Thursday, March 20: Giant Tres Palmas

Ok, another day. Up early and have a cup of coffee and finish waking up. The wind seems to have come down some, overnight, and out in front, it’s large, down by Parking Lot’s. How large is kind of hard to tell from this elevation and distance, but it’s still got that slow motion look to it. I’m on the rail, drinking my cup of coffee, and what looks to be a fifteen wave set pours through in the distance below, and the sound from it is loud and clear, even at this remove. So ok, there’s still surf.

Let’s go check it.

Drive down 413 and pull in to the parking area at Maria’s just as the sun begins to peek over the hill. Hardly anybody around, anywhere. Just a couple of cars and a few folks ambling about in the cool of the morning.

High water in the Maria's parking lot

Never seen water come this far up

First thing I notice is that the water has just finished coming WAY the hell up into the parking area well past the confines of the beach. We must have just missed that little surge, ‘cause there’s no footprints in it, and the debris it hurled shoreward is still soaking wet.

Holy shit.

Never seen the water up this far. Impressive.

This stuff is bigger than it looks

Much bigger than it looks, in fact

To my west, the ocean is just going batshit crazy.

The water is churned a mocha brown, and malevolent walls of water are fuming and exploding out beyond the normal Maria’s lineup, which is completely gone, overwhelmed by what’s pouring through out there.

Needless to say, there’s nobody out. Impossible paddle, and impossible ride. Two strikes and you’re out. Down the beach, gigantic brown bombs are going off at some kind of outer Dogman’s and beyond, with great plumes of spray rising into the sky as they come over. Well at least the wind’s offshore.

Big booming peaks were coming over		A lot of energy was being released		Theoretically, I guess it was rideable

HooWEE.

Got the camera on it and the pictures are getting snapped as quick as I can take ‘em.

Did the guy who designed this roof ever envision this sort of loading?

Well ok, that’s nice, but what else is going on out there?

Let’s drive down the coast a ways and take a look, hmm?

Full tilt scene along the roadway as I approach Tres Palmas. Cars and people all over the place, and outside it’s cycloptic and the tow-in guys are giving it a go.

I decide to keep driving, and head on down to Little Malibu.

Take the turn and park right in front of the bar and walk around the side to get a look at things. Similar deal as Maria’s with just a few folks around. The place is mostly deserted. Water has come up all the way past the bar on its south side, and I’ve never seen that before either. Wow! Out front, it’s a toilet bowl. The wave at Little Malibu is also overwhelmed by the amount of water surging around out there, and the rip that starts at Tres Palmas is just whooshing by outside, and the water’s full of junk and it’s all weirded out with lumps, bumps, double ups, and a wide variety of other very major imperfections. Ye gods!

This is real surf.

I wander around back behind the bar, and just sort of take it all in.

Off in the distance, nearly hidden by the pervasive mist, Tres Palmas thunders down the line right at us. Tow-in guys are going at it hammer and tongs, racing the wave like demons. I can see a few paddle guys, but they’re not doing all that much for the time being.

Tres thunders along through the fume and spray

Looking in the other direction, the wave that sort of breaks out in front of the balneario, which is a local beach park down that way, is a disorganized jumble of chunked out soups and brown water. I’ve always wondered if that wave might get its act together if it only had a little size, and the answer is a resounding NO!

Little Malibu itself is occasionally rideable looking, but for the most part is also jumbled up and hopeless. Couple that with the extreme shallowness of the place, and there’s no takers.

Tres, rumbling along in the distance

Speaking of takers, up towards Tres a little ways, but by no means anywhere near the place, a trio of shortboarders is paddling through the rip headed seaward. Hmm. What the hell are those guys doing? Dunno. They eventually make it out past the backoff and then jumbled soups, and then proceed to sort of sit it out as the rip steadily eases them ever-southward, farther and farther away from Tres. Looks like they want to ride that rubbish. Whatever.

Very primeval-looking through all the mist

A Puerto Rican man and lady have sauntered down, and they engage me in some friendly conversation, and they too are wondering what’s up with those guys? The lady looks concerned for their health and well-being, and she’s very likely right to be concerned.  The guys on the boards don’t really look like they know what they’re doing out there. The waves where they’ve fetched up aren’t all that very large or anything, but it’s just completely ripped up and there’s no hope of getting a proper ride.

