Knock, Knock, Knock, it is still big says Malaga.

It is only five in the morning says the Wracks.  The sun isn’t up yet.

I want to check out the overhead, it has never been this big, says Malaga, the swell cleaned up overnight and the winds are Santa Ana, light offshore.   

I am in says the Wracks; I have a yum yum yellow backwards mini-pin shaped by Eggman.   It was a warped blank from Big D; I got for a song and Egg shaped it for an ounce of Kef I got from the man himself.   Let’s go, I have a super suit.

I want to look at the overhead. It has never been this big and the swell has cleaned up from Yesterday.  First make me breakfast.  

The Wracks pulls a small frying pan from the shelves and he makes eggs and toast with butter and marmalade while the automatic coffee percolator makes an eight-cup batch.  Columbian coffee tastes great in the morning with a dash of cream and a cigarette.   

The air is clear and the wind is light and the sun peaks up slowly from the Santa Ynez mountains.  The yellow van with the tuned Abarth exhaust system the Fonz helped install buzzes up Highway one.   The buy is at least six feet on a west-northwest swell and perfect conditions but Malaga wants to go on and see it.   Malibu shows the best form in the spring and late fall when storms gather offshore in the west and push big swells into the continental shelf.

Let’s go out says the Wracks, The Bu is on!

They drive and the whole coast is churning.  County line reefs out in the kelp are breaking fifteen to twenty feet and the bombora out to the left is huge.

Let’s go out says the Wracks, the Line has good shape.

I want to see it says Malaga; it is a once in a life time thing.  

They go on.   The deep-water points that never break are breaking six to ten feet.  If the Channel Islands didn’t block most of the swell from the coast, southern California would be the surf destination for the world.  Hawaii is a lot bigger and the water is warmer. 

Underneath the atom bomb tunnel and into Oxnard and Point Mugu is a huge mass of white water visible from ten miles away.   GB has a navy identity badge to enter the base and he wont surf it, he says it is too sharky and submarines sit in submerged pens not visible by satellites.   Too heavy.   The Wracks agrees.   Soon the van with the blaring exhaust and stolen CD player rockets into the Ventura highlands.   The Wracks