Stung

Scripps Pier

The beach I most frequent is a five minute jot from my house.  This here beach is Scripps, it's a tourist/ surf/ swimmer/ research facility.  The pier is inaccessible by the public, or for the most part, all I've ever seen it accessed by is the researchers and scientest who either launch, dive or throw food from the end of it to attract who knows what.  A couple hundred yards south of the pier is what San Diegans call "The Shores":

La Jolla Shores

The Shores is more or less a family beach, full of stoked out tourist from all over the world.  It's also full of ten foot blue foam boards, wave runners, boogie boards, floating bikini tops and sun bathers.  It's also a spot where you can light up a fire in one of the several fire pits after dark just south of "house row".

Two types of soul poses at The Shores.

I frequent either the south or north side of Scripps Pier depending on the time of the day.  From 11am  to 6pm during the summer months, they close of the south side of the pier for about 200 yards with a checkered flag and a post that says "Swimmers (one way) / Surfers (the other way)".  The locals call this the "summertime blues" because when there are waves, there is a lonely right on the south side of the pier being frequented by nobody during the non surfing part of the day.  I try and get up early and surf the south side of the pier for the right, which can be really fun and hollow when there are waves and the tide is low enough.  The hollow section of this wave next to the pier tends to not close out like the rest of the beach on good days.  Twice have a made it out of little tubers at this spot.  If I'm having fun and decide to stay past the 11 am curfew, I paddle right under the pier and catch the lefts on the north side of the pier which are really fun and good practice for the somewhat hesitant backside surfer that I am.  I frequent this spot with the curfew breakers and some of the older goofers who have frequented the pier for decades.  We have good fun.

One Board, One Building.  North Side of the Pier. 

Well, a few days ago there wasn't suppose to be no swell at all.  It was suppose to be junk.  I went out at around 8 am and the smurfline "blues" kept all the believers at home asleep while me and two other non-believers with chest high and sometimes eye high waves busy. 

I surfed a good four hours frequenting the north and south side of the pier, just having a blast with a few others.  The left on the north side of the pier was just as fun.  Some sets were eye high and mellow that went from "23" to the beach.  I ended up going home around one in the afternoon, eat some lunch and worked on some of my boards.  But I just couldn't get over how fun the morning had been, so around five I headed back out for another session.

It wasn't as fun as it was, but there were still some fun waves in the water.  Around 6pm they pulled out the checkered flag and I decided to paddle under the pier to the north side.  It was just me and two groms having a a blast.  On my fourth wave, I took a left, trying to make it under the pier, but the wave mushed out.  I jumped off my board and felt this slithery thing jolt under my left foot.  And within a half second of that jolt I felt a stab under the bottom of my left foot.  Instantly I knew I was hit by a sting ray.  As you can remember from my previous blog "The Shuffle", some of the first advice I'd ever received was how to treat such wounds.

Not my bucket, but similar.

I bellied a wave in, ran over to the lifeguard tower and they instantly knew what was up.  The lifeguards filled a bucket full of hot water and as soon as I was in the tower I stuck my foot in.  The tower ran out of hot water due to a few other "stingings" that happened earlier.  They drove me over to the main tower at The Shores where I chilled out with Luke, another surfer that was in the lineup with me who got stung 20 minutes before.

The pain would have been unbearable if it wasn't for the lifeguards bringing out hot water constantly.  I kept my bucket half full, giving me enough room to keep the temperature up.  At times the water was scalding hot, but if added scalding hot water lightly to my half warm water that was already in the bucket, it kept the temperature just hot enough to stand and the pain from making me cry. 

Matty and the guys took good care of me.  San Diego's finest.

I had my foot in hot water for about two hours.  Lifeguards Matty, Walsh and "Sarge" took really good care of me, checking up on me every few minutes.  Matty ended up staying with me until almost nine, checking up on me, handing me hot buckets of water and telling me his surf stories that included his drive from Baja to Brava Salsa in Costa Rica.  He told me he actually met the real "Captain Zero" featured in my favorite surf book.

My Feet at the moment.  Right foot, reef cut.  Left foot, stingrayed.

As I was sitting there with my foot in a bucket, somewhat still in pain, alone, watching the sun fall, big blue settling in, the beach fires starting up and all the smiles around each fire, I realized something.  Life has a way of leading us to where we need to be, if we let it.  I'm not saying I did, but I'm what I like to call "good".  I'm not longing for the past or hoping for something in the future, I'm pretty much... present.  And that's all I can ask for.  Was I stung for a reason?  I can't answer that.  But I did meet some really cool people while I was sitting there, leg throbbing and all.  I'm just going with it.  And enjoying it.  And shuffling from now one, and never touching sand ; )

View of my side of La Jolla.