Piedras Blancas

“I don’t know brah I don’t want to get my head bitten off.” Says Ryan. We stand at the edge a verdant meadow speckled with the Blues, purples and yellows of wildflowers budding in the early spring. It is a clear day with a few wispy clouds high in the jet-stream. Everything is so pleasant and refined. Except of course for the Subaru sized elephant seals rolling around on the beach. You think I’m joking, but a 2011 Subaru Forester weighs 3460 lbs and on average a male elephant seal weighs between 4000-5000lbs. So if you were to hop in the car with a few of your friends and fill up the bed with cinder blocks you could maybe tip the scale on a bashful runt somewhere on the outskirts of the colony. The beach was filled with these behemoth masses of blubber mainly sleeping but otherwise burping, barking and growling at one another.

Unfortunately for us it was mating season and soon thereafter, A Jaba the hut esque male rears up and roars at the top of his lungs. Then he slouches back down for a breather. Then he gets back up and starts jiggling full steam ahead in the direction of the nearest female. Imagine the powerful motion of a locomotive picking up speed out of the station, combined with the characteristics of an above ground swimming pool. As Jaba starts to get rolling, we notice a pup on the tracks. The pup, no more than 80 lbs sees its fate closing in and lets out a shriek. “BuaaaHHHH.” Ignoring the little ones cry for help, Jaba continues picking up steam. Death by blubber seems imminent, when suddenly Jaba flops down in exhaustion just short of the pup. who scurries awkwardly out of the way. A smaller but equally fat female waits expectantly, and after some heavy mouth breathing,

Jaba is back on track snorting through a truncated nose. Details will be spared, but as I scanned down the beach, the gluttony of the colony was a sight to behold.

But what interested us was just beyond the waters edge. The mystical “Piedras Blancas” drew our attention as a shoulder high barrel spun along turquoise blue on the other side of the bay. rolling green grassland hills puff lightly out to sea and a small 1800s lighthouse sits fittingly in the backdrop on the southern horn of the bay.

“Brah they are not even that bad, my buddy surfs with them all the time.” Sasha announces.

McClain, a nor cal local responds ominously “ I don’t like seals.”

And so the discussion continues for quite a while, but the swell is building and our instinct of self preservation shrinks proportionally. Malaria scares and dysentery, weeks in isolation shackled to a mooring and bending “work visas” with the help of colorful local currency seem to slip my memory as I reminisce back on “Successful strike missions.” But these stakes seem far higher, imagining an enraged bull, popping up in the lineup staring at me from behind that massive snout. opening its enormous 5 gallon bucket mouth in a stinky and horrendous display of dominance. And as I prepare to meet my fate, Hippo watermelon style, the last words I hear will be “ArrrrArrrr.”

Anyways, we decide to paddle out, slipping on booties and practicing karate in the dirt parking lot. We begin trotting along a single track trail lined with sage and succulents, about 400 yards inland from the colony. Meeting the end of the trail, we make a right turn to start heading down to the water. We can hear rumblings of the colony before they come into view beyond the rise. As we near the beach, we concoct a plan to paddle out near a cropping of rock near the water to avoid detection by the seals. Then, one by one we slide down the dirt bank to the beach and slink towards the water. Trevor starts cracking up and says “Brah how’s Sasha.” And I turn to see Sasha swaggering through the middle of the colony. All the seals are barking and growling but are too lazy chase him. We all start cackling and hooting, and the mood lightens.

We spend the next few hours enjoying “Piedras Blancas” on a dropping tide. The waves keep on getting better as we sit huddled, giddy with anticipation of the next set to spin down the bank. The late January chill in the water is contrasted by the midday sun. I am sitting up the point with hands and feet sticking out of the water wiggling my toes to keep feeling. Thoughts of mortal seal maulings digress to the back of my mind and I find something very rare. “Always and to nowhere”. A moment defined by its finitude. When everything hangs in balance and sucks you into it. I think everyone feels it in a different way, but for me it feels like weight being lifted off my psyche. For that moment I don’t have to be “Riley”. Transcendence is the one word fix. Often cited as the connection and foundation of religion. I sit in the turquoise water and watch plumes of white sand swirl along the bank. Asking myself the question, why do we love this feeling so much? From my observation, it is the sense of heightened authorship we get in these moments. We loosen our grip on defining characteristics and see our surroundings without the flattening heft of prior experience. My eyes are fresh and I have no idea what will happen next. but it is always clear that these moments will end, always abruptly. So I savor it, trying to absorb as much as I can.

Then it does end, abruptly of course, with a cloud of mist floating up from behind a wave. The biggest bull on the beach was making his rounds and decided to give us a look. I couldn't see the behemoth, but knew it large mass lurked somewhere below. Displacing boils of water, texturing the surface as he moved in for a closer look. “Ok, shoot time go in!” Trevor exclaims as we begin scrambling for bits of whitewash headed for safe ground. With that, reality bends and augments back to normalcy as I retreat back to shore grinning from ear to ear.