Big wave surfing is so much bigger now – Orange County Register

I just watched videos of a 12-year-old kid getting towed into massive waves at the Jaws surf break in Maui during a monster swell that hit there a couple of weeks ago.

Blew me away.

Flashed me back to when I was 12 and first starting to ride, at least what we thought were bigger waves here in California.

Our house was right on the beach in Surfside Colony, just south of Seal Beach.  It was a great place to grow up because I could surf all I wanted, whenever I wanted.  It was right there.

And I loved it so much, I would go out in just about any and every condition.  Big, little, windy, glassy, stormy, high tide taking out houses, good shape, bad shape or no shape.  It didn’t matter, I was on it all the time.

At the far north end of our beach was the south jetty for the Navy base at Seal Beach.  On huge winter swells, big peaks would form and break out near the end of the jetty.  The big stuff.

When I was little, I would occasionally see guys out there riding it.  But it was super dangerous because there was no beach and the shore break would pound into huge jetty rocks along the beach.  If you lost your board, it was toast.

It was finding a half of a broken board on those rocks that provided me with the wood to make the first board that I shaped – they were all balsa wood back then.

When I was about 11 or 12, I started paddling out there when it was big – at first being really chicken and only taking off on the shoulders, but gradually getting more confident.  To me, this was riding big surf, the “heavies.”

I can remember Steve Rowe dramatically declaring, “It’s freaking 10 foot out here.”  Wow, that was really big.

But, in all fairness, wave size was completely misjudged in those days.  It was a mark of being brave to call a wave that was six times the height of a 6-foot person a 6-footer.  Like 6×6=6.  Didn’t make any sense at all.

I know my first wave at Waimea Bay was at least 100 feet even though George Downing called it “a solid 20 feet.”  In light of that, I wanna say the Surfside Jetty waves were more like three times overhead, so what’s that?  15 feet to 18 feet.

Gigantic for a 12-year-old little skinny me.

Roll forward to a couple of days ago.  As is my normal morning routine, I lit the fire to power up my old coal powered computer and checked my mail and Facebook pages.  Low and behold, here is this video of 12-year-old Steve “Baby Steve” Roberson getting towed into monster waves, sooooo much bigger than what we had at the Surfside Jetty.

After getting blown out the top of a few biggies, he was coached on by big wave charger Makua Rothman and wound up getting himself some really great rides on waves that most humans would not even think of attempting.

The video and story are posted on Surfline.com.  I would suggest you check it out.  Pretty amazing stuff.

And, just a side note: This is very, very dangerous for anybody, but a person that size is at a much greater risk.  Don’t send your young kids off to Hawaii to be trying this, keep ‘em home safe watching Sponge Bob or something.

Ask the Expert

Q. I am in my late 60s and have surfed since I was a teenager growing up in Florida.  I now live in Mission Viejo and surf at San Onofre Surf Beach most of the time or sometimes go to the Cliffs up at Huntington Beach.  In the past year, my back has been giving me issues and I am finding it harder and harder to pop up.  Many times I am so late getting to my feet the wave closes out on me before I get going.  Do you think going to a bigger board is the answer, or is there some sort of exercises I can do to pop up quicker?

– Les Mayzes, Mission Viejo

Welcome to the wonderful club of aging surfers, the back thing comes with the territory.  Mine got to the point where it takes a team of weight lifters to get me from prone to standing, and it also takes about a week.

My boards got gradually bigger, until I reached the point that no matter how big it was I was not getting up.  So I choose the stand up paddleboard (SUP) in order to continue surfing.

At first I was not all that thrilled about it, I was used to riding mid-size boards in the 7-foot-6 to 8-foot range, and my SUP was 10 feet.  From Lexus to Cruise Ship.

But the more I did it the more I liked it.  Got shorter boards and then started designing SUPs specially for surfing.

Now I totally love it.

I am sure I would not be still surfing if I had not made this switch.  Some go to boogie boards, knee boards, or some other form of wave riding vehicle.  It’s what makes you feel good and keeps you in the water.

I should also point out that there are those who get really big boards that they can knee paddle, that is also an option.  My feeling is that if you are gonna be on a board that big anyway you might just as well already be standing and not have to deal with getting up.  Good luck.