Hanging Ten with Ken

Surfing the Backside

Dedicated to all the Surfriders in the Breaks on the Cape!

We all knew it was coming, and we are all at fault for letting it happen. That’s why so many of us are angry. I wrote about the great white sharks in the lineup years ago when I worked at the sports and news desk at the Cape Cod Times. I blogged about making seals into hotdogs on NEsurf, but when I was bitten by a small bull shark while surfing a few years ago in St. Augustine next to the pier, I was too embarrassed to tell anybody!!

The day before the young surfrider Arthur Medici was killed, I received early morning texts and calls from surfers in the know that the waves were clean and pumping all along the backside of the Cape. I had my classroom’s big screen showing the Beachcomah’s cam waves breaking at Cahoon Hollow Beach. I was dreaming of catching some rides later that afternoon. With a full day of classes, tech tickets stacked up, and cross country practice scheduled until almost five it was doubtful!

When I finally got to my truck in the staff parking lot, my board hanging out the back was calling my name and determination set in. My students would be racing their first MIAA race of the season the next morning and I wanted time to surf to gain the energy for myself. It was an Indian Summer day and it would be light out till late. The tide was right and no matter what, I was going to get to Newks and surf!! I was on the phone with the Rev in seconds getting the updated report. He was at work and couldn’t get there but “it’s big and pumping Kenny!” is all I could hear from the Newfoundlanders twang and heard in my head all the way home.

I pulled into the driveway and went in quick putting my best spin on why we had to go to my wife Marie and luckily scored her approval. She quickly followed me back out to the truck as I grabbed a cold beer from the fridge for later.

I thought we would never reach the highway as the backroads out of Dennis and into Harwich had construction for gas piping along all the major backroads of the area. Once heading towards Orleans, I called the regulars, Chick and Surfer Joe to see if they had been somewhere surfing today. Nobody answered.

Once I’m around the rotary in Orleans (i.e. real Cape Cod), I go on high alert. It’s a dangerous road with accidents all the time. Don’t want to get killed just going surfing! I could see at the creek in Wellfleet that the tide is still going low and once along Atlantic drive, the peak of waves off the ocean in the distance look epic!

While usually full, the parking lot at Beachcomber as we pull past is now empty but a mile or so later Newcombs is jamming and instead of pulling down to look, I grabbed a spot as close as I could. I dug my wetsuit from the back of my capped longbed and like always was peeling it on in seconds right next to my driver door.

My wife was busy already doing a crossword as I changed and stayed in the truck as I dug wax out from the trash of cans and shit in the back and then pulled my board out of the back pulling off its soft cover that my wife made for me. Wax in hand and jogging to the parking lot overlook, the beach and waves came into view and a panorama of the quintessential Newcomb Hollow beach scene unfolded before me. People were gathered on the beach with small fires already going and a dozen or more surfers were in the water.

I shook a few hands and said hi to a few other surfers and gave the waves a good look. Amazing waves were breaking both on the right center and left sides of the beach. I gauged the lineup and chose to go right. I could see guys catching bombs and ripping all the way across the break.

I wanted mine and I wanted in. Wading out over the sandbar and into the water which was warm and filled my old wetsuit that had holes in many places including one in the leg from a shark attack in St. Augustine, Florida a few years past. Believe it!!

The bull shark that attacked me that day was aggressive and after stomping it off my foot, it came in quick at my thigh. Luckily, I was swinging at the water for all I was worth and caught it in the snot somehow as it was biting my inner thigh. It left a rim job on my leg 6 inches long and small bite marks on the knuckles and a long tear in the wetsuit leg.

I was lucky that the worst that happened is the wind and tide took my Stewart board out to sea as I stood on the shore shaking and bleeding slightly from the bottom of my ankle. I would drink coors beer all night with the maintenance guy who was blown away by my story.

I drove the next day, first to Cocoa Beach to pick up a board from Craig’s and then across the state 200 plus miles to surf rare great waves on the west coast in Venice near my parents' place. I grabbed a waterproof band aid kit at a CVS and rode waves with my buddy Ron Knight and I didn’t tell anybody for a few months, Not even my aging parents or my wife!

The great white sharks prowling along the Coast of Cape Cod are not babies, but full grown meat eaters and like Mikey they’ll try anything!!! As I started paddling towards the lineup it felt like feeding time. Small caviar type fish eggs were floating in the water sticking to my suit and as I reached the lineup small bait fish jumped about in every direction. I saw guys I knew catch a great wave and then saw my friend Max catch a bomb down the line. His big smile could be seen flashing as he dropped down the wave.

When he paddled back out, he headed over to the left where his buds were as I waited for the next sets to come. Next to me were two young guys on boogie boards with green flippers on. Not something we usually see with us in the lineup. They were paddling close to the break just inside of my own position. I watched from over the top of the wave as one of them caught a barrel and shot through the tunnel spinning up and over. Sweet f… shit! I put myself in the same place on the next wave and bang I was lighting it up down the face.

cranking out a wall

I paddle back out howling over to Max and his group. As I watched the next sets come in, I started for a wave and then I locked eyes with one of the boogie boarder guys and realized he’s got it and I shouted go go go!!! He’s got a big grin on his face as he diped down into the barrell.

I was pumped and then charged for my own. When it came I charged it hard and made that extra paddle into the turn and swept quickly right along the top and then the weightlessness as I dropped down and rocketed my way across the face. As the wave crest grows, I drive my board into the secondary towards the beach.

I could surf all night but after another 20 minutes and several rides later I took my last wave almost right up onto the beach. I walked up the bar enjoying the final touch of sand on my toes and the feel of the board clenched in my hands. I got glances of approval from beachgoers and folks gathered around bonfires. My friend Max’s mom and sister were on the beach and I said hi having met them only weeks past at the Old Timer’s. I glance back at the top of the beach to get a view of the action. Waves were still coming in like corduroy all along the beach.

(The two boys can be seen directly in the middle to left of cresting wave)

Questions about the surf at top from some guys just heading out and I put my board back in its sleeve my wife made. I pulled my can of Coors out and quickly crushed half the contents in a few gulps and started unzipping and pulling off my suit. My wife is surprised I’m back so quickly I’m happy with my 45 minutes. ….. more

I’m no chumley but many times I think I am. I surf not for just the waves that I ride but the friendship and community that is part of the surf life. I’ve collected over a hundred boards in an attempt to build a museum. The boards now serve no purpose as there are no surfers anymore to show them to. All I have left are truly what is priceless and that is the people I met and memories I made along the way. I’ll never forget the smile on who I would later know as Arthur as he dropped down the wave on his boogie board!!! I met his mom for the first time at the two year memorial where a bench was placed at the top of the hill leading down to the break at Newcombs.