The early morning surf check wasn’t promising.
While the Pass was tempting with its clean, two-foot, southerly swell winding down the bank, every surfer within fifty kilometres (experts, beginners, and everything in between) was thrashing, clawing, and scratching to secure one of the few worthwhile waves on offer. No, I thought. I can’t stand it. Even if I am lucky enough to nail an off-the-point set wave I will spend the next thirty meters winding my way in an out of the punters throughout the lineup who, resentful of the fact that I have scored a wave, will play the role of floating chicane. So, it’s off to Wategos.
Just as I suspected, the southerly swell was not quite making it around the Cape, so the fun little waves that were making it into the Pass were only half as big off the southern point at Wategos. Bugger. I parked the car next to the stairs that lead down to the point, grabbed the take-away coffee I had secured from High Life, and wandered over to the handrail above the beach to watch the waves for a few minutes. Maybe it would be a little better than I originally supposed. It might be worth a paddle.
Avoiding the battlefield
While the seven or eight minutes of watching and pondering hadn’t changed my original thought that not much was going on here, the idea of driving back to the Pass and entering the battlefield was not appealing. So… I convinced myself that, since there was an occasional surfable one-and-a-half-foot wave (and given that there was not a single soul in the water), I had a reasonable chance of securing one or two.
Within five minutes I had stripped down, pulled on my vest and boardies, and trotted down the steps to the water’s edge with my board under my arm.
Ick. The water was still foamy and brown courtesy of the storm-water run-off from the continuous rain we had been experiencing over the last few months.
“Oh well, at least it’s sunny,” I thought. “And the water will be warm”.
The air may have been a crisp 18 degrees, but our warm water temperatures usually linger on well into winter.
I secured my leash and slowly eased past the jagged volcanic rocks lining the shore and entered the water.
“Hmm”, I muttered to myself out loud. “It feels sharky.”
People who have spent lots of time in the ocean, (even people like me who are lousy surfers despite thirty years of trying), get these feelings about the ocean, sometimes. I’m not sure whether such feelings are based on scientifically verifiable factors, but they exist, nonetheless. So, whether there were any actual sharks hanging around or not, I still reckon it felt sharky.
Despite the possibility of a big grey fish watching me from a distance, I started my paddle out into the deeper water.
Big grey fish in the vicinity?
The water was warm, (as I knew it would be). The soft wind was blowing offshore making the small waves clean and glassy. The sun was shining brightly. The warmth of the sun baking the salt water off my face felt great. I was completely by myself. On weighing up the pros and cons, I was not going to let gut feelings abouts beasts with big teeth chase me from the water on the current available evidence. Even so, when I reached the take-off spot near the end of the point, and commenced scanning the horizon for incoming surfable waves, I also kept my eyes open for dark shadows in the water and tell-tale triangular fins cutting through the water’s surface.
Within five minutes I had paddled for two waves. With the first, my old bones, sinews, and muscles, caused me to take too long to get to my feet. As a result, the peaking wave smacked me in the back of the head and threw me over the falls. Great start. Wave one, I got smashed. Being only a two-footer, the hold down was pleasingly mild.
I had quickly bobbed back to the surface and instantly thought, “Well, if that’s as bad as a hiding gets today, then I am in for a fun session.”
The second wave was much better. I made it to my feet and trimmed down the line, then as the wave walled up, I guided the board high up to the lip then charged down the face at full speed. When I turned at the bottom and started to charge back up towards the lip the wave hit a shallow part of the sand bank and shut down, thus ending my wave. That’s okay. It was fun.
After a short paddle I was back at the takeoff spot, sitting on my board, and enjoying the sun on my face.
Heart leapt!
Moments later, out of the corner of my eye, I spied a movement in the water about fifteen meters to my left. Out of the disturbed water a dark fin appeared. The fin then slid back below the surface. My heart leapt. Shit. That’s close, I thought. What is it? My eyes stayed glued to the spot where the disturbance had been. Moments later, the fin appeared again… only now it was just ten meters away and seemingly heading in my direction. Shit. Shit. Shit. What, the hell, is it? The fin disappeared again. Suddenly the dark shape emerged again from the water and now it was a horrifyingly close five meters away. A fraction of a second later a second fin emerged right next to the first one. Then there was a third!
Holy shit! Thank God. They were only dolphins. A group of dolphins who were swimming right up to me. But this was odd dolphin behaviour. I have surfed around here for over twenty years, and I have seen dolphins maybe hundreds of times. A few times I have seen one join me on a wave that I have caught. Once a young’un even swam under me and scared the shit out of me. But I had never had a group of dolphins swim so close before. They normally keep a distance from surfers. And surfers around here normally keep a respectful distance from any pod that happens to wander into the surf line-up. This was totally different.
A few moments later and there were three large grey bodies stopped right next to my surfboard. They were so close that I could count the jagged edges to their swept back dorsal fins. So close that I could clearly see, below the surface, where their dark backs transition into milky white bellies. So close that I could see into the breathing holes near the tops of their heads. So close that I could see scars and blemishes on their streamlined bodies. So close that I could hear the animals breathing. So close that I could have reached out and touched any one of the three.
Suddenly, a fourth dolphin appeared in the water to my right. Then there was a particularly large animal right in front of my board. Holy hell. I was almost surrounded by the creatures. I swear that there were at least five of them… maybe more… plus me and my surfboard… in an area no bigger than a Volkswagen. And they were all completely stationary.
Surrounded!
I looked from animal to animal. I admired their beautiful bodies. I looked at their heads and tried to see their faces. I peered at their eyes and wondered whether they were looking at me. All thought of catching waves had completely got. I was mesmerized by the presence of these large creatures who were, for some reason, just stopped in the water right next to me.
In truth, I have no idea how long this went on for. Maybe only a minute. Maybe they stayed for five minutes. I really don’t know. I was so excited, confused and awe struck that I lost most of my sense of time. All I know is that, after a period, the five, six, seven… however many there was… slowly moved away from me and headed out to the deeper water. Five minutes later there was no evidence of what had just happened. No more fins. No more disturbed water. No more large bodies floating near the surface. Just me, my surfboard, and the tiny waves.
I bobbed up and down in the same spot for some minutes. No waves came by to interrupt my dumfounded state. Assuming nothing of equal significance was likely to happen if I stuck around longer, I decided to call it a day. Not many waves had been caught but I had been mobbed by a crowd of oddly behaving cetaceans so I could hardly complain that my little Wategos paddle was a complete waste of time.
Half an hour later I was cruising the aisles at the grocery store when I bumped into a friend who I regularly share coffee with. No sooner had we exchanged the usual greetings than I started babbling about my unusual surfing experience. I prattled on excitedly for some minutes describing, in detail, how the dolphin crew had provided me with a show unlike anything I had ever seen before.
When I finally paused for breath she responded, “Oh… interesting. They were protecting you from a shark. It must have been sharky today.”
I guess she was right.
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