After heading into town to get some tacos and supplies we hitchhiked back to New Kino in the back of a pickup truck and were immediately surprised upon seeing the ocean how much of a swell was breaking on the beach. When we pulled up to the spot we were anchored Zak and I immediately climbed out of the pickup truck, stripped down to underwear, and each took an oar as a paddle. getting out through the shore break was a lot like white water rafting paddling as hard as we could to punch through the oncoming rollers. It took a while but we made it to the boat that had dragged anchor when the wind switched and reset just barely outside the shore break. She was pitching so violently that I had to kneel and brace myself against the bow-pulpit so i wouldn't be thrown overboard while hauling the anchor chain. We reset the anchor in significantly deeper water and battoned down all the hatches for the first time on this trip. Went over the insurance policy with each and resigned to fate, plastic bagging my sleeping bag for the trip back to the beach.
Our first wave inside the shore-break felt like we were suddenly sliding down hill at a 45 degree angle but it rolled past us and then we were committed. When you surf the faster you can paddle to match the speed of the wave the less drop there is to the drop in, so we paddled hard but the waves were coming in fast. It peaked right right under our stern and the bow was driven underwater by the sudden burst of speed. It felt like we went right over the bow and I Jumped clear, but Zak held tight trying to save things we had on board. My garbage bag of sleeping gear had surfed the same wave all the way to the beach and it only took a minute to pick up the rest of the pieces. when we got to shore a crowd had gathered of excited and concerned people, the boat looked safe enough though and our inflatable finally had all the sand rinsed out of her so we returned to field station and set up beds for the night.