Big. Hollow. Unridden.

As we discuss all that, another surge comes racing up the beach and almost makes it inside the bar, and everyone steps lively to stay out of its flotsam-filled clutches.

Finishing up a ride on the "small" part

Eventually, two of the three guys who paddled out finally realize this ain’t working and start to paddle back in. One of them reaches the far corner at Little Malibu, and damn near gets caught in there and takes a ride on the reef. But not quite. His buddy winds up half way to the boats that are parked out in the deep water to the south, and seems more than just a little disoriented, too. Guy number three is nowhere to be seen. Never did find out what happened to him.

Grinding through from outside, uncatchable

Interesting day at the beach today down here in sunny PR, that’s for sure.

Line Drive

Finally, I’ve about had enough of this mess, and pay my respects to the nice people and get the hell out of here.

Next stop, the Main Event.

The road is swarmed with people and cars and I drive around a couple of times and still can’t find a proper spot, and settle for less and take a walk.

Familiar faces

I’m hoofing along the sidewalk, and there before me are some familiar faces from back in Cocoa Beach. I’m el–sucko with names and faces, so forgive me guys for not putting your names down. I’m both face AND name blind, and it’s a little handicap I’ve had to endure all my life, and it hasn’t gone away this morning either. But I know everyone, and they know me, and isn’t that enough? It better be, ‘cause that’s all my swiss-cheese brain has to give.

Chitchat and desultory conversation for a while, and then I finally depart, camera in hand, in search of a better vantage point to take pictures from.

See ya.

The wave is better organized than it was yesterday

Finally find a little place with a bit of a view, and it’s time to get into some serious gandering at them thar waves out yonder.

The wave is better organized than it was yesterday, with much less of that fat chunky deal that was going on. Some of them have actual walls that run down the coast.

Why don’t I just sort of stop right here and try to describe Tres Palmas on a fairly substantial day for those of you who may not have encountered such a thing before?

Ok, I will.

Here we go.

This part of the island is situated just beneath the ‘nose’ of the peninsula that has the town of Rincon on its ‘underside’ and Puntas more or less along its ‘top.’ The tip end of the nose is where Rincon Lighthouse is located, westernmost part of the whole island. As you look toward the sea, with the lighthouse in the center, Domes is to your right, and Maria’s is to your left. Since the coastline is now following around beneath the extremity of the ‘nose’ of the peninsula, everything south of the lighthouse is actually facing SOUTH of due west. This swell is coming from almost due north, and it seems odd that it makes it around this way, but make it, it does. And I don’t mean some kind of thinned out attenuated ‘make it’ either.

Between the palms, backside on a big one

That's an awfully long wall to be aiming down, trying to get beyond it

It booms right on in, despite the goofy direction that the beaches are actually facing.

About the only thing I’ve ever seen that compares to it, would be an obscure peak called ‘Generals’ that breaks once in a blue moon, out in the deep water well outside of the bodywhomp sand-bottom beachbreak at Sandy Beach in Hawaii, on large north swells. Not sure how that one works either, but if you’re lucky enough to catch it, you’ll find yourself sitting out there watching sets come marching your way more or less directly in from the island of Molokai. This of course makes no sense at all, but the reality of the situation is not to be denied, and neither is the reality of Tres Palmas.

I pushed this shot pretty hard to enlarge it. I only had a 300mm lens, and if things look funny, it's because I pushed them harder than I should have.

And, weirdly enough, despite the fact that it’s almost the last break down the line before the swell just starts completely missing the coast altogether and just heads back on out to sea, Tres really sucks it in and is larger than more exposed beaches to its north. Sometimes a LOT larger.

Here's the whole cleanup sequence

Like I said, it’s goofy.

Ok then, let’s get the general layout of things, shall we?

Right at the foot of the lighthouse, the water deeps off pretty damn quick, and the waves bash against the rocks except when it’s huge like today. Head south just a little bit, and Indicators starts breaking out away, but is still a bit close to the rocks for my taste. Boogie boarders love it, ‘cause they can just hammer right along up to the last second, right into the very teeth of the jagged limestone, and then just plurk themselves under and back out without a care in the world, in similar fashion as body-surfers can.

