A Valentine's weekend to remember, part 1

So, I had this vision of a nice weekend up in Mendocino for Valentine's Day. I pictured a couple days relaxing in a nice bed&breakfast on the coast, with maybe some hiking in the nearby Redwoods parks. I had just finished reading "The Wild Trees", which is about people who climb and study Redwoods, and which I thought was awesome, so I was pretty excited about that.

I not much of a theologian, but I'm pretty sure my relationship with God works something like this:

[Scene: heaven. There is a large house on a hill. The sign in front says "God's House". Camera pans up the front walk, through the front door, and into the divine living room, where God sitting on the blessed sofa, with his feet up on the holy ottoman, watching SportsCenter. Suddenly, a red light starts blinking on the heavenly Blackberry.]

God: "Holy crap! Gus has a new vision for how he thinks his life is going to work!"

[God quickly dials up his only begotten Son.]

[Scene shifts to a spacious 2-bedroom apartment a few blocks down from God's House, where Jesus Christ and St. Peter are playing Halo 3 on the celestial XBox...]

Jesus: "Christ! I mean, Me! Pete, how the hell do we kill this giant mechanical spider??? I swear, if we don't make some headway soon, I'm gonna use my omniscience."

St. Peter: "C'mon, don't be such a big pussy. Just lay me down some covering fire on the left while I go for the joints on that thing."

[Jesus's heavenly Blackberry starts going off]

Jesus: "Damn! It's my dad. (reaches for the Blackberry, still laying down covering fire) Dad! What's up?"

God: "Son, are you busy?"

Jesus: "Kinda dad, what's going on? Aw FUCK! I just died again! Pete, pull back so I can resurrect, I mean, respawn!"

God: "OK, if you can just put down the Halo for a minute- Gus just had a new vision for how his life is going to be!"

Jesus: "No, really?! (presses pause on the XBox) What's this one?"

God: "Something about a peaceful weekend by the coast. You interested?"

Jesus: "Heck yeah! Me and Pete'll grab a few of the heavenly host and we'll go have some fun!"

God: "That's my boy! I've been getting so bored possessing Ron Paul and making him say bizarre shit. This should be some good entertainment..."

Jesus: "We're on it! Thanks for the heads-up, dad!"

So, the plan started out OK. Keiko came out Wed night, and Thursday we drove up to Mendocino. We had a room booked at the Sea Rock Inn, which featured a view from the room of some of the most beautiful coastline you'll ever see. Because we left Half Moon Bay late, and the drive to Mendocino takes a lot longer than you'd think based on distance alone, we had about 5 minutes to change clothes and then jump back in the car to head up to Ft. Bragg, where I'd made dinner reservations. Curiously, although I'd written down directions, a reservation time, and an address, I apparently did not write down the actual name of the restaurant itself. On top of that, this little blunder turned out to be compounded by the restaurant not having any sign or external labeling at all. I figured I'd recognize the name when I saw it, but since it had no sign, we spent quite some time looking for a name we didn't know on a sign that wasn't there, and between that and minimal effort in Ft. Bragg toward providing visible addresses, we ended up half an hour late for our reservation.


For the record, it's called Rendezvous, and the food was outstanding. Also, I recommend Mendocino county Pinot Noirs highly.




After closing down Rendezvous, so that I'd sobered up enough to drive us back to the Inn without putting us over the side of the cliff into the ocean, we headed back. We woke up the next day ready to explore our environs.


Our environs. Taken from the deck of our little cottage.










It was a gorgeous day, so we decided to drive into Mendocino town and have lunch, which we did. After a leisurely lunch, some local ice cream, and the obligatory trip into the local used book store, we drove back and decided to do the walk around the headlands. The Mendocino headlands really have to be seen to be believed. Pictures do not do them justice, but here are a few anyway...


















So beautiful- the mist, the trees, the cliffs, the waves, the drainage pipe...








Eventually, as we made our way around the headlands, we found places where you could climb down a little closer to the ocean...


There has to be a way farther down...












