Lifeguarding

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Anything - movie footage, postcards, nostalgic "beach-time" stories - that has you convinced of a Welsh afternoon tide's tranquillity was fallacious. I know this, because I am watching one break on the shore of Southerndown.

The simple truth is that each and every wave slides into the sand with its own personality. Some waves grow tall, then abruptly fizzle into a sheet of coke-bottle glass as they finish against the sand. Others, conversely, appear demure. You turn your back, concentrating on some other task (adjusting the ankle leash of your surfboard, wiping sand from your lips?) that seems of moderate urgency. Then, that same wave erupts from the water like the mantle of a sea monster, swelling and amplifying until it swallows you and your board for a full heartbeat. Later, I could always tally the bruises on my arms and thighs for a fairly accurate account of how many times I encountered such a wave.

The perfect time for surfing would have been midday, when the beach yawns wide. With the sun high overhead, imbalance of any variety, either underwater or on the sand, is highly unlikely. The waves are playful then, as well, an older brother tousling your hair. As the day disintegrates, however, the waves grow choppier. The water level climbs closer to the rocky slope enclosing the beach, complicating entry and exit. A zealous wave can freeze you in any number of positions and press you firmly against the rocks.

For this reason, I am not alone.

My instructor, a towering Norwegian, points out a deep, rolling wave. "Watch out," he says. I follow him into the froth, my timid steps striking against his bounds.

"Ryan?"

He turns, already thigh-deep in water. The waves bring out the glow in him.

"What's the signal?"

A pause. "When I do this," he says, voice raising to compete with the wind, "come back to the shore as quickly as possible." Both of his arms stretch high overhead, leaning left, then right.

If I need clarification, the time has passed. Ryan porpoises into the sea, body visible in cycle: arms, right leg, both feet. The wind speed rises, combing the water onto the shore in spasmodic sprays.

I turn to my only other companion. "Ready?"

Amelia shouts something in reply, but the wind smashes her words against the rocks as quickly as they are spoken. We both begin to move forward, a unified front.

Something burns my eyes. The water has irritated them, or more specifically, one of its mysterious ingredients: salt, sand, chunks of bladderwort seaweed? I press my gloved hand against them clumsily, and when I open them again, the horizon is speckled with florescent dots.

"Come on," Amelia says, right behind my ear. She has followed my wake, board trailing behind her like a faithful pet. Her fingers press into my upper arm, wrenching me forward.

I nod, then flip my board and arrange it perpendicular to the shore. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a healthy, ebullient wave surging.

The hardest part of surfing is the variables. Picking a wave and riding it seems relatively simple, but there is too much potential for change. For me, the picking itself often proves arbitrary: "it looked like a winner" five seconds ago. Once I position myself on my board, however, something changes. It doesn't even have to be a big change. A slight increase in the speed or magnitude of the wave is enough to invalidate all of my careful administration. No amount of furious paddling can keep my board perpendicular to the shore; the perfect ride yields to a near drowning.

Thus, is should be no surprise when the wave I select for its polish and grace morphs into an uneasy staccato, portions lifting and dropping with the abrupt power of ten fingers flying down piano keys. My board flips on impact. I disappear into the froth for what feels like minutes, counting heartbeats. I try to come up, but my board slides into the beach with my body, blocking the sky. I feel the sand skid underneath my back, and I plunge my fingers into it, jerking to a stop. When I finally surface, I have swallowed more water in a few seconds than the American Heart Association recommends for a day.

"Are you okay?"

Amelia paws at my board. It turns over easily beneath her fingers, smacking against the water.

"I'm fine," I say, loudly and slowly into the wind.

"What?"

"I'm fi-ine."

She nods, neither relieved nor irritated, and returns her attention to the horizon.

I can feel the water seeping into my wetsuit, oozing in around the ankle. My boots, once gloriously airtight and waterproof, have eroded until bits and pieces dangle as I clop through the waves. I lift one out of the water, stare at it. It seems vaguely reptilian. I'm still not used to seeing myself as this, waist-deep in churning brown water, salty residue plastered to my forehead and hair.

I look at the sky, the horizon, the shore to distract myself. The rocky slope seems neat, even clean from this distance. It stretches confidently to the end of the beach, where it crooks outward like a bony, beckoning finger. They call it "Witches Point." Each year, a fisherman is swept from his perch by a "rogue wave," and his rescue is chronicled in the local papers like a chapter of an adventure novel.

"He's making the signal," Amelia yells.

I turn, wetsuit tightening against my shoulder blades. There, on the narrow strip of sand, Ryan leaps up and down, hands leaning left, then right.

"But we've just begun!"

"What?" Amelia inches closer, using her free hand to make a cup around her ear. I shake my head. Nothing.

I look back at the horizon, scanning for the discreet blur of a new wave. The ocean has momentarily flattened. No last, valiant attempts for today.

Trudging back in shore strikes me as agonizingly slow. It could be the reverse tide, the remnants of waves gently tugging on ankles and heels as they slide back into the sea. Something scientific and documented. Yet, it seems that this slowness exists especially for me, as my heartbeat rediscovers her standard. In the waves, everything happens in explosions, waves growing and breaking in the time it takes to arrange your limbs properly on the board. Fast thought is a prerequisite for every ride. Reckless in life is survival in the waves.

The water is shallow enough here to lift your foot entirely out of the water as you walk. When you walk at a slant, the direction of the water tricks you into thinking you are not moving at all. The waves begin to pull fully away from me, but before my footprints are even fully established in the fluid sand, the next wave erases them.

I now think of carrying the board back up to the storage shed, a process that demands strategy. Pinned under the right arm, the left arm? Over my shoulder, alone? Or half of a sandwich, Amelia's rhythm in the front adopted temporarily as my own? There is no rush. On the shore, there is plenty of time.