Canfield Jack - Chicken soup for the ocean lovers soul : amazing sea stories and Wyland artwork to open the heart and rekindle the spirit

Ninety miles off the west coast of Sumatra, the tiny Indonesian island of Nias is heaven for professional big-wave surfers. Twenty-foot waves wrap around a submerged rocky shelf and zipper evenly closed over a distance of nearly half a kilometer. The raw power and consistency are hypnotic.

I had never surfed when I arrived on the island two weeks earlier, but I liked the title Surfer better than my current one, Punk. The transition was simple. I splashed benignly about on waist-high waves falling off a surfboard I rented for a dollar. The only two rules, as I was told by a pro from Melbourne, were, No more than one person per wave and never turn your back on the ocean. But its surfing, mate, he winked. Just have fun.

And dangers? What if you hit the bottom? Impossible, said the Melbourne pro. Its forty feet deep out there. If youre held under, just remember: Theres a flotation deviceyour surfboardtied to your ankle. He referred to the leg-rope, or leash, surfers use to remain connected to their boards. Just grab the rope, he said, climb it to the surface... and youre saved! Tidak ada masala! He grinned, patting me reassuringly on the back.

Tidak ada masala means no problem in Bhasa Indonesia, the national language. Its something of a countrywide motto. Everyone says it. I said it all the time myself, almost continually even. No problem was a good attitude, I reasoned, for the experienced, veteran traveler I was so quickly becoming. Road washed out by landslide? Well, tidak ada masala. Typhoid? Hey, a little typhoid never hurt anyone, tidak ada masala. It would still be another six weeks before a compassionate teacher in Java corrected my pronunciation. I had not, evidently, been saying no problem but something more closely approximating not smelly or not unanimous.

The ocean reveals itself gradually. Spend half an hour just fifty feet offshore and its clear a different paradigm exists. Terrestrial prevailing logic no longer prevails. In an ocean rain shower, Not enough sense to come in out of the rain is a senseless proposition. If youre in the equatorial ocean when it rains, there is zero incentive to be elsewhere. You were warm and wet; now you are warm and wet. Often in Nias it rains daily, and when it rains the ocean becomes an instrument. Drops strike still water, and the sound is bells. Syncopated, atonalan aquatic gamelan orchestra. Surfers, we sit motionless on our boards, rain falling through us into the sea, willing conduits, lulled to trance, grateful in the serenade.

Lagundri is unique among the worlds big wave surf spots. Usually, large surf carries a self-regulating feature. Paddling a surfboard out from the beach through the break or impact zone is generally only capable for those who have the skill to be out there in the first place. Its a life-saving filter on days with big waves. Weaker surfers and punks are left to flail about in the shallows.

But in Lagundri there is something called the keyhole. The keyhole is a rocky shallow reef, which juts out perpendicular to the shore providing the point for the famous Nias point break. To access the surf all you have to do all anyone has to dois walk out to the keyhole at the end of the point past where the waves are breaking and hop in, tidak ada masalah.

But such a hop is irreversible, resolutely irreversible tragically irreversiblebecause you then have to make your way back to the beach the only way possible: through the surf. The keyhole allows any punk at all to jump in right next to the pros.

For weeks the surf has been small, playful even, and a hop into the keyhole has resulted in no great threat. But overnight a swell arrives. Waves explode offshore with a force that shakes the bamboo losmen high on the beach.

Surfing a twenty-foot wave might be compared to jumping off a burning two-story house, landing square on your feet, and then having the blazing house chase you down the street.

For the experience level necessary to be in the water today, my two weeks of small-wave frolicking leaves me, by a conservative estimate, a decade shy. But with a mindless hop from the keyhole, Im in the water.

The ocean is sentient. The messages it sends are often whispered, indirect, carried on a current or suspended in mist. Other times, however, the seas communiqus are harder to miss, even charitable. This is illustrated by my first wave today, which neatly strips me of my shorts and what feels like most of my body hair.

Go home, punk, is seldom more clearly articulated.

I heed the warning, whimper audibly either not smelly or not unanimous and paddle crazily for shorenot merely turning my back on the ocean, but mooning it as well. So much for the second rule of surfing. The universe, evidently, takes a dim view of repeated transgressions.

Victims of violent crime often cannot describe their attackers. Similarly, I have no memory of the next wave itself, only what follows: Im alternately dragged and bounced along the seafloor, which, thankfully, is forty feet deep and out of reach. Obediently, I pull the rope that tethers the surfboard to my leg, anticipating sweet ascension. Instead, Im soon holding the severed and decidedly surfboard-less opposing end.

Eventually, I am washed up onto shore. Sensitive travelers careful to learn the customs of their host country please note: Few gestures are more universal than a freshly lacerated naked man trailing rope from one ankle and lavishing the beachfront with bile.

When you are violently disrobed, you may, like many, find yourself reflective. You may consider, specifically, if you still have the right to declare not unanimous.

Merely floating on a surfboard in high seas does not make you a surfer, any more than running into a burning building with an ax makes you a fireman. To some degree, both activities are all the accreditation you need for the title idiot. Much of the distinction of surfer or fireman, for that matter, is awarded with ones ability to exit the situation gracefully. Or at least with your shorts. Fools may indeed rush in, but only surfers and firemen sashay out.

Jim Kravets

My father gave me a lot of things: my awkward gait, exceptional eyebrow coordination, a balding head (maternal grandfather, yeah right). He gave me his love for arguing and sense of righteous indignation. And while Dad wasnt a believer in handing his kids their every wish, he also gave me my first surfboard.

It was the summer of 1981. My brother and I were spending our annual court-appointed and parent-approved two months in Texas. Most of these days consisted of hanging at my dads on Galveston Bay nowhere near the island surf spotsthe flattest portion of a notoriously flat body of water, with none of the excitement of our beach life back home. Pops must have predicted our postpartum depression, because when we arrived he unveiled a pair of new toys for my brother and I. They werent the best-made boards, but we thought they were perfect. And late that summer we spent a week in Florida, where I discovered the full realm of first-time surfing experiencesand where, just a few years later, my father would embark on a life-changing mission of his own.

My dad never joined in on that first surf trip. And I doubt we even stepped out of our narcissistic playground to invite him. But I know he tried surfing at least once before I was born when my parents lived in Del Mar. He had borrowed my uncles 68 Hawaiian V, caught a couple waves, and on the way back out stepped on a stingray, which pierced his ankle straight through. As boys, my brother and I would constantly ask him to repeat the story and marvel over the scar and how bad it must have hurt.

Of course, Dad didnt find the story nearly as entertaining. And Im sure his pride hurt more than his ankle. Pops wasnt used to setbacks. From his youth he excelled at everything, from grades to football, ending up at the Naval Academy where he became an aviator, eventually flying jet aircraft and, ultimately, the space shuttle.