Down past Indicators, and there’s Maria’s. At the head of the break at Maria’s, the wave now breaks outside a ways, and the soup rolls all the way to the beach. As you head downcoast towards Dogman’s, the shallow part of the reef begins to trend slightly away from the coastline, and a backoff of deeper water appears inside of where the waves break. The outside reef continues to trend ever so slightly away from the coast past Dogman’s till you get to Tres Palmas, where it sort of fizzles out into some pretty damn deep water.

The effect is to place the break at Tres Palmas a healthy distance outside, and unless it’s booming like it was today, it backs completely off before it gets to the beach. And even today, downpoint, the backoff remains without any soup. None at all. So you get this outside reef that’s been trending south southeast, veering slightly but steadily away from the coast, and when you’re at Tres Palmas, the sense of the thing is that the deepening water at the end of this reef makes for a noticeable corner for the wave to round, giving it enough shape to make it rideable without too much worry about getting nailed inside, paddling back out for your next one.

It just keeps on coming		Once it winds up, it just GOES.		This is not the place to lose your speed

Got all that?

Brown-bag left in the "don't do it" zone

Good.

As I said, for whatever peculiar reasons of general physics and particular bathymetry, the wave comes in at Tres with full force and effect. No thinning out, no weakening, no reduction in power. It swings around out there, and crosses itself, and it wants to form these big fat tapering peaks that will trend right, but also throw a helluva left.

The Coast Guard flew by and got a good close look a couple of times, but other than tell the next of kin where the Bad Thing had happened, I really don't know what they thought they might have been able to do

But you don’t go left at Tres Palmas. No. Don’t do that, ok?

It’ll get your ass for sure if you try that shit.

Look close, for the guy on the peak

Don’t even think about it.

Standing alongside the road, it’s all laid out before you, just as pretty as a picture.

The land slopes gently uphill till it gets to the roadway, which is several hundred yards in from the water’s edge. There’s a bit of roll to the coastal zone, and some places on the road offer a better perspective on the action than others.

Down at the water’s edge, and all the way back to the roadway, it’s a cow pasture, and there’s a nice herd of cows photogenically located for your viewing pleasure beneath the tall coconut palms that line the beach. The crowns of these palms sort of block your view of the wave, but it’s not bad, and they add some nice interest to the view.

Two-tone bomb		that looks nice, but really it isn't		Size grinding in from the tow-in zone

Small guy, big squared-off lip		Puny human,		it had size this day

To your right, lower Dogman’s is the first bit of ocean you get a proper view of. Past that and the vegetation blocks your vision.

Unridden cleanup peak in the paddle-in zone

Directly in front of you, is, I guess, a sort of, well, what do they call that part? Upper Tres? I need to ask somebody. Whatever it’s called, it’s a bit upcoast from the proper break, which is a little left of center, where that corner in the reef occurs. Past that to your left, and the whitewater cuts under the vegetation once again, down past Tres. Today, and yesterday, there’s a couple of boats parked out there, in the safe zone, just past the break.

So here’s what’s going on. To the right, the rip headed down the whole coast has browned the water up but good. But Tres is just far enough outside that it’s mostly in the pretty blue clear water. Brown to your right, blue to your left.

Just another spectacular giant left

Way the hell outside, right of center, well past the brown zone, you can see lines angling in from the north. It’s gotta be fairly substantial to see anything at all this far outside, but today it’s ever so loud and clear.

Bad news takeoff attempt

Depending on where the waves gather themselves together, a variety of things can happen.

If it’s too far right, then you get these hulking fat evil-looking brown peaks at Lower Dogman’s, that occasionally just HEAVE, throwing some deep throaty barrels, a lot of which seem to want to go against the grain, left, spouting industrial-sized gouts of fume and spit that blow back over them like weird thunderstorms in a bottle.

Big right, with boils

Nobody is even THINKING about that stuff. It’s just too psycho. It loops and spits into a toilet bowl inside and is not to be trusted in the slightest degree.

If it comes in over to the left, then it’s fair game for the paddle-in guys who are all sitting over that way. In a malevolently deceptive way, it almost looks as if that part of things is the leftovers. The inside, as it were. The tail end of things.

Not where you want to be when		Tres Palmas is coming at large size

Not so.

