Iron Fist

Eight AM on Sunday found us well on our way westbound, heading towards the Oregon coast and hoping that the clouds would burn off by the time we arrived. It was to be our first surfing trip of the summer, and Johanna’s first surfing lesson. “Guys, I’m kind of nervous,” she confided.

“About surfing?”

“Yeah, but also about just being in the ocean. I’m trying not to get too anxious about it.”

Now, it’s not that Niels and I are raging dickheads, or even insensitive. It’s just that, given opportunity and a bit of idle time, we will make up some of the most ridiculous shit you’ve ever heard.

“You have to watch out for jellyfish,” Niels said. “They’ll stick on to your skin and they won’t let go. And since you’re wearing a wetsuit, the only place they can latch on to you is your face. The only way to get them to let go is to pee on them.”

“That’s not to underscore the danger of seal rape this time of year,” I chimed in. “It’s their mating season. If you find yourself suddenly being fondled by flippers, remember that your best defense is to just go limp while the seal dry humps you. He’ll get bored pretty quick and swim off.”

“You guys are really funny,” she said. “Assholes.”

We’re at the end of the 26 and headed south on US 101 before we know it, down through Cannon Beach where tourists come to gawk and buy baubles but never art for some reason, those bastards, and we make our way to Arcadia Beach. I haven’t been here in almost a year. I like it because it’s a big stretch of beach with only a small adjoining parking lot, and so it never gets very crowded. There’s only about six cars here this early, and only two surfers in the water that we can see. It’s still overcast, and there’s mist hugging the beach, but it’s gorgeous and rugged and raw here and I wouldn’t be anywhere else this morning for all the world. So we suit up and head down to the shore. There’s only two boards between the three of us, and Niels is teaching Johanna, but after an hour I give him my board and float free in the waves, since there’s nowhere I’m more at home than in the water. We swap boards a few times, taking breaks on the shore in between, and I’m out by myself at one point when karma catches up with me, and a harbor seal sticks its head up out of a cresting wave and turns to look right at me from not more than twenty feet away.

We get out of the water about half past noon, when we realize that we aren’t catching any more waves and are essentially getting the crap beat out of us by the rapidly receding tide. But that’s just fine, the sun has finally cleared away the clouds and so we sit on our towels and drink a few drinks before heading south in search of something to eat.

I’d like to say that that’s the deepest blue I’ve ever seen the ocean, but its hard to say since I spend so much of the year cooped up inland with clouds and rain that when I finally get to the beach in the summer it alway seems as if I’m seeing the sea for the first time, taking in that rich blue as it stretches towards infinity.

We eventually get to the tiny town of Wheeler and have lunch on the deck of the Sea Shack. I’m not terribly sure this is a good idea since I’m pretty sure that I’m tremendously sunburned, having declined to apply sunscreen to my face earlier on the grounds that I was plenty brown from my bike ride two days before and thus immune to any further radiation effects. Still, the view of the lagoon at Nehalem and the surrounding mountains is too good to pass up, so I take one for the team and crisp myself a little bit longer in the afternoon rays.

It’s probably close to four when we get back into the car to go back to Portland. We’re all pretty wiped out at this point, the sun and sand and surf and beer having taken their toll. But it was a day well spent, as any day at the beach with good friends should be.

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