My Best Friend Almost Died in My Arms- Part 1

Being a big wave surfer has its ups and downs(No pun intended). I've been surfing professionally since I was 25. Since then, surfing has brought me all around the world and since I have met many of my friends from the world of big waves, this creates a brotherly tie that is very hard to break.

On February 14, 2009 my best friend experienced one of the worst underwater experiences of our lives when we were caught inside by a 50 foot wave.

I woke up early on Valentines Day and my friend and his wife came by my place to pick me up for the 2 hour drive south of the boarder into Mexico. We were headed for the island of Todos Santos which lies about 10 kilometers off the coast of Ensenada. Its a beautiful place. Very raw and untouched. There is a lighthouse and 2 donkeys on it. The wave breaks about 500 meters off shore. Because of the very deep trench that is off the island, the waves have no time to loose height and once they hit the trench, they grow exponentially in size. For example, if my local beach back home has waves that are 5 feet, Todos Santos will have waves 15 feet and bigger.

We arrived at the harbor around 7am, paid the fishing boat driver to take us out and we were off. 45 minutes later we arrived. The waves did not look massive so just in case, I paddled out to sea a little beyond my friends. I sat waiting for a wave for about 15 minutes and all of a sudden the people on the boats were yelling and whistling and pointing out to sea. Since I could not see what was beyond the wave in front of me, I scrambled out to sea as fast as a could. As soon as I paddled over the wave that was blocking my view, my heart dropped. Literally the biggest wave I had ever seen at that point in time was about to land on me. I thought to myself that I had a chance to paddle over the wave so I sprinted out to sea only to realize it was too late. The wave ended up landing 2 feet in front of me and I barely got a breath.

The wave slammed me down 30 feet almost instantly. My ears were ringing and my head felt like it was going to explode because of the pressure. I landed on an underwater boulder and cleared my ears from the pressure. It was very dark and I could see nothing. The air bubbles around me which the wave shoved underwater subsided and I then proceeded to float slowly to the surface. My eyes were open the whole time and I then began to see light from the surface. I got about 3 feet from the surface just before everything turned black.

Bang! The next wave threw me straight down to the bottom of the ocean without being able to take a breath. Surfers call this a 2 wave hold down. I tumbled all the way down to the bottom again. This time with my air severely running out. I was calm and the pain in my lungs did not hurt anymore. I felt like falling asleep and was fine just being down there. This clearly was due to lack of oxygen. As the air bubbles from the second wave went away, I slowly started floating up to the surface for the second time. When I was about 10 feet from the surface, something jolted inside me and I knew I had to make it to the surface. I used everything I had to get to the surface and once I did, I could not breathe until I wiped the foam off the top of the surface from all the air that boiled to the surface. I literally got a half breath and boy did it burn my lungs. Before finishing the breath, I stopped because it went dark again and threw me underwater once more. This time was not as bad because the waves had pushed me further in, away from where the big waves were breaking. When I surfaced from that, I noticed my friend 5 feet away from me and his eyes were rolling in the back of his head. I could see that the next wave was heading right for us.

Stay tuned to part 2