When it comes, it throws with a mighty heave and there’s either people stroking like hell to get outside and around it (as I so signally failed to do, yesterday), or they’re scratching to catch it.

Close quarters with a lot of soup

The wave booms down and away from where I’m watching, with a huge and very energetic mound of whitewater that completely obscures the riders occasionally, headed down and away from me, not all of whom manage to come back out after they've disappeared behind the seething white anger.

Not much you can even say about something like this

And if it comes in on center, then the fun really begins.

This is where the tow-in crew has set up shop, and it’s a sight to behold.

This is also where the largest waves are arriving.

It comes hulking in dark and blue, way outside, and you can see the ski do a tight 180 with a guy behind it on a rope, and then they take off like demons headed in and across, toward where the paddle-in guys are getting a ringside-seat view of things.

As it comes farther inside, it begins to stand up and sparkle and feather, deep blue and magnificent.

The guy lets go of the rope, the ski departs out ahead and over the top, and then its just classic man against nature as the rider sizes things up and does his level best to work things correctly.

There’s so much water moving around that it’s very deceptive to watch.

Tres bent this guy over at the waist, a split second before it engulfed him

Guys are just flying down the line, well out ahead of things, and you find yourself wondering why they’re not staying a little more critical with the wave. Which then answers your question by coming over like Niagara Falls, with a mass of whitewater that seems to have a life and intent all its own, that suddenly spreads out along its bottom and is now just inches in back of the rider, straining for all he’s worth to keep it from enveloping him from behind and below. Most of the time they make it, but once in a while they just get completely snowballed in the thing and blink out of existence as if they were never there.

This is some shit, let me tell you!

And so the hours go by, the shutter snaps and stutters, the breeze ruffles your hair, the pretty girls go by in cars, the paddle guys occasionally get cleaned up en masse, the brown evil at Lower Dogman’s occasionally throws a left that’s round enough to drive the whole factory where the trucks were made through, the cows bovinely await their fate, the tow-in guys snag a few bombs, and from this distance it’s all so safe and serene as you watch and watch and watch.

Tow-in Of Doom, full sequence

What a life, eh?

Finally it’s time to go home and sort it all out on the computer.

And fix the fin on my board.

Rob kindly allows me the use of his tools, and then even more kindly goes and gets some resin and cloth to glue things together.

This old board is on its last legs and I make no real effort to do a clean job .

Time to let it sit and set up.

Pick your direction,		pick your water color

And then time to get on the computer and diddle the data, of which there’s plenty.

This machine is my backup laptop. I don’t fancy the idea of it being my good laptop should something unpleasant befall me on this little jaunt.

But that sort of thing comes at a price, which is storage space. The six gig hard drive has only one and a half gigs of free space, so I gotta store all the shots on my memory chips. So I fill a chip in the camera, transfer all the images to the machine to go through and cull out the blurry ones, and then turn right around and put ‘em back on the chip again for storage.

Big blue grinder		Sketchy drop		Big blue, through the palms

Delicately-shaded		violence at Tres

Overview with bomb right

Crappy system, but it’s all I got.

And in the middle of it all, one of the chips, decides to inform me that approximately one and a half gigs of data no longer exists.

Shit piss fuck hell damn!

I go at it for a bit with a file recovery program, but this old rig just ain’t got the horsepower to make any serious inroads into things, and I prudently decide to take that chip out of circulation and hopefully save the data when I get home and can work from my good desktop machine.

Dream-like perfection at Tres Palmas, although it would be your worst nightmare if you got in its way

I’ll let ya know if it worked or not, ok?

Tres Palmas, looking like one of those old shots of Waimea taken back in the early 60's

Rob comes by, inquiring about the fin work, and I tell him what has befallen me, and he immediately offers to store stuff on his machine and then copy it all to DVD. I’m all over that shit and promptly dump EVERYTHING, from all my little chips, onto his hard drive. What’s left adds up to 1.8 gigs, so we’ve got a little ways to go before there’s enough to justify burning a DVD.

Thanks Rob

Tow-in/Paddle-in duet		Unridden blue giant

The shots of the lunacy at Gas Chamber yesterday are thankfully not part of the destruction and have survived intact. Whew.

Once all that shit is dealt with, it’s time to write, so I write.

And write.

And write.

I write a lot, I guess.