It's the journey not the destination... um, right?

As I'm waiting in line at the ferry dock I am trying not get bits of windshield glass in my fingers as I attempt to organize my belongings. The car's probably going to be out of my possession for awhile, and I want to turn it over clutter-free.

Out of my top right periphery a dark object caught my attention for about 1/4 of a second, not enough time to react physically, only to think, this can't be good.

I've had a lot more time to think about what put me in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was mostly the weather and my lack of ability to stay at home on a 3 day weekend. Travel factored as well; I would rather have spent the holidays in California on warm, sunny beaches visiting relatives, but having just come off a 2 1/2 week excursion mostly in Costa Rica, I really didn't want to so much as look at another airplane. I opted to spend the holidays in Washington, thinking I could snowboard. It didn't snow the entire time I was gone, not til the day I got back, and since then just an unimpressive six inches to coat a stiff layer of hoar frost.

I heard a loud "thud" then noticed a rather large hole in the windshield on the passenger side.

Since my knees won't tolerate hard pack snow, I started monitoring a predicted swell. Reports promised 17.5 ft at 19 second intervals with offshore winds all day long on Saturday, moved up from Sunday, with a swell direction that was going to be a guaranteed bet at Westport, which is south of Aberdeen. Low tide, best for the break I wanted, was at noon, so I wouldn't even have to get up early. Some friends in Seattle were going out for dinner Christmas Story style - Chinese food. Having plans only on Christmas eve, I decided to go if I could spend the night in Seattle, since it would shave off 1 1/2 hours of driving to the beach. My biggest apprehension was the cold: would I be able to pull a wetsuit on when I'd scraped ice off my car that morning? It would be a little warmer at the beach, but I also had holes in my soft soled booties, and the glue to repair them had become hardened in the can.

My rage spiked as I figured the object had come off the vehicle in front of me, so I sped up alongside the bright red pickup truck, honked my horn and waved it over.

As I took the 99 south through Seattle on the day after Christmas, traffic moved briskly and I decided to stay on it and take the back way through Des Moines, past Seatac airport. As I drove by the airport I pondered how much it would cost to just park the car, grab my bodyboard and fly off to California without a reservation.

Me: "What the **** flew off your truck???!!
Them: "Are you okay? Are you sure?"

I had been on schedule to arrive at the beach just before noon. At high tide the waves break too close into the rocks and jetties, but at low tides there is a bit of sand. I ended up arriving about 1:45 and saw my friend Becky at the big jetty, which I suspected would be too out of control out there, which it was. She'd been kayaking in the ocean with some friends, and when I saw the kayaks I had to stop and say hi. I showed her the object that had hurtled through my windshield and she gave me a hug.

"Yes, I"m fine." It turned out that they had run over an object in the road, and the draft from the high suspension pickup truck flung the object behind them and into my vehicle.

I decided to put my wetsuit on in the public restroom where they have warm air hand dryers. It was toasty in there! They even have regular mirrors so I could get my wetsuit out without help. (I have a sort of Houdini-suit. with an internal - read: hidden - zipper.) I put my 3 mil farmer over my 5 mil hooded full suit and tried to wear two booties, but it felt like my feet would cramp. So I just went with the holy 5 mil booties, but that turned out to be a bad decision.

Although there were two surfers out when I'd checked it before heading to the open jetty, there was no one out and it looked smaller. But I knew that at this break, looks could be deceiving, and there's something great about having a break to yourself. I also decided to try Custom X fins, see how they handled in the ocean.

The two men in the truck waited with me until the policeman arrived. He said there was nothing to report, because it was just debris, no one was at fault, and he could call me a tow truck or I could pull off the freeway and take care of it myself. I opted for the latter.

The fins were very powerful. I could sense myself moving just a little bit faster than usual to get past the breakers and fight the current. However I could not tell if they were comfortable or not because my feet were completely numb. I figured as long as I could still wiggle my toes, I'd stay out. In fact, I gave myself a "three wave minimum" and after that upped it to a five wave. Each wave surfed there is hard-fought. It seems you can never be out far enough or over far enough, because the current drags you into shore and into the harbor.

Just as the police officer was getting in his car to leave, I saw something on the floor of the passenger seat. Although we'd speculated wood, the object was metal. And it was heavy.

The waves at this break are usually slow enough to give you some good set up time before dropping down the face, but I pushed my luck a little much when I took off inside the barrel and couldn't hold an edge. After getting thumped a bit underwater my board sprang back and hit me in the nose. I touched my nose with my gloved hand and saw a splotch of red. No time to think about it or the pain, another big wave was about to crush me.

A guy named Jorje with a car alarm store used his shop vac to get the glass off my dash and seat, then cut out a piece of cardboard and carefully duct-taped it to the inside under the hole, and then taped all the mess on the outside. He probably spent 45 minutes helping me. I offered him some cash but he refused it.

I ended up catching six waves, if you count the late take-off muncher, and was joined by two other surfers. I figured that was about $100 a wave, if you include gas, since i have a $500 deductible. There was damage to the roof so I can't just replace the windshield.

"Good thing you didn't have a passenger!" - Becky

In Aberdeen I made contact with a friend in Forks, who encouraged me to come visit and maybe get in another day of surf. Besides it was only 100 miles up there, as opposed to at least 150 to get home. It was a fairly straight shot through a lot of nothingness and forest, although the road was icy in spots. I made the 100 miles in under two hours and decided I needed a drink.

The next day I slept in too late to do any serious surf exploration. The local surf shop opened late and had a pair of harder soled booties that fit well under the Custom X fins. I stopped at two surfing spots but the swell had passed. The places that were breaking were either too large and chaotic, or I would have had to drive an extra hour each way, plus they really weren't safe places for a single girl to venture out to. To top it off, I'd left my damp wetsuit in the car, and it had gotten into the 20s in the night.

One friend said I was darned lucky. I am not very good at pondering the 'what if'. Not being a specialist at trajectory physics, I'm really unsure what kind of impact the object made once it got through the glass. Would the glass have slowed it down? It left a small scratch on my dashboard, nothing on the seat, and landed on the floor. It came in less than two feet from where I was sitting. It may have bounced off the seat, I'll never know. I think if it had had enough impact to mess me up, it would have messed up my passenger seat. And I'm kind of wishing it had, because that poor seat has been the victim of a rainstorm with the sunroof open with a newspaper that stained the leather. And an assortment of other spills. Lucky? Eh, not so much.