I don’t know why I even went out, it wasn’t a nice day. The sky was grey, the wind onshore, the worst direction for surfing. It breaks the waves too early, and prevents them from holding up the smooth rideable walls that surfers crave. Worse, it had been raining, a lot, in the days before, and the river was emptying out through the bay, a swirling muddy-brown conveyer of wood and vegetation torn from the banks as the water rushed down from the mountains above. It was cold too. Much of the river had been ice and snow only hours before.

But I went. I’d spotted a couple of other surfers in the water, and I was confident by then, after moving out to the Cantabrian coast of Northern Spain six months before. It was February, and I was used to the even colder waters of the UK’s south coast, so much I barely even noticed that the waves themselves were much bigger than I typically surfed. It was around head-and-a-half-high for the average ones, maybe double overhead on the bigger sets – doable, but the upper end of what I’m comfortable surfing. I surf on a stand-up-paddleboard. I used to surf ‘properly’ but since a back injury I struggle to ‘pop up’ well (that’s where surfers jump to their feet as they catch the wave). Actually the truth is I was never much good at proper surfing, and my background as a windsurfer tended to suit surfing with a paddle, it felt natural to have something to hold on to. Either way, I took my bigger board, an 8’5” Starboard Pocket Rocket, knowing the onshore breeze would make the sea surface hard to balance on while waiting for the waves.

Still, I was surprised at how choppy it was. I was surfing in a bay tucked in behind a headland, and facing almost away from the ocean. The headland, built of high cliffs, protects the bay, and the closer you stick to it, the smaller, more manageable and cleaner the waves are. But it’s also the part of the bay where the water, pushed in by the much bigger waves in the middle of the bay, finds its way back out to sea, in the form of a fast-flowing rip. As the tide drops, this rip is added to by the river, which flows along the beach, and then out to sea. Rips have a reputation of being dangerous, and rightly so, but surfers use them in the way a skier uses a ski lift. They literally pull them out to sea, sometimes through, but usually around where the waves are breaking. When they get to the ‘lineup’ – just outside where most of the waves are breaking, and the right place to catch one – they paddle sideways out of the rip, and begin their surfing. I joined the rip, but immediately saw something was different to normal. The water here is usually clean – you can see through it down to the sandy bottom below. Today it was almost black with mud and weed and god-knows what. Several times I saw logs larger than me, just below the surface. There’s something about the way they float that brings to mind a dead body, broken limbs looking like, well, limbs, I suppose.

Sometimes the conditions can make you nervous, and when this happens, you tend to stiffen up, and be more likely to fall off. But that day I was feeling more loose and confident than normal. I got out through the rip in record time – it was really racing out – and paddled into the actual break, and right away I saw a wave come towards me, feathering in a way that showed it was about to break. I spun around, caught it on my backhand, and found myself accelerating down a bowly, open shoulder as it arched up behind and above me. A bottom turn, a top turn – a bit tentative, since the wave was big – and then repeat, two or three more times, growing in confidence until I carved off the dying shoulder, back where it ran into the deeper water of the rip. Exhilarated, I let the fast-flowing water pull me back out to catch another one. 

I thought I was on for a good session, but that first wave was probably the best I caught that day. Over the next hour I tried to find other waves that held up well, but most were closing out with the onshore wind, which was gradually increasing in strength. Still, I was catching a wave every now and then, even if the rides were short. I felt it was good practice, trying to keep my balance in the chop, keeping a close eye on the horizon to avoid being caught inside when the bigger sets arrived, and looking out for the rare clean wave. I nodded a hello to the two other surfers, but also tried to keep out of their way. Stand up paddle boarders mix uneasily with prone surfers. It’s easier to catch the best waves on a SUP, and many surfers resent them for doing so. Moreover, this wasn’t the sort of day that encouraged conversation, the conditions required you had your wits about you. All told, I found myself further away from the cliff, where the waves were bigger but messier, leaving the smaller, cleaner rides to the surfers.

But then they both went in, leaving me alone out there. This didn’t worry me, in fact I was pleased to have the place to myself. I considered this by far the easiest, and least threatening spot to surf of all the places I’d discovered since moving out here. And in a way I hadn’t really noticed that this wasn’t really true that day. And that’s when it happened.

A big set loomed out to sea, and I started paddling hard towards it. The idea is that, if you get there soon enough, you can turn and ride one of the bigger waves that comes in. But if you’re too late, it’s still way better to get over the top of the set waves before they break, rather than having to deal with them just afterwards. If that happens, there’s no choice but to dive under the explosion of water, letting the board take care of itself and trusting the ankle leash doesn’t break. It’s always a slightly anxious moment. The leash is the only thing connecting you to the board, and you really don’t want it to break. On a day like today, when it’s big, that’s doubly true.

