A very yuleTIDE Christmas and happy holidays to everyone! For me, Christmas was fairly uneventful this year. I didn't make it home due to outlandish airline ticket prices as well as frigid temperatures. Instead I opted to stay here and start a new Christmas morning tradition. Surfing. Santa Claus was generous this year with a very large Christmas swell hitting the coast throughout the weekend.
I have never surfed during the winter months, nor experienced a large winter swell of this magnitude so for me it was quite the occurrence. While being up in Los Angeles over the weekend, my sister, future brother-in-law and I took a short drive up to Ventura, CA to surf the famous "C Street" point break. When we got there, the surf was massive. There were a lot of people out in the lineup, but just as many if not more on the beach watching the show go down. Paddling out is particularly tricky at this spot because there is such a strong current flowing down the beach. If you are not careful or not a strong paddler you could end up a mile or so down the beach into the pier.
The waves were huge, I took a serious beating just paddling out to the lineup. They were growing every minute and they would break farther out then the previous. It was getting serious, waves were taking guys out left and right. About after an hour a sneaker set rolled through and I was caught on the inside of the wave. Just facing a 15' + mammoth about to break on top of me, which is exactly what it did. A sheer nightmare for what seemed to be forever. I was tossed around like a rag doll, got the wind knocked out of me and held down in the dark abyss. I remember opening my eyes and only seeing pitch black. When I finally reached the surface, another wave came in right behind me and did the same. I was absolutely certain that I was going to die right there. Somehow I managed to reach the surface again, climbed back on to my board and made my way to the shore. As I threw up the remaining salt water in my lungs and stomach, I couldn't believe I made it out of there alive.
It was a Christmas to remember at the least.
Trying to correlate advertising during a recession and surfing big waves is tough but if you have a little imagination you can see the similarities. Surfing big waves is like advertising during a recession- companies are afraid to spend ad dollars due to the tightening of budgets and the risk of going bankrupt. Surfers are afraid to surf big waves due to the risk of injury or even death. But if you take the chance, whether it be spending more ad dollars and setting yourself apart from the cowering competition or take off on that big wave for the ride of your life, the end result is definitely well worth the risk.
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