You’ve been tracking the incoming swell for a week, maybe it’s even been on your radar for longer. You wake up long before the sun to ensure you make the most of it all. We all know what happens next. You weren’t exactly in on a secret. There’s traffic on the 101 (yes, it’s the 101) long before typical rush hour. You pull into a parking lot that’s already full before sunrise.
This oughta be fun.
Hope is an enduring sentiment that comes with the promise of a solid northwest swell at Rincon. It’s what gets us all out of bed at 4 am. Hope that we’ll have the session of the winter. Hope that we’ll race the Queen’s long, rifling right-hand lines for hundreds of yards.
But hope and reality often exist in mutually exclusive places. By the time you’ve finally found that parking space — at least 30 minutes after you thought you’d be in the water — you remember that those daydreams of scoring a peaceful day of waves at California’s best wave conveniently omitted the 15 people you’d have to dodge on the face of any given set wave. You forgot about the boards that would be thrust over the falls and aimed right at your head. The ringing of “Hey Hey HEYYY!” from several yards behind the peak is already in your ears.
Will it be worth all of the inevitable chaos?
Truth be told, we all know it is if we snag just one of those set waves.
Editor’s Note: Find more from videographer Brad Jacobson on Youtube.
