A Mike Doyle Surf Story

A Mike Doyle Surf Story
At the young, vibrant age of 60, Mike was outside my Gringo Hill house yelling at me to "get my gun, the Rivermouth is offshore!!" It was 4pm in the afternoon and a huge SW swell had just arrived. We paddled out alone at the Estuary in San Jose and it looked like big Puerto Escondido. Gaping tubes at triple overhead. The offshores, caused by rain in the nearby Sierra La Lagunas, were holding the huge pyramid peaks up with big smoking tops, until they pitched forward way out onto the flats, grinding perfectly down to 6ft shoulders. We each rode several respectable sized waves in the cloudy, ominous looking conditions, when a black monster way outside of us appeared and had us paddling our 10 and 12ft Steve Clark guns as fast as we could. Mike was very deep and a good 50-60yards further over to the peak than I was, but we were both in danger of getting mowed by this fast moving, raging offshore black beast. It was by far the biggest set of the day, easily quadruple overhead and thick. I was now becoming seriously worried for Mike, who was nearly eligible for Social Security, even getting over this thing, when he suddenly turned around a quarter of the way of the giant face....AND DID A NO PADDLE TAKE OFF ON HIS 12FT GUN!!! My mouth was agape as he was sucked up the face to the precipice, where he smoothly got to his feet under the thick, blustery lip......with a big SMILE on his face! Perfect and calm on his huge gun, he sliced down the impossibly steep face that turned into a huge round barrel and carved a deep powerful bottom turn pulling up into the maw of this big open cavern....and just stood there smiling as the powerful chaos erupted all around him. He cruised out over the shoulder and gracefully layed back down on his board letting out a  loud "AAAARRRRRRR!!!!!!!" like a pirate who just opened a gleaming gold treasure chest. I will never forget my thoughts at that moment~ "YOU are the KING"
Sincerely, and with treasured memory,
Jeff King