for not posting it. Still, it's as relevant as ever.]

I wrote this blog a long time ago. I thought I sent it in, but obviously I didn't. I feel a lot better than I did back then. Sitting around hurt led to some depression, and thoughts about getting old. I should write a blog on it, but no one wants to hear me whine. I'm lucky, my shoulder is fine, ribs all good, and I just surfed 10 ft. Lanis.

I was planning on writing this blog before I wrote my last one. I've got a sore shoulder and for some reason, I feel like writing. My last blog will explain why my shoulder is sore. I feel like pretending the last blog didn't happen.

It's been about 4 weeks since the ribs got hurt. The Eddie happened about 1 and a half weeks ago. Sorry to be such a wimp about my ribs, just setting up the story. I'm ready to go surfing, Waimea is 12 to 15, and looks fun. Waimea seemed like a good wave to get my feet back on my board. It has a big channel and at 15ft. it isn't very hard to surf.

I was out for about half an hour, catching all kinds of waves. I had a couple of good ones, a couple of wipeouts. It felt good to be in the water after a month off.

In general, I was taking off pretty deep, right on the boil, when a 15ft. wave came in. I swung around and went. A couple of guys dropped in on me, so I decided to jump off when I got to the bottom of the wave. I was suprised how much power the wave had where I jumped. I must have been right on the boil. Anyway, the wave tossed me around pretty good, but I was fighting it, and about to get to the surface. Right when I thought I was going to get some air, the wave shoved me down deep. Now we got problems.

I didn't get a good breath before I went under, and now I was super deep. I figured if I fought, I'd come up in the next wave. I tried to relax, and slowly make my way to the surface. As I was coming up, I could hear the next wave rumbling towards me, so I kind of went limp. I knew I shouldn't waste energy. The second wave finally came over me. Luckly, it wasn't very strong, and it didn't really push me back down. I made my way to the surface, and got a fricken breath. I couldn't believe it, the first 2 wave hold down of my long life.

I got married on Waimea point. I pretty much made a career out of surfing the place. I grew up 5 minutes away. I should feel comfortable out there. At any size the place scares me. I've come close to dying out there a few times. Every time I begin to feel good about my relationship with the bay, the place tries to kill me. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say, but as I sit here with my dislocated shoulder (from Waimea), I just wish the place would give me a break, and I don't mean the physical kind.— Brock