I paddled towards the first wave. It was obvious I was too late to catch it, but I managed to claw my way over the top just as it began to pitch forward, only to see a second wave was already breaking further outside. Diving time. I guess I took a deep breath, and as it roared down on me I jumped clear of the board, head first into the water, trying to get as deep as I could before the wave hit. It’s strange under there. Cold, and your head kinda reaches a depth where the water still feels tranquil, yet your feet and legs are completely caught in the maelstrom of crashing wave above, and the board is snatched away and tumbled towards the beach, until it runs out of leash. Then you feel the pull on your ankle. It’s gentle at first as the line stretches and elongates, but then it gets stronger as the wave fights to hold onto the floaty board. Finally your own drag, and the strength of the leash pulls the board clear from the wave’s clutches. Then you surface and quickly reel it back, hoping to climb back on and paddle out of trouble before the next wave hits. But when you’re caught by a set, there usually isn’t time for that, and you have to duck under the next wave too, or the next few waves. That’s what happened here. There were five waves in the set. I sneaked over wave one, got caught by wave two, then three and four. And then I dove down under wave five.

Ping.

That’s how it feels. Gentle, almost inconsequential. Like a sigh, as the leg rope gives up the ghost. And the board is suddenly gone. You feel its absence. The initial reaction is ‘oh no’. And then there’s a moment of silly, irrational panic. At least there is with me. I don’t know why exactly. I’ve broken leashes probably ten or so times, in a surfing career of nearly thirty years, and I’ve done a lot of windsurfing in waves, where you don’t use a leash, and it’s common to lose your kit on a wipeout and have to swim back to it. But still that initial reaction is panic. I think it’s the suddenness of it. The instant change in state. One moment you’re attached to something that floats and takes your weight – a literal liferaft – the next it’s gone, and you’re alone. Sink or swim. Actually turn that around. It’s swim or sink. And that triggers a fear, at least until you start swimming and realise you can. Then the panic recedes, and is replaced – usually – by a weary resignation about what come next. You’re going to have to swim for maybe twenty minutes to get back in. And then walk along the beach to recover the board, and then get back to the car to dig around for another leash, which you’ve probably left at home, so your session is almost certainly over. But you don’t doubt whether you can do it. Panic is replaced by annoyance. You’re probably embarrassed that you even were panicking, or maybe not even aware it happened.

But not this time. This time something’s different.

 I got the moment of panic alright, and a few seconds later, the sense of it draining away. But what replaced it was a cold realisation that there were several factors which, taken together, meant this time wasn’t like anything I’d faced before. And I might just be in a lot of trouble.

I was right outside by then, the last of the set of waves had just washed through, taking my board careering away with it, out of sight, and probably hundreds of metres out of reach. In my hands I still clutched the paddle, which makes swimming difficult, and offers zero floatation. The sea around me was flattening off, and suddenly felt cold. After a set there’s a period where there aren’t any waves, and this can last minutes, even half an hour, with no way of knowing how long. But all the time, the rip continues to run. I wasn’t fully in it, but now I’d lost my board, I began to think back to how I’d been surfing – continually having to paddle back in towards the beach, to counter the effect of the rip, ever dragging me outwards. It hadn’t been a problem while I was surfing, and had even helped with the onshore wind. But now, I didn’t know if I could swim against it.

I mentally I planned a route in. I would swim diagonally towards the beach – trying to move myself away from the rip all the time – until another set came through. When it did I would try to catch each wave and bodysurf in, until I reached the shallower water where all the waves would break. From here you’re normally safe, since you’re quickly washed ashore or into shallower water and you just walk out. But the problem was today, that wouldn’t happen. Before I reached the shallow water I would be back fully in the rip, running parallel along the beach, and that would quickly sweep me along to where it turned ninety degrees back out to sea again. It was running so fast, the river so swollen from the rain, and the big waves pushing so much water into it, that there was just too much water moving. Swimming against it was out of the question, but even crossing it seemed implausible. I thought back to how fast I’d paddled out at the start of my session, moving much faster than I could walk, probably faster than I could run. 

