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  1. #1
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    Choose: death by foam or death by shark?

    Ugh. I've been caught in heavy foam before, bad enough to panic about breathing. Shark's horrific too, but still .... https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ks-netherlands

  2. #2
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    Death is death. Why waste any life debating which is worse


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  3. #3
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    I choose death by snu snu.
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eCdrUW--Jic
    It's a war of the mind and we're armed to the teeth.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by mtnwriter View Post
    Death is death. Why waste any life debating which is worse


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    Good point.
    However, death by foam suffocation just seems so ...... pointless.

  5. #5
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    Point break heavy surf if Keanu let’s you

    It’s the only way
    . . .

  6. #6
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    Haha! Perfect answer. End of thread!


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  7. #7
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    Ive never surfed in foam that even remotely had me in fear of drowning. Are there special conditions that make it that thick or certain places that it is common ?
    License to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations

  8. #8
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    Lots of algae and silt /sand bottom, very little incline of the beach. The north sea is pretty much perfect for that.
    I've had it in indo once. I'd been down for a few seconds, got up and barely got my head above the foam. It was all good once I had my board, but it wasn't pleasant in those few seconds.
    It's a war of the mind and we're armed to the teeth.

  9. #9
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    Yeah; panic sets in fast, as your brain sez "but this is mostly AIR - I should be able to breath, dammit!!", but your lungs are having none of it.

  10. #10
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    I've also seen it in heavy surf with high algae count. I've seen it 2-4' thick on the top of the water. Not everywhere, but mostly inside the impact zone.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ski to Be View Post
    Ive never surfed in foam that even remotely had me in fear of drowning. Are there special conditions that make it that thick or certain places that it is common ?
    I nearly drowned at Puerto Escondido from foam. Big day, with rapidly filling in swell. Conistently double overhead, but got caught by a triple overhead death set. Puerto is so fucking gnarly. You get blasted in by everywave then sucked back into the impact zone by the rips almost immediately. Long hold down and came up gasping for air, my head above water but im inhaling nothing but foam so start coughing, then get the next three on the head. Broken board, which then eventually blast my legrope right off. Got washed in eventually and was couging for days after...

  12. #12
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    Damn

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    License to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by nortonwhis View Post
    I nearly drowned at Puerto Escondido from foam. Big day, with rapidly filling in swell. Conistently double overhead, but got caught by a triple overhead death set. Puerto is so fucking gnarly. You get blasted in by everywave then sucked back into the impact zone by the rips almost immediately. Long hold down and came up gasping for air, my head above water but im inhaling nothing but foam so start coughing, then get the next three on the head. Broken board, which then eventually blast my legrope right off. Got washed in eventually and was couging for days after...
    Nothing worse than getting caught in the wash where you can't get in and you can't get out and every fucking curl seems to be aiming for you. A kamaaina, I bodysurfed the north shore in Hawaii, (mostly Maui) no fins, no wetsuit, Samoan style. Getting caught between the beach and the break was one of the few times I wasn't sure I had the stamina to make it. You keep coming up only to get sucked through that wringer for hours. Treading water for 8 hours outside a stacked rogue break too big to get back through was a piece of cake. Trying to get back to shore because it was getting dark and fighting for a couple more hours to get to the beach was fucking brutal.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by nortonwhis View Post
    I nearly drowned at Puerto Escondido from foam. Big day, with rapidly filling in swell. Conistently double overhead, but got caught by a triple overhead death set. Puerto is so fucking gnarly. You get blasted in by everywave then sucked back into the impact zone by the rips almost immediately. Long hold down and came up gasping for air, my head above water but im inhaling nothing but foam so start coughing, then get the next three on the head. Broken board, which then eventually blast my legrope right off. Got washed in eventually and was couging for days after...
    Yeah, not fun.

