The Endless Ripple
A friend who knew I’d learned standup paddle boarding on a tranquil lake Up North in The Land of 10,000 Lakes wondered when I’d be taking on Nazare the Big Wave seaside resort on the coast of Portugal known for 100 foot waves.
I texted back,
Ocean, lake, and river waves are sublime and beautiful ― from the tiniest wind-driven ripple to the storied Nazare swells acutely magnified by an abrupt sea-floor canyon.
Today I’m content, if not thrilled, by waves topping out at 100 millimeters. Drifting, floating, or riding waves is a dopamine rush like no other I’ve known. For generations, dopamine junkies and surfers alike set out in search of the mythical perfect wave.
August 1966 I watched The Endless Summer at a drive-in theater. I was a wide-eyed boy squeezed into the bench seat of ‘60 Cadillac convertible guided by my older brother and his Jersey Shore surfing buddies.
The premise of the title The Endless Summer is that with enough time surfers could follow sun-warmed rollers from hemisphere to hemisphere then back again, making the quest for the perfect wave an endless, if not a lifetime pursuit.
“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
The perfect wave is real. I’d imagine it as a teenager each time I glided my skateboard over some blacktop hill, then carving a hard bottom turn to pull up inside a peeling tube of ocean.
Like you I remain a dreamer of big dreams. But most times we are simply meant to ride the oncoming waves.