Keiko was somewhat less enthused about the idea of climbing down near the waves, which is why the pic above has its particular perspective. But I have always been drawn to the ocean- I feel a need to be very close to it. Very, very close...


OK, let's see if we can get closer...


















Be back in a jiff- just heading for those rocks down there on the lower left...












Much better. If only I could get even closer...



















The camera really fails to adequately convey the size of these waves. And this is just after low tide.














I climb back up, and we continue around the headlands. I finally succeed in finding a way to get all the way down to ocean level...




Aha! A clear path to the bottom. That wasn't so bad. And I even convinced Keiko to come down, which is why we have photographic evidence.














I am master of all I survey...












I want to be there, ahead and to the left, where that wave is breaking. I mean, who wouldn't, you know?



Answer: Keiko, and pretty much everyone I've told this story to so far.




After carefully climbing around nearly to where that wave is breaking, we reach a point where we can't go any farther without getting into the water, which seems pretty unwise, even to me. So we hike back up the side of the cliff and continue walking some distance around the headlands, until we reach this point:


We must take a moment to study this picture very carefully, in order to fully grasp the rest of the story...
















First, the perspective on this pic is crazy because if I move even a nanometer more to my left, I'll plummet 30 feet onto sharp wet boulders. But it's the only perspective that gets all the important places in one picture.

All the dark colored rocks are 30 feet below where I'm now standing. There is a horizontal line of white foam which is coming up out of an 8-inch wide, 4-5 foot deep chasm in the rock. All the dark rock below that line in this picture is, relatively speaking, flat, though you can probably tell that I am indeed using "flat" in a very relative sense. The rock above the white horizontal foam line rises to a height of about 7-8 feet above the water line as you see it in this picture, which is with a typical wave in the process of hitting it just after low tide.

My Idea was to climb down the left side of the rick we're standing on in this picture, which was a bit tricky, but which was doable, and which eventually puts you on the flat wet rocks toward the bottom right of the picture. From there, I thought it would be really cool to move up onto the 7-8 foot rock at the front, and watch the waves come in from there. All told, about 15-20 feet along the wet rock and then another 10 feet or so up and over the big rock at front.

Upon explaining my Idea to Keiko, she informed me that I was crazy, and that normal people would never consider doing such a thing. I explained that that's because "normal" people have no "sense of adventure". She replied that "normal" people have instead a "will to live". I replied that I was going down there, and she could stay up top if she wanted.

So I climbed down about halfway, and then motioned for her to come down and join me. She shook her head no. I persisted, and eventually, after pointing out that we had been completely safe following me so far, convinced her to climb down with me. From there, we continued down until we were on the wet rocks below.

From that point, I took the lead in slowly making my way along the extremely slippery, hard, sharp rocks. They were soaking wet, and covered with soft plant life, which is what made them so slick. That, and we were each wearing old tennis shoes. Now, I will grant that another person might have thought to themselves, "Gee, why is it that these rocks are all completely soaked, even though it appears to be low tide", or "Gee, how do all these underwater sea plants survive on this exposed rock?", but instead I was just thinking about treading carefully on the slippery rock, confident in the knowledge that after much scientific observation of the wave height at this time, we were perfectly safe.

And that's when I looked up, and saw The Wave.

Flashback- Maui, May 1994...

My girlfriend Tasha and I went to Maui for senior week. I had gotten a couple of free airline tickets from voluntarily bumping myself both coming and going at Christmas, and she had won 3 free nights at a hotel in Lahaina in a radio contest. We were poor as hell, but with these prizes we only had to pay for food and a rental car, so we did it. Maui was gorgeous, and just what I needed after all the agitda of senior year at Pomona.

One day, we drove to a particular beach and were having a fun time hanging out in the waves. The beach was in a cove, and way out in the middle of the cove was a giant chunk of volcanic rock, on which the waves were breaking. The rock was big and flat, and stuck out a good 8 feet above the water line. Suddenly, I just knew that I had to get out there, and climb up on that rock, and watch the waves come in.

