this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2025
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An account on a personal website or maybe a kayaking forum from around 2000: a sea kayaker described paddling with friends off the coast of Nanaimo, BC (I think). He wanted to paddle a bit more when the friends headed for shore. When he decided to join them, huge swells had started to come from the north, making it dangerous/impossible to ferry (paddle crosswise to the current) without getting broached and dumped. So he surfed down the swells, trying to angle toward shore as much as felt safe. He described riding a single swell for a long time, maybe multiple hours, before the sea calmed down enough for him to get to shore, now many miles south of where he started. I remember his description of combined terror and thrill: he could get flipped and--in the big sea--maybe never get rolled back up, just hanging onto his boat hoping for rescue, but here he was, surfing down the face of what seemed like an eternal wave, constantly at the edge of his ability to keep a line.
I've looked for that thing over a dozen times, spent maybe 20-30 hours searching over the past decade. No luck, yet.