It's so easy to take the powers of nature for granted. We get used to the normal cycles that mark the passage of time in our lives. The processions of days and nights, yearly seasons, winds and swells parade past us reassuring us of life's predictable goodness. But once in a while nature reminds us of the wonder of forces beyond our imagination. As surfers we are witnesses to certain of these forces more frequently than many, but even for us there are moments that leave one breathless. Yesterday was one of those days here in Santa Cruz.
I left work a little early, knowing that the tides would be best in the late afternoon, and hoping that a little pulse of a south swell I'd heard about would show. It was sunny and offshore at Pleasure Point when I arrived, and indeed, there were occasional head high sets coming through. The crowds were way down now that the Labor Day holiday was passed and it looked like a perfect opportunity. I was on it.
As I slipped into my wetsuit, I could hear a muffled boom drift across the bluff and figured the tide was about right for set waves to break into nearby cliff caves creating the racket. Cool…set waves…
As I raced across Eastcliff Drive and down the stairs, the sun vanished behind a strange velvet gray carpet of clouds.
As I paddled out into the lineup I heard a long series of tremendous BOOOOOMS that rolled across the bay and echoed off the cliffs lining the beach. Turning my head toward Monterey I saw a series of lightning strikes rooted deep in the ocean and reaching high into the gray mass of clouds above.
A brief tropical shower poured down on those of us witnessing this event from the water. Raindrops dancing on the ocean's surface.
We could still see patches of blue sky inland but the gray mass above us covered the bay and began to morph and change like some Spielberg special effect creating celestial peaks and valleys. The cloud produced several puckered anomalies that would erupt in lightning. Some of the lightning stuck the ocean, some of it hit distant mountain ranges, and some of it flashed across the cloud mass horizontally. The echo of thunder continued almost constantly as we counted the seconds from lightning flash to the thunderous report. Twelve seconds, far enough away for now…
The clouds kept morphing. Deep valleys linked the deep spots in the gray mass, producing even more horizontal lightning.
Overhead sets loomed in the kelpbeds as we raced for position. Scratch…. drop in…. climb up a gray seashell shaped wall wrapping toward Sharks… trim for speed racing the wave face looming over my head … FLASH… BOOM…. straighten out as the final section closed...
As I stood on the sandy beach our watery theater was ringed in lightning, and the thunder sounded like canon fire repeating so often they sometimes overlapped one another. Black disk shaped clouds hovered to the north.
I paddled back out… weighing the risks… energized by the extraordinary forces surrounding me. The grommets who had been dropped off after school were alternating between silent awe and outrageous shrill outbursts of youthful thrill.
The ring of lightning and thunder continued… the showers danced across the lineup… the sets loomed… the cloud cover writhed and shifted like some living thing.
Between sets older surfers spoke in hushed tones of other extraordinary moments they had witnessed, when nature had demonstrated its savage capacity for drama and power.
One last wave and I went in. The thunder counts were down to five seconds and the reports sounded like a string of gigantic firecrackers had been lit off over the mountains.
As I changed into dry clothes, the sun broke through.
Last night the thunder and lightning returned, and I stood alone on the bluff at Manresa overlooking a panoramic view of the entire Monterey Bay, hypnotized by lightning strikes and rolling thunder from Monterey to Santa Cruz. Horizontal… vertical… diagonal… and an occasional flash that had no single strike point but brightened the Pacific horizon so intensely I was momentarily blinded.
It was music…
Copyright©1999, 2000, 2001 by Stephen Hull. All Rights Reserved