Tasha informed me that I was crazy, that no sane person would attempt that. I informed her that if everyone thought that way, we'd still be up in the trees in sub-Saharan Africa, eating fruit and scratching our asses. She informed me that half the time all I did was eat fruit and scratch my ass. In retrospect, she kinda had me there, but I responded that I had A Plan, and she could either come along and have an awesome time, or be a stick-in-the-mud and stay behind.

My Plan was this: I had observed the waves for some time, and noted that they came in a pretty predictable cycle; in particular, they had well-defined lulls. Out in front of the main chunk of rock was a smaller piece that stuck out only about a foot from the water. I figured I would swim out past the small chunk of rock, wait for the waves to deposit me alongside it, and then hang out until the next lull. At that point, I would climb out onto the small piece, and from there make my way along the underwater bridge between them, and climb up the big piece. From there, I would watch the waves come in and revel in my Manly Glory.

To her credit, Tasha did follow me out to the rocks before declaring that this was insanity and turning back. To my credit, the first part of the plan worked beautifully. I swam out past the rocks, the waves deposited me right alongside the small piece, I waited for a lull, and then I climbed up onto the small chunk of rock.

From there, the plan started to wobble a bit. One thing I didn't realize, having never been on volcanic ocean rock before, is that it's sharp as hell. And I was barefoot. So as I started making my way along the underwater bridge, which meant I was about knee-deep in the water, I had to go very slowly and carefully to avoid seriously lacerating the hell out of my feet. Also, although from shore it looked like the two chunks of rock were right next to each other, once I was out there I realized that the underwater bridge was about 6 feet long. And at the pace I was moving across it, it was taking quite a while.

And so, perhaps with a primitive sense of danger triggered, at some point my intense, laserlike focus on the slow traversing of the underwater bridge was interrupted by the sudden thought that it had been a while since I'd checked the waves, and that because of the direction I was traveling, I had my back to the ocean. When I turned around, I saw The Wave coming right for me.

[St. Peter: "Oh, that's a good one, J.C., hitting him with the sleeper wave."

Jesus: "Ha, we'll be hearing my name in 3... 2... 1..."]

Me: "Oh Jesus."

I was caught on the underwater bridge, with nowhere I could go in the 1.5 seconds I had left. And let me tell you, after a long lull, the first big wave that comes is a _really_ big wave. I hunkered down in the water and grabbed on as tightly as I could to the underwater rock.

When the wave hit, I was able to hold on for about a fraction of a second, and then my grip was torn from the rock and I was propelled forward. Basically, I was smeared onto the side of the big chunk of rock, and started to slide down it, which, since it was sharp volcanic rock, cut large, deep vertical gashes down a large portion of the right side of my body. From there, the afterswell pushed me underneath the water and swept me along the side of the big chunk of rock. I just tried to stay limp and keep my arms and hands in front of my head and face. As long as you don't hit your head or get caught on anything, you've got a chance.

I finally surfaced several feet down alongside the big rock. Deciding that I'd had enough of the Plan for one day, I started the long swim back to shore. When I finally reached shore, and stood up out of the water, a mother playing with her young son looked up at me and screamed. I was bloody all down the right side of my body. I ignored her and found Tasha, who gathered up our towels and wrapped me in them as much as possible. We piled into the rental car and sped back to the hotel, so I could wash off. By this point, the seawater was evaporating and leaving only salt behind, so I felt like half of me was on fire. When we got back to the hotel, we peeled the bloody towels off, generating a fresh round of pain/bleeding, and then I took the longest cold shower of my life, taking increasingly bloody washrags and pressing down on places until they stopped bleeding. I was seriously fucked up.

From the whole experience, I learned two valuable lessons: (1) be better prepared, and (2) never turn your back on the ocean. So I've had a Plan ever since to someday go back to that beach, this time with Aquasocks for protecting my feet and gloves for my hands, and this time I'll keep a close eye on the ocean and at the first sign of trouble dive in rather than try to ride it out.

The thing is, my dance teacher used to say that you have to learn something 5 times before you really learn it. And that certainly holds true here, where, back in Mendocino, I looked up and saw The Wave.