    Leg rope...not a word used often to describe a leash.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by splat View Post
    Nothing worse than getting caught in the wash where you can't get in and you can't get out and every fucking curl seems to be aiming for you. A kamaaina, I bodysurfed the north shore in Hawaii, (mostly Maui) no fins, no wetsuit, Samoan style. Getting caught between the beach and the break was one of the few times I wasn't sure I had the stamina to make it. You keep coming up only to get sucked through that wringer for hours. Treading water for 8 hours outside a stacked rogue break too big to get back through was a piece of cake. Trying to get back to shore because it was getting dark and fighting for a couple more hours to get to the beach was fucking brutal.
    Wells Jetties in Maine can be shockingly brutal. Army Corps built the harbor a while back. The jetties are long and have a bend in them about 70 yards from the end. The harbor is in an estuary that fills and drains with the tide. Maine has some big tides and when the tide is in full ebb, the current out of the harbor can be quite fierce.

    The bend collects sand and makes a great small wave break in low tides. Outside the harbor entrance about 50 yards another deeper sandbar forms. This one rarely sees waves, but it does break on solid north swells. Occasionally it will get shallow enough to break on head high swells. And it really does pump up the surf to twice the size of the nearby beach break. Typically it does not break until waves are in the 10’ face range, which is quite rare in Maine. hence the place is not well know. And often folks show up and don’t know the deal.

    You can surf on the out going tide and be just fine. I also witnessed one of the craziest hold downs there. Big day, with 12-15’ surf in December. I had surfed Gooches in the morning and was waiting for the tide to shift. Out going current was intense and fucking up the shape. Old Man Crow shows up and asks what I’m waiting for. I tell him, he grumbles and he and his buddy I did not know jump in off the rocks. Easy paddle around the back. Crow sits wide and waits. I figure he too is not happy with the shape. His buddy paddles into one, gets pitched and goes over the falls hard. I then watched him for the next 20 minutes getting hit by waves, driven in, and then swept right back into the impact zone of the next wave. Again, and again, and again.

    We were suited up and getting ready to jump into for a rescue. But he kept surfacing. And the tidal current mellowed and he was finally able to get off the sandbar. He paddles in. We jumped off the rocks and had a great session. It helps bring a local or at least listening to them.

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by splat View Post
    Nothing worse than getting caught in the wash where you can't get in and you can't get out and every fucking curl seems to be aiming for you. A kamaaina, I bodysurfed the north shore in Hawaii, (mostly Maui) no fins, no wetsuit, Samoan style. Getting caught between the beach and the break was one of the few times I wasn't sure I had the stamina to make it. You keep coming up only to get sucked through that wringer for hours. Treading water for 8 hours outside a stacked rogue break too big to get back through was a piece of cake. Trying to get back to shore because it was getting dark and fighting for a couple more hours to get to the beach was fucking brutal.
    Fuck. Bodysurfing north shore Maui is rad.
    Even sponging with no fins is tough, but at least you have a buoy.
    Been in the rinse cycle many times on a pole board. And when I lost grip of the boom, it was tough fighting the current as a swimmer.
    Dayumn
    . . .

  17. #17
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    May 2002
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    Didn't boogie board much. Too easy to get into the waves there with a quick paddle and a kick. My Samoan brothers and I hit some big shit, from freak north/south combo waves way the fuck out off Kaanapali (best, longest rides I ever had) to Slaughterhouse to Windmills in the winter to thicker slower south swells off Makena in the summer. Slaughterhouse almost got me a few times, 20 ft plus easily. Short rides but big tubes. You could guys see guys riding Honolua clearly from there with a tube's eye view. We were pretty much the best bodysurfers on the island. We ran twenty miles a day and trained a lot. If we hadn't been in killer shape, we would have died. I crushed both shoulders riding from 1/4 mile outside Kaanapali all the way to the beach on those best waves ever. I will never forget it and never be in the shape required to do that shit again. There was also a great mushroom field right above Slaughterhouse, so we'd go eat a couple handfulls before hitting he water much of the time.

  18. #18
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    Jun 2020
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    8
    by foam I guess, it would'n hurt so much

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