Nor'easters

Imagine it’s 8:00 AM, you’re standing barefoot in the sand, and the wind is howling 20 mph in your face. To your North and South, red buoys and multicolored fins form two parallel lines in front of the dune. Water from each powerful wave comes all the way up to the duneline, knocking over your fins and creeping up to your toes. Fellow COR guards in black wetsuits take position behind their respective buoys and fins. You stare out ahead of you, and the ocean is an angry whirlpool of white water, thunderous crashes, and misty spray. The water churns and roars, and all natural instinct in your body tells you to stay out of that death cauldron. But you don’t. The adrenaline is pumping; you grab your buoy and fins, and charge the water like warriors going to battle.

Imagine you’re swimming as hard as you can. 8 foot waves crash on your head, one after another after another. You resurface enough to catch one gulp of air, and immediately ahead of you is another giant wall of white water. You dolphin dive to the bottom, grab the sand, and dolphin kick as hard as possible to escape the aquatic wrath. Your head comes up, you gasp for a breath, and see your fellow COR guards 10 yards ahead of you, floating on their buoys on the outside past the breakers. But you’re still on the inside, right in the crash zone, and you get ready for a pounding as a monster wave peaks and begins to curl right on top of you.

Imagine you’ve made it to the outside, and now you must make it back to shore. You grab your buoy by both hands and look behind you for a wave that not only you think you can catch, but one that also won’t kill you. You and a fellow guard whoop as you both spot what you think is your ticket back to land. You both start dolphin kicking, but realize that as you start catching the wave, it raises you to it’s 10 foot peak. You’re on top of the wall of water, staring down the 10 foot face and you know this is not an ideal situation. The wave dumps you down it’s massive body, and you’re pummeled into the sand and tossed around like a rag doll. You have no idea what way is up, down, left, or right, and even though you may only be held under for 7 seconds, it seems like a lifetime. You thank God you have you’re buoy- it’s your best friend at the time, and when you resurface, you see your fellow COR guard pop up next to each other. You both laugh, relieved, and say, “That was awesome!”.

I guess you could say we’re a rare breed of individuals; we’re people that see life-threatening water conditions as a fun romp at the beach and near-death situations as “awesome”. But because we’ve been out there during these times, we have gained enormous respect for the ocean. It’s beautiful, powerful, and can take your life as easily as it wants. But hopefully, because we’ve been out there and because we’ve been trained to perform rescues in these kinds of situations, Corolla Ocean Rescue won’t allow that to happen.