Siren song
A meditation on the lessons of the Sea, brought up from the depths by a late-season swell in Southern California.
Unlike the many easy-access breaks that exist in Southern California, Black’s demands a bit of sweat equity up front.
By most accounts, both young and old, we write stories with our lives. We build worlds with our minds, fall in love with people we will never meet, ache from imagined wounds and smile from joys we have yet to fulfill. For some time we reside here, in this place beyond our direct experience, until one day we awake; for a lucky and unfortunate few, this day never seems to come.
In my experience, we are not only authors, but characters too. It is perhaps both the blessing and the curse of life, that we live our way into a story already told, a far-reaching memory which, in this moment, we’ve forgotten. We lie awake, dreaming of a world which we think exists in our minds alone. Only under exceptional circumstances, it seems, are we reminded that we are in fact also the pen, that at our finest we control the flow of ink as it lands on the page before us; moment by moment, we leave a lasting mark, rolling into the next line, dancing along a path that somehow rises up to meet us. The strokes of our lives are where our true power lies, where we can choose the written word, where we at last remember that which we always knew, if only we allow ourselves.
This, at least, is the way I feel most right in the world. That underlying sense from some unseen source aligns in a way that is ours, and only ours, to understand. When we find ourselves in flow, we unfold in a delicate dance— as soon as we seek to concretize or control the rhythm, we lose it; instead we must surrender.
In this act we sign a sacred contract with life: where she leads, we will follow, and when it is our turn to carry forward we do so with the faith that the path will emerge precisely as our feet touch the ground. We ask for no guarantees, no answers- we only promise to ask the questions. It is dangerous to want to understand so much sometimes, the heavy weight of rationality will solidify the sea into something static. It seems, even if so briefly, that it is easier to study a frozen subject. And so we shatter this vaporous dream in desperation. It is our role to know what we know, and nothing more.
Once the noise dies down, it is just you and the sea. Caitlin Simmers sharing a moment before paddling out, December 2023.
This is, I think, the hidden wisdom of wave riding, the secret that can only be gifted and never grabbed. It is a knowledge bestowed only upon those who surrender and don’t seek, given to those who ask for nothing in return and only choose to worship each day because it is the only way that feels right; it is the only way. Surfing is selfish, it seems, but it is service. This is why I do not balk at the continued commodification of this Art, for the real riches will never be bought and, if anything, the sanctity of a surfing life only grows more and more secure as the mud cakes up around it. The ember always burns, and where most people only aim at the target, we must aim beyond it.
So two weeks ago, when I saw swell on the horizon from the shores of Southern California, I knew what I had to do- I remembered what my story was and would soon become. With the last weeks of Winter approaching, after a season of relative hibernation where I spent far more time in the mountains than in the water, I finally heard that seductive siren song pulling me back to the sea. I knew all that I needed to know, and the rest was just noise. No matter the murkiness, I simply needed to dive in to the world waiting before me, the memory rising up to meet me from a distant past.
Just as the swell was rising from the deep and far-away, two goals- or perhaps more accurately, invitations- arose from my own depths, and it was with profound clarity that I knew it was my time to begin a relationship with iconic Black’s beach: to 1) swim out on a big day and 2) spend some time alone on the cliffs, following the endless nooks and crannies until the sun set and the swell faded. I could never tell you where these aims came from, for their origin is far from conscious; I know only that they pointed far beyond the supposed target, far beyond my own perception, beyond the world I thought I knew. In the same way we draw lines on a wave, balancing between action & intuition, I moved forward with camera in hand.
The first glimpse of the swell coincided with the completion of my friend Chris’s 35th lap around the sun. We decided to begin the next one in the ocean together, an opportunity not only to celebrate continued life in the best way, but also a chance to greet the arriving swell, to pay our dues up front and to make clear our intentions to dance with this particular manifestation of oceanic energy. Chris has decades of experience in these particular waters and for me, it was just my 3rd time at Black’s, with the most recent visit coming last October, 11 years after I first touched these shores (after a cross-country trip from my home town in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina…but that’s another story). To make my first real swim at Black’s in double-overhead surf felt downright disrespectful. I thought it would be smart to get to know her a bit, to feel her currents, explore her curves and find all the right angles.
And so it was, that the next night, I cleaned all of my camera gear, dialed in my settings, packed my bags and sank into a meditation where I visualized each and every step between my bedroom and the beach, every stroke out to the line up, the feeling of returning to shore with an exhausted smile. I said a prayer- the same one I would offer as my feet hit the sand just 8 hours later, both to ask for permission and protection as well as to promise to dance with my deepest grace and intention. This is a practice that has been with me for over a decade, a priority to which I submit each time I enter the water.