[St. Peter: "C'mon J.C., not that old gag again!"

Jesus: "Whatever. This wave's bigger, and this time I've got the girlfriend too."]

This time, I didn't have enough time to form to form a true verbal thought. All I had time to do was look up at The Wave, notice that it towered above the 8 foot rock now immediately in front of me, and experience a kind of gut reaction that I had never seen a wave even close to that big before. And then it hit.

In retrospect, it is fortunate that the 8 foot rock was right in front of us. It absorbed the primary shock wave. But then several feet of surf from the shattered remains of the wave cascaded over the rock and slammed into me, and then a second later, Keiko. We both were completely submerged. I was blasted back along the rocks I had just shinnied across, still completely underwater, once again with my body limp and my hands out in front of me to protect my face. I started just behind the big rock in the picture above, and when the waters receded, I was on the dark rocks at the bottom of the picture.

Immediately, I got up, looked around for Keiko, because I didn't know whether she'd been hit or not, and saw her above me and closer to the big rock. She was on hands and toes, gripping the rocks with a death grip and saying "Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god." Forgetting that I was on slippery rocks, I basically sprinted over to her, casting an anxious eye back at the ocean, where more waves were coming.

Me: "Are you OK baby???"
Keiko: "Oh my god. I can't believe this happened. Oh my god."
Me: "We need to get out of here babe."
Keiko: "I am not letting go of this rock. I am not letting go of this rock."

Keiko is in shock, I realize. I turn and look, and the next wave comes in. Thankfully, it's smaller, so the water doesn't get all the way to us, but it does come close.

Me: "Keiko, we really need to get out of here."
Keiko: "I am not letting go of this rock. I am not letting go of this rock."
Me: "BABY. We need to get out of here NOW. It's safe up on the rocks. We've got to get back up on the rocks."
Keiko: "okay. okay."

She reluctantly releases the rock she is holding onto, and I practically drag her over to the place where we can start our ascent back. As we get there, I see the next wave is about to hit, and it's a big one too. I more or less shove her upwards on the cliff as the wave impacts. I'm only concerned with her safety at this point, not because I'm such a great guy, but because I refuse to allow her to be a victim of my stupidity any more than she already has been today. Me dying today seems pretty fair; her dying does not.

The impact from the wave ends about a foot from my foot, and as soon as Keiko is up I scramble up after her. We reach the top and start walking back to the hotel, taking stock of our situation as we go.

We're both completely soaked, head to toe. We can both walk, but I am experiencing a lot of pain in my right foot, ankle, leg, and knee. I can't feel right now all the other cuts and scrapes, probably because of the adrenaline, but my jeans are rapidly getting redder on the right side, so I can tell I'm bleeding pretty profusely somewhere. Keiko has numerous cuts and bruises, but other than that seems OK. We start to laugh a little, probably as a joyful reaction to, you know, still being alive. We're both just glad it's over, and we made it through okay. As we're walking, I reach into my pocket for my phone, and note that it is completely soaked, and completely dead. Ditto for my digital camera. Then I reach for my back pocket, where I keep my keys.

Except, there is no back pocket. It's been completely ripped away. The inner layer of my jeans are also torn, and my fingers come back bloody. I realize just now that my right ass cheek really, really hurts. And apparently is bleeding. And the keys are gone. That would include the keys to the hotel room, the car, and the office, since I keep them all together (otherwise I forget one or more). The hotel room shouldn't be a problem, but the spare key to the car is 4.5 hours away, in Half Moon Bay. And we're supposed to check out tomorrow morning. And, I'm supposed to be in the office to administer a diagnostic SAT on Monday, which is a holiday, meaning the office will be empty except for me, and so I'll have no way of getting into either the building or my office. No problem, I'll just call the student- no, wait, the only place here I have her number is in my phone, which is soaking wet and dead.

Oh crap. It's not all over, is it?

[Jesus: "Oh yeah, now we can sit back and watch some real entertainment. Let's see how he wriggles out of this one. Does he get to keep the girl? Tune in and see..."

St. Peter: "Sport me the divine pizza rolls, eh?"]