Mentally I charted where my route would take me. I would expend considerable energy getting closer to the beach. When I tried to catch the big waves out here without a board, I would be rolled and pummelled, and the waterproof defences of my wetsuit would be breached (it’s full of holes anyway). And then, when I got closer to the beach I would be swept into the rip and carried right back out to sea again, before I could get through it and out the other side. The logs and vegetation would offer little to hold onto to, but hinder my chances of swimming through, I would be carried back toward the cliff, and then straight back out to sea again. To where I was now. Only more tired. Colder. Around and around I would go, weakening every time, with the ocean able to play this game far longer than I could. But there was no other route. I tried to think of a plan B, but the further I got out of the shelter of the headland, the bigger the waves got. Out beyond the headland there was a three-metre swell running. Waves the size of houses, exploding like bombs. To the left and right of this little beach, it was just cliffs, no way up, the huge swells unloading on them. Even if I could have got there, I didn’t see the logic of swimming that way.  

I’d already given up on the board by now. Not given up on recovering it at the end of this episode – I’d given up on ever seeing it again. I had zero doubt it was already caught in the rip, and would be sucked out to sea, and from there who knew? Smashed into the cliffs and destroyed, or lost at sea, to be picked up months later by a fishing boat, covered in goose barnacles. I also began to think I might not discover its fate, because my own would be sealed far sooner.

For the first time in my surfing life I credibly thought this might be it. No one knew I was out there. No one could see me from the beach. Even if they did, they could never reach me. We’ve all seen the images of big wave surfers, who fall, and a picked up by jetski. But there was no rescue here. And the only route I had back in to shore was effectively blocked off by a rip far stronger than I was. It’s rare for surfers to die, but I’ve known it happen, and sometimes wondered what it’s like. What exactly goes wrong? How does it feel? Suddenly it was totally clear. This is what happens. This is it happening. I was scared by then, but its nature was different from the blind, irrational panic I described earlier. This was sustained, reasoned thought that kept returning the same answer. You’re in trouble here. This could be it.

I’d read online somewhere about using the paddle to help swim. You hold it close to the blade, and use it as a canoeist paddles, dipping one end in then the other, the broader blade balanced against the much longer shaft. I tried this, and it kind of worked, but it drained energy fast. And where was I paddle/swimming too with such desperation? As I got myself closer inshore, I only moved nearer to a rip that would take me straight back out again. My only hope was to approach that with maximum energy, in the hope I might have the strength to get through it. I gave up and resorted to a sideways swimming technique, dragging the paddle. This felt better, and I knew I could do it for half an hour without any trouble. But still my mind swirled. There was a real, possibly even high-likelihood that I was going to die. Today. Doing this. I’ve got two children and I thought of them, growing up without a father because of what I’d done. I thought how my partner would come to think of me, dying in such a stupid way. I wasn’t scared to die, but I was annoyed. I felt regret, I struggled to come to terms with what was happening. How frustrating it was that only moments before I’d been out here having fun. That just fifty or sixty metres away was the safety of a sandy beach. People out walking their dogs.

And then a new set came though, I stayed on the surface this time, trying to let the wave catch me, and bounce me around in its whitewater, dragging me closer to the beach. I moved ten metres or so, then it let me go, but a second moved me further in. Then more. And then I realised I’d miscalculated after all. I glimpsed the board. It was sitting in calmer water on the inside. On the edge of, but not quite in the swirling water of the rip. If I could just get to it, I would be able to rest. I would be able to paddle it in over and across the rip. After four or five minutes of actively considering I was going to die, I knew I probably wasn’t – but I still had to reach the board in time, because if it did drift into the rip, it would go back out to sea, and then so would I. I started swimming much harder, still trying to balance my exertions so that I didn’t run out of energy before I got there, and keeping something in reserve in case I didn’t. Another few minutes, and the actual drama was over. I got to the board, and just held on a long moment, reliving what had just happened. Questioning whether it really had. I climbed on, and paddled on my knees easily across the rip, and back toward the sand.

In hindsight I was never in that much trouble. I now know there was a factor I didn’t consider. I’d started my session just after mid tide, as it was dropping, so that when the leash snapped it was getting towards low water slack tide, and this takes a chunk out of the power of the rip. But what makes this moment unique in my life – not just my surfing life – was that I didn’t know this, and everything I did know, built up over a lifetime of watersports, told me I was in real trouble. There were three or four minutes when I genuinely believed I stood a good chance of not making it back. Not being able to say goodbye. Not being able to say sorry. And that’s quite a long time.

And in a way that’s why I’m writing this. I hope it strikes a chord with a few other surfing paddleboarders, or normal surfers out there, and that it causes them to take a look at their leash, or get a better, stronger one. It might be that nine times out of ten, a broken leash is just a nuisance and not a danger. But I was nearly caught out by that one-time-out-of-ten when the opposite is true.  

Pics are obviously not of that day, but the one below shows the volume of wood that gets dumped by the river.