Hello avatar! We need to be on the same page on one thing before we continue .
If you do not know your own limits and put yourself at the mercy of the ocean you could kill yourself or others trying to save you. You need to take an honest look into the mirror at your ability, fitness and mentality.
Don’t know how to swim? You shouldn’t even think of picking up a board. Not feeling confident about charging into overhead waves? Watch from the beach.
Not in the best shape? Then why are you putting yourself and others at risk?
Just last month during Hurricane Larry, I watched an older gentleman get caught in the impact zone on a sand bar with an outgoing tide (pulling him off the beach) and 6-8 ft waves breaking on top of him. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
His entire shoulder and his left cheek had what looked like road rash all over. He was lucky lifeguards were still at their posts this late in the season. Those injuries were sustained just from getting dragged against the sand on a beach break!
We’re not even at the razor sharp reefs surrounding Degen island!
Young Quoll’s Adventure to Degen Island
I was a only a grom when I first visited Puerto Rico. This was in the middle of the winter when every east coaster and adrenaline junkie flocks to the the west side of Puerto Rico called “Rincon”.
It’s a surfing bums paradise. Beautiful women, great food, plenty of watering holes to wet your beak, people on the highway soliciting Little Cesar’s Pizza slices for $5 and heaps of surfing spots.
By January, most people are itching to take their 5mm wetsuits off and get some sun. Some folks have it made and achieve an endless summer by rotating between Rincon and their summer homes up north. Similar to ski bums that work the mountains there are surf bums that will work odd jobs and restaurant gigs.
This beach is called “Domes”. Can you guess why?
Ah, why yes. It is because of the massive decommissioned nuclear power plant conveniently located right next to the break.
Anyways, my trip was mostly skunked aside from the last two days. We were getting hit with a swell that was supposed to keep building until our departure. It was estimated to start 5-6ft then gradually build into 10-12 ft.
Domes is a right handed point break which makes it a popular spot for 70% of the surfing community that surfs regular footed. Meaning your left foot is forward on the deck and your right foot is on the stomp pad or back of the board.
Pig and Quoll Take on Domes
My friend and I, we can call him Pig, were amped for some actual waves. We could hardly sleep and woke up at first light to get out before the swell started getting too big for us since we were on the younger side.
When we arrived we watched 4-6ft walls of crystal blue water break perfectly down the beach. Pig and I were frothing, we couldn’t believe no one was out yet. Our friends wanted to wait until they saw a local venture out to test the waters.
Pig and I wanted it all to ourselves. We charged out as fast as we could, closely staying to the left of the break that had more sand than reef.
Our gamble paid off we made it out in the lineup unscathed with the reward of an empty lineup. As we paddled closer to the point to where the beginning of the waves started, you could tell the swell was only getting bigger.
I froze as I watched Pig drop into some of the biggest waves we have ever surfed together. He carved beautiful lines up and down the open faces, spraying water off the top of the wave with each turn. All with a shit eating grin on his face the whole time he surfed the wave.
He tore it up that day, even the locals began hooting and cheering from the beach knowing it was just a grom giving it all he had.
Realizing this was my last shot at any wave before the herd filled in, I bolted for the next wave. I dropped in late looking over my right shoulder up at the wall of water above me. I gain speed and moving quickly down the line and I carve the face from top to bottom.
I jumped off the back of the wave and get dumped on by the rest of the set waves behind it. It was the only wave I caught that day but I’ll never forget it.
The waves grew bigger and bigger and Pig kept slaying each one in his path as the locals hollered at him into waves. It was a great morning, I was just happy to snag one of them, it was the biggest wave I ever surfed at the time.
The Steps to Hell
As we got out of the water Pig I could tell he wanted more. Domes had gotten too crowded and Pig wanted to find something bigger or at least a less crowded spot. We quickly sped down the road grabbed some empanadillas and water to refuel.
We drove on the hillside past the other spots up the point until we got to Steps Beach also known as Tres Palmas, its PRs most famous big wave spot. Tres is the last part of reef that sticks out the furthers of spots up the road. It has a channel that runs south of the reef, if the wind has any West in it the sneaky clean up sets will bulldoze even the most experienced big wave surfers.
To give you an idea, it doesn’t actually break at Tres until it’s at least double overhead. Naturally, Pig wouldn’t take no for an answer.
It wasn’t this big but this gives you an idea the type of wave that comes through here.
I told him “There is no way I’m going out there in that, I have a 5’10 and it’s not going to make it into the drops of those waves.”
*a local on a small fish proceeds to drop in and carve up and down a mountainous wave then kicking out like he had done it hundreds of times before*
“See! That guy was able to do it no problem. You’ll be fine!”
Pig was riding a 5’4 weirdo ripper shaped by Channel Islands. It was a small board, no match for those massive waves but he couldn’t be talked out of it. Most of the people paddling out had 7 foot guns, designed to dig into the large faces like these guys.
My other friend, we’ll call him Rooster, enlisted in Pig’s suicide mission because he did not catch a single wave at Domes.
I watched the pair paddle out looking like ants with all of the white water being sloshed around along the shoreline. They disappeared over the white walls of water and off into the channel.
I laid on the beach pondering to myself if I made the wrong decision. Was I coward? Should I had gone out there and braved the swell with them?
An hour and a half later I had my answer.
“I thought I was going to die”
The ants returned sloshing around in whitewater, rouge waves from the channel were pushing them around in different directions. Rooster was pushing Pig as they pair limped in. Pig let the shore break crash on top of him, washing him a shore.
I figured he was exhausted but as I watched him lay there I knew something had gone wrong.
I jogged over, Rooster held him up. He was shaking, his feet and legs were covered in sea urchin spikes.
Rooster explained to me that on the way in they washed on a reef. The reef was covered with sea urchins.
Pig went on to explain how the session went when he finally caught his breath.
“I tried to paddle into a bunch of waves but I couldn’t drop into any of them no matter how I tried. After waiting for awhile, the locals called me into the first wave of the set. I got sucked over the falls and pinned to the bottom, what felt like forever.”
“Once I made my way to the surface there was a wall of white water waiting for me and it mowed me over, pinning me back to the bottom of the sea. I thought I was going to die.”
Pig was able to limp away from the colossal waves and lived to tell the tale. He then proceeded to sip tequila out of the bottle and pick out sea urchins for the rest of the afternoon and even weeks later he was still digging them out.
He proceeded to retell the story on repeat for hours and hours on end. Afterwards, he fell asleep on his plate at dinner.
It’s a story we chuckle about when reflect on the trip but it could very well have been a tragic one. So with that in mind remember rule #1 of Quoll Surf School is…
Know your limits!
Are there any topics with surfing you would like me to cover in the future? Let me know in the comments.