Overhead and Semi-Clean

I knelt next to my tire and pressed a seashell to its valve, letting the air hiss out. The hot tarmac under my feet had been roasting all day under the sun, and the loose sand wriggled between my toes. Parked in front of my car were the other instructors, also letting the air out of their tires in preparation for the drive out to the south side of Nauset Beach. The line of cars looked like an ad for old, used beaters.

“The forecast’s saying overhead and semi clean!” Dillon, our boss, shouted from his car as he looked down at his phone, his eyebrows raised. Dillon’s face was as sun and wind burned as his own truck.

“Yewww!” I yelled back with excitement and a twinge of nerves as I looked at the sixteen kids milling around the parking lot, here for their first day of surf camp.

Surfers dream of big, clean waves. But for surf lessons I pray for small waves – tiny, glassy bumps on the horizon that roll to shore slowly and softly. Waves are measured by feet and compared to one’s height – knee high, stomach high, chest high, overhead, double overhead, the list goes on. When you’re eight years old and under four feet tall, that stomach high wave is a lot taller than it seems. What is, to me, a gentle ride will feel like a tidal wave to them. And it doesn’t help that the ocean is as unpredictable as the kids themselves.

“Alright, everyone in! Let’s go!” Dillon yelled, and all of the kids, ranging in ages from eight to thirteen, piled into the back of the different instructors’ cars. Three sisters climbed into mine, adding to the collection of years-old sand that frosted every crevice of my car. They had white blond hair and wore blue and purple frilly bathing suits underneath sundresses. When they opened their mouths, crisp British accents spilled out. They looked and sounded like miniature versions of me.

The last door slammed closed, and our cars peeled out of the parking lot and started the drive to Cut Three, the best sand bar and surf break on Nauset Beach.

The drive is a fifteen-minute trek through the dunes bordered by marsh and ocean. Greenhead flies dive-bombed the windshield, seagulls and piping plovers wheeled overhead, and the sky opened up above us in a great, blue bowl.

Rolling up and down, the dunes rose to our left, broken only by flashes of the blue-green ocean. The dune grass fluttered in the northwestern wind, hinting at and hyping up just how good the waves would be in such wind.

To our right, the bay glittered and shimmered in the beating August sun. Salty and ripe marsh air mingled together, a scent that is so familiar to me that I can conjure it up even in the dead of winter.

The cars crawled along in a pack, like a safari without animals. Dillon led. He owns Cape Cod Surf Camp and is undoubtedly the best surfer on Cape Cod. Jimmy, the manager, followed. With knotted, salty hair that reaches down his back, peeling, bronzed shoulders, and chiseled abs, he is the epitome of a surfer. Then came Kook: aptly named. And I followed in the back.

We had shoved all of the beginner boards into the back of Dillon’s and Jimmy’s pickup trucks. Stacked high, sixteen, blue, red, and yellow nine-foot foam boards bounced around in rhythm with every bump in the sand.

Sticking out of the back window of Kook’s nearly 30-year-old Bronco – a window lodged forever in the down position – were our own boards, just incase the waves were as good as they were forecasted to be. The short, fiberglass boards in silver board bags didn’t attract quite as much attention as the colorful beginner boards, but the Bronco itself did. Its black paint had faded from the sun and begun to chip on all sides. The boxy car rumbled over the sand as Kook leaned out the window, yipping and deliberately hitting the bigger bumps in the sand. The kids in the back giggled and screeched. 

“Come on, girl!” Kook would grumble to his Bronco, patting the dashboard softy as he put it through its misery. Known as much for his surfing and fishing prowess as for his perfect attendance at the bars every night, Kook is a local character. A paradox. He would show up late to almost every lesson, but he would always be there. He grew up an eagle scout and keeps a first aid pack in the back of his car everywhere he goes alongside a sparkly hula-hoop and a cooler for the adult beverages that were always nearby. He was charming yet irritating. Solid and unreliable. A totally capable, wild man. Turning the radio volume high, he joined in with the kids in the back, chanting and singing along the whole drive.  

Finally, we arrived at Cut Three. As we drove over the hill, the first full look at the ocean revealed overhead waves tumbling into shore, spitting water high into the air above them as they toppled over with a roar. The water swirled and foamed in front of the break, an obvious rip tide. My heart jumped with selfish excitement and then dropped at the prospect of the sixteen inexperienced kids in the waves. Other than us, the beach was quiet. Only a few cars dotted the sand in the distance. The instructors got out of their vehicles and gave each other a look, signaling today was not the day to teach surfing.

The children fell out of the cars like clowns at the circus. A chorus of wow’s and woah’s echoed as they stared at the ocean. Dropping to the sand to look for shells and rocks, the younger ones quickly lost interest. We decided it would have to be an ‘on sand’ day. No surfing, no open water swimming. The waves were just too big.

“Can we at least go play in the tide pool there?” One of of the sisters asked. Her two sisters, almost identical, stood behind her with their hands clasped. The swell had left a pool of water down by the shoreline where the high tide water rises to. Behind it was a bare sandbar and then the open ocean and waves. Before we could say much, the kids were tugging on their rubbery wetsuits. After all, it was surf camp – it would be wrong to not even take a dip.

The group went down and splashed around in the knee-deep water that shimmered and rippled. The shallow water revealed the golden sandy bottom muddled with rounded rocks and white shells. Unlike the forbidding waves that built the backdrop, it was inviting and innocent. Dillon and Jimmy stayed up top and pulled the boards out of the truck in case any of the older, returning camp-goers were interested in facing the waves. Kook and I went down to the pool with the kids.

On the left of the pool, a channel lead into the open ocean that pulsed as the remnants of waves came and went. Little did we know, the channel had created a sort of vacuum that sucked water out of the tide pool and then sent it back in. In minutes, a relaxed day of surf camp went haywire. The kids went from swimming around knee deep water to spinning out of the channel into the open ocean and waves. Kook and I, too, felt the pull of the ocean. Soon enough, the rip current had dragged us all out.

The kids continued to giggle and smile before they realized they could not touch the bottom anymore. Their excitement turned to horror as they began to scream and cry. The ocean churned and sent us spinning as waves swelled and rolled over us. Working to stay afloat, the kids frantically flapped their arms and kicked their feet. The rip yanked at us, a contradictory feeling to the weightlessness and freedom the ocean usually brings.

“It’s okay! We’re okay!” I told them as I swam over to the three sisters. Wailing and coughing, they climbed onto me like I was a tree, but I had no roots to keep me sturdy. Two of the sisters pried onto each of my shoulders while I scooped the third one into my arms. I kicked as hard as I could, but my chin dipped under the water every few seconds. The shoreline looked close but kept receding as the ocean exerted its power. The push and pull wouldn’t give us a second to rest.

“Swim to me! Swim out here!” Kook yelled at the kids over and over, his voice hoarse. I swiveled my head to look where he was. He was even farther out, just in front of the breaking waves – the last place the kids should be. Crashing waves sent white water surging in and washing over him, burying him for seconds at a time before he came up. All rational thoughts had left Kook’s brain, and alarm took over. His worst fear had come true: real danger at surf camp. As surfers, we have been in those types of waves numerous times. But now, we had sixteen other lives on our watch and a lot more pressure. This wasn’t a normal day of Cape Cod Surf Camp in knee high waves. And when it came down to the line, Kook panicked.

“No, Kook! Do not swim to him! Do not. Keep coming this way!” I yelled at them. The kids were confused and lost. They thrashed and flailed their arms to move in any way that they could. Hauling the three girls with me, I swam parallel to shore, a strategy to escape a rip tide. They whimpered and sniffled as watery snot dripped out of their noses and their tangled hair stuck to their cheeks. The sandbar was really not that far away, but it took us minutes to get there since we, as a unit, moved so slowly. My legs ached from the kicking, and my throat burned from the gulps of saltwater that I had swallowed. Pinched tight, my chest heaved and my lungs stung.

Finally, we reached the sand bar. The girls unclenched their clawed hands from my shoulders, and I released them from my arms. They flopped down to the sand, in tears.

“It’s okay! You’re all fine now,” I said to them in between breaths. Jimmy had realized what was going on and sprinted past me with one of the nine-footer boards. He dove in on his board and ripped at the water to reach the other kids as fast as possible. We needed to get them to safety. “I’ll be right back. Stay here!” I said to the three sisters as I started to run up the beach to grab a board, too.

My confidence clicked on as I glided through the water on the surfboard. The buoyant board cut through the churning water and surging current. We used our boards as a shuttle system to get the kids to the shore quicker. Laying as far back on the tail as we could, we piled two kids on the front of the boards and rode the white water in.

In minutes, but what felt like hours, we had rescued all of the campers – and Kook – and we were back on shore. The sand felt warm, dry, and familiar under my feet as I worked to catch my breath. The kids all sat slumped on the sand in a teary daze. I felt relief mixed with horror thinking about what could have happened, but I remained positive and focused on calming down the kids. His head hanging low, Kook trudged up the beach to recuperate in the privacy of his Bronco.

“I don’t want to learn how to surf anymore,” one of the sisters whimpered. Her tears dried in salty streaks down her pink cheeks. I looked back out to the previously menacing ocean and it again looked beautiful and inviting. The waves curled down the line rhythmically, erupting into frothing white water. The spray danced in the rays of sun and created fleeting rainbows behind each wave. The kids, exhausted and shaky, were still mesmerized by the show. We spent the rest of the morning playing on the sand far from the tideline and keeping the kids so busy they couldn’t relive the experience. Jimmy and I might have caught a few waves for ourselves, too.

We went home that day relieved that everyone was okay but worried about what it meant for the rest of surf camp. Would the kids tell their parents? Would they come back the next day? Was this a wake up call for Cape Cod Surf Camp? It was, undoubtedly, a reminder that we have nothing on nature’s elemental power. That it can, and will, change in a second. As can the kids at surf camp. Because every single one of them returned the next day with grins stretching across their cheeks and energies that matched the whirling ocean. And Kook came, too. He showed up late, but he came, too.