After two years of mastering his craft in the minor tournaments, netting himself a cabinet-full of trophies and a healthy bank account of prize money, he had got to realise his dream of competing in the ASP World Championships. The tour had taken in Brazil, Fiji, French Polynesia, France, Portugal, Hawaii, America and his final destination — the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
It was here, after a particular late night and an even later morning, that he switched on the TV in his hotel room to discover that an alert had been put out by the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre (JATWC) of an earthquake off the west coast of Vanuatu. Although the islands themselves had received little damage from the tremors, the displacement of the sea floor had generated a huge tsunami, which was heading for the east coast of Australia. A clock on the bottom left-hand corner of the screen indicated the estimated time of impact — 48 minutes and 10 seconds… 9 seconds… 8 seconds… 7 seconds…
He’d looked out of his bedroom window to see a slow-moving, almost stationary, line of traffic heading inland, away from the coast. His first thought was to join them, then he considered moving to the top floor of the hotel. Finally, he decided on his current course of action. If he was going to die, he wanted to do so doing something he loved, not trapped in a car like a rat in a box, or crushed to death by falling masonry.
He’d raised the comatose form that had slept beside him with a gentle shake of the shoulders before telling her the good news. It had taken the images on the TV and a trip to the window before she finally believed what he was telling her. Her first reaction was to panic; she ran around the room, screaming and gathering the clothes she had discarded on the floor the night before. Chad had to physically restrain her before she calmed down enough to take in her option. Being a non-surfer, her best bet would be to get to the roof of the hotel and tie herself onto something stable. She dutifully agreed and left the room in a state of shock, having only managed to put on half her clothes.
Chad had donned his wet suit and made his way to the underground car park, where his rented Subaru Outback was parked, his surfboard having been secured to the roof rack with bungee cords. It was a relatively easy journey to the beach — his side of the road being devoid of all vehicles. He was amazed at the variety of hand gestures, facial expressions and signals that people used to try to tell him he was going the wrong way. Only once, at a police checkpoint, did they try to physically turn him back; but, when he explained that he’d left his younger sister playing on the beach, they let him through.
All that was left for him to do was choose any one of the deserted parking slots by the beach, unclip his board from the roof, paddle out to sea, and wait.
If the countdown on the TV was accurate, he figured he wouldn’t have much longer to wait. He ran through his strategy in his mind one last time. If the urban myths were to be believed, the first indication of the wave approaching would be the ‘drawback’, where the shoreline recedes dramatically, exposing the normally submerged seabed for hundreds of feet. To counter being stranded, like so many fish would be, he had paddled far out to sea.
He looked back over his shoulder at the beach and could see the sun glinting off the roof of the solitary vehicle, some half a mile away in the distance. He would be carried along with the retreating tide, taking him further out to sea, towards the horizon, powerless to fight against the currents sucking him towards the unstoppable wall of water.
He had heard that, as the wave approaches shallower water, the leading edge slows down, but the trailing part is still moving rapidly in the deeper water behind, causing it to compress. This piling up — or shoaling — results in the growth of the wave; the height it finally achieves is determined by the depth of water near the shoreline. Chad would always make a point of knowing the underwater topography before any competition. A big wave wipeout can push surfers down twenty to fifty feet below the surface. Strong currents and water action at those depths can slam a surfer into a reef or the ocean floor. The notice boards on surfing websites were always full of condolences for the latest casualties, with an estimated fifty surfers dying each year, professionals as well as amateurs.
He had done his homework. He knew that the Gold Coast had a steep underwater shelf that ran to a depth of two hundred feet before plunging vertically down, three miles, to the ocean floor. Even with his limited education, he could work out that that meant he was going to encounter the mother of all waves.
But the enormity wasn’t his only concern. He was proficient enough to be able to ride any size wave — as long as it had a clean face. That meant that, when the wave broke, it did so from the crest down, leaving a carpet of blue sea rolling towards the shore on which to surf. Unfortunately, tsunamis differed significantly from wind-generated waves in a number of ways. Not only were they bigger and faster, but, contrary to popular belief, they come ashore as a large, cresting wave. When a tsunami hits shallower waters, the shoaling effect breaks up the leading edge of the wave, turning into a wall of mushy white water that rolls towards the coastline like a gigantic surge.
Because there would be nothing for the bottom of the surfboard to grip on to, he’d essentially get bounced around in the foamy mess until he fell off, and that’s something he needed to avoid at all costs. His strategy was to wait until the very last moment and then ‘duck dive’ under the surge. A difficult manoeuvre at the best of times but, given the speed of the approaching wave, he’d have to time it to perfection. Essentially, he would paddle as fast as he could towards the wave to build up momentum; then, before getting caught in the maelstrom, he would hold down the front of the board so that it submerged. Taking a deep breath, he would kick as hard as he could and follow the board under the surface, pushing down on the back of it with his foot to gain extra depth. The deeper he could go, the better chance he had at surviving the initial onslaught.
Next, he would have to judge when the front edge of the wave had passed over him, before pulling up the nose of the board and allowing himself to float to the surface.
And this is where an idiosyncrasy of a tsunami may work in his favour; in fact, he was counting on it. All waves are made up of a series of peaks and troughs — the high point being the peak or crest, and the low point the trough behind it before another wave starts. The distance between these two points in a normal oceanic wave can be measured in terms of feet; but, with a tsunami, it’s measured in miles. If he could time it so that he missed the turbulent water at the front and surfaced just after the peak on the back side of the wave, he should be in a position to ride it all the way inland until it burnt itself out. He would then have enough time to get to higher ground before the next one came in.
He had been through his strategy what seemed like a thousand times in his mind but there were too many ‘ifs’, ‘buts’, or ‘maybes’ for him to feel confident. He would have to wing it, react to the conditions as they happened, relying on his experience and instinct. He didn’t mind admitting to himself that he was the most scared he’d ever been in his life.
To top it all, he knew that tsunami waves were a lot longer than the ones he was used to, sometimes stretching for hundreds of miles. So, once he was committed to riding it, there was no turning back. He couldn’t simply pull away to the side to avoid a wipeout, as there were no sides.