After a night of very little sleep, I drove with dreary eyes and parked in the dark, watched from the cliffs as the sun rose along with my own sense of nervous excitement, suited up and stepped forward on the trails that lay ahead. Hiking down to the beach, I practiced my breaths, prepared my body for an incoming flood of adrenaline; no coffee was needed on this morning. and Then, I sat on the shore for 30 minutes, scanning the lineup, searching for the familiar silhouette of my friend Erik. Finally, I gave in to the fact that today, there was very little familiarity to be found. I ran into a few friends on the sand but ultimately knew that this was a lonely endeavor, solely between me and the Ocean. With a final prayer and a deep breath, I pulled on my hood and stepped in.
A very, very common sight in my life.
I timed my swim as best as I could, knowing that I had a few minutes in between sets, and a bit longer in between the biggest waves. Still, it can be a tough call— dive in too soon after a set and you’ll waste energy fighting the swirling currents caught between the shore and the lineup; wait too long, and you’ll be in no-man’s land when the waves arrive, merely offering yourself as sacrifice to an outside breaker. Fortunately, I made it out almost perfectly, taking the first wave of an incoming set on the head, just enough of a dive to make me wonder if I made the right call. Whether with a board or swim fins, there is no room for timidity out here. You must leave self-doubt on the shore. As I surfaced in the lineup to safely catch my breath, one of the first people I saw was Erik. A familiar face is an island amidst turbulent waters, to be sure.
A brief moment of mirth in between sets.
Over the next few hours, I swam around, avoiding the current-filled central peak and instead opting for the easier-to-read southern sections. The aspect of surf photography that is rarely shown in a photo is that with a camera, one must almost sit in the most inadvisable spot, a few meters in front of the line up, ideally just on the edge of a falling lip. Behind every epic barrel you’ve ever seen in photo is likely an unseen photographer going over the falls. Hopefully, the shot is worth it. But you’ll never know if you don’t first put yourself in position.
For my second time shooting in the water here (the first was so shallow that I didn’t even swim), I opted to play it safe, given the shifty nature of some of these peaks. Still, when I popped up from under one big but manageable wave, only to see everybody making a silent and hurried race towards the horizon, I knew what was in store. With only our heads floating above the surface, water photographers will use different measures to gauge the surrounding dynamics; when laughter in the lineup comes to an immediate halt and countless feet desperately churn water in their wake, it can only mean one thing.
The variety of feelings that these two surfers must have experienced in a span of 10 seconds is astounding.
Sure enough, the next wave was a monster, the biggest I saw all morning, and so much bigger than the rest that no one was ready to turn and paddle for it. For a split second I considered hanging around just to document its sheer size, but instead I took a deep breath and dove straight down. A second or two later I heard muted thunder above me, looked up and saw an avalanche racing along the surface, now several meters away, and saw the turbulence break straight through and reach down as if its only goal was to grab me and pull me closer. I kicked more as the darkness crawled its way towards me, and for a moment I was stunned by this dark, green, and terrible beauty that suddenly enveloped me. Awe-struck more than fearful, I felt my body pulled feet-first into those bubbling masses, flipped around with no semblance of control. Here, my only choice was to surrender, to retreat into my own inner sanctuary where time and breath held no weight, and to focus all of my energy here until finally, and by some act of mercy, that dragon let me go and I took several long, hard strokes to the surface.
It’s oddly serene under a breaking wave
After this wave, I questioned my willingness to tempt the ocean again, unsure if I should have faith in her mercy, or if this was a little suggestion for me to reassess my limits for the morning.
To my current regret, from the safety of dry land, I opted to sit just a few feet farther out than I wanted to, and as a result I felt like I blew the session, missed the best shots because I wasn’t confident in my ability to ride another set over the falls. You live and learn, and I know now what I need to do in order to set myself up better for the next swell, but still— the feeling never goes away, that imaginary world where I bagged a truly epic image will not be realized, at least not today, not in this version of my story. To be sure, it feels right, how it all unfolded, with a sly wink from the ocean, a little taste of what lies ahead.
And of course, a set or two later I saw a new friend of mine- Mitch Farner- celebrating his 57th birthday by screaming down the line of a wave well overhead. It was precisely because I was a bit outside of the impact zone that the wave lifted me up and put me in the elevated spot to capture one of my favorite images in recent memory- Mitch with his back arm outstretched, his 10’6 Aipa perfectly engaged with the wave, a beautiful stream of whitewater trailing behind him with the cliffs in the background. It feels like another world to me, a place of dreams, a timeless moment that captures the essence of surfing and all of the sacrifices that we make in order to serve this great and unknown mystery.
Mitch Farner, 2 days into his 58th year and taking full advantage.
Mitch called me a few days later to express his gratitude and as a photographer, that makes everything worth it. It astounds me how in the span of his 57 years on Earth, and my 30, with all of life’s twists and turns, we came together for this one perfect moment, a small yet significant drop in this ethereal ocean of life.
Two days later, after a recovery session with Erik at a nearby break as the swell dipped for a day, I stared at a funky, rainy, and crowded right reef break as the sun did it’s best to break through the clouds. It looked fun, but no good for shooting. I had emails to send, photos to edit, work to do…so I drove home, resigning my day to laying one small brick on the foundation of a hopeful career in surf photography. At around 10am Erik called- he was working, too, but we agreed a window could open up soon. One measure of a good surfer, and a good surf photographer, is the ability to feel the breeze well before the window opens, and I think we both sensed some magic brewing. I drove through the rain to those same cliffs that so wonderfully provided a backdrop to Mitch’s wave just 48 hours earlier. I knew that it was the last big day of the swell, and perhaps of the season, and I still had one invitation to which I was committed. Worst case, I figured, I would spend an hour or two hiking around in the rain, exploring the cliffs- photos be damned. At the end of the day a camera, like a surfboard, is an instrument through which we can engage with life. They facilitate this dance, but they do not necessarily create the rhythm. They are the keys which unlock a door to a world beyond our reality.
Swamis through the rain
As I arrived, the rain subsided, giving me enough time to walk down the trail for a few minutes. For a moment I saw some beautiful A-frames rolling in below, with only about 5 people out; then, the rain surged again, and as I ran to the car I slipped in the mud and caked myself in clay. Through the rain I saw dolphins jumping, but the downpour was too thick to snap a good image. I sat in the car for 30 minutes, waiting for signs that the rain would clear, debating with Erik over the phone if we should link up for a session or just get on with the day. By the time we hung up, the rain had slowed to a drizzle, and the wind blew in a whisper that I knew I had to follow. I stepped back onto the trail and a few minutes later, a coyote poked its head up from the bushes. For an extended moment we stared at each other. Birdsong filled the damp air, and light raindrops politely tapped a tune on the ground beneath our feet. This coyote and I stood on the cliff in silence, about 15 meters apart, staring at the ocean below, and back at each other, and at the emptiness around us.
This is how the cliffs revealed themselves to me, in serenity and solitude. For the next two hours I didn’t see another person up there, and as offshore winds stabilized and the swell began to grow cleaner and more groomed and finally started to pulse, I saw more and more black-clad dots floating in the lineup. Wave after wave, it seemed, offered a clean and open barrel to whoever wanted it, and a pod of dolphins took every set, weaving beneath the surface in the heart of the wave before breaching out the back in glorious flight. I can’t help but wonder as I watch these amazing animals surf- are they wiser than we want to believe? Taking note over the years, this is one of my favorite parts about water photography, when a wave rolls in and I can ride the energy up its spine and launch out of the back as it breaks, flying for a moment before diving back under, an entirely fluid existence. As I stood there and watched from the cliffs, however, I could only live vicariously through the celebratory cetaceans below.
Wave of the day
Around mid afternoon Erik told me that he was walking down, and I figured it would be lucky if we connected on a few shots from so far away. We know each other from North Carolina, and to capture an image together at pumping Black’s would be another baffling and awesome intersection of life. I had that sense that this had all already happened, that I was simply reliving a long-forgotten memory, and that Erik and I would record one for the books.
After hunting for a good perspective and finally finding a nice spot framed by the cliffs, I settled in, waiting for a set to line up properly. This is how it usually goes— you can wait for hours for everything to line up, and sometimes it never does, but when you have the composition you want there is no other choice and you have to accept that you’re letting some other good moments go undocumented & unseen. Inevitably, as soon as you give up and move, the perfect moment comes. As seems to be the pattern, it is a deep practice in faith, intuition, and surrender.
To my surprise- and nearly catching me off guard- as soon as I lined up my frame I saw a good set rolling in. Looking through my viewfinder as the wave broke, I snapped a few shots, and when the surfer leaned into their bottom turn I had no doubt that it was Erik. I couldn’t believe it.
This is how things unfolded for the next three hours until the sun set. I boldly and blindly followed my intuition as the trail opened itself beneath my feet, and at each turn I seemed to be greeted with a perfectly-timed set, a gorgeous display of water and land and light. I can only attribute this serendipity to something far beyond my self. I was in a daze, unconscious almost, yet entirely lucid, fully enraptured by that same siren song from weeks before. As I crawled further and further into the cliffs, challenging the limits of this dance, I only found more and more magic blossoming before me.
I realized then, that like the surfboard, & like the camera, I myself am but an instrument, a lens through which life can experience itself, if only I allow it to move through me.
It is only in this moment that this all feels novel, the blessing of a long-forgotten dream, an unreachable target that draws the arrow of our lives beyond it, the gift bestowed upon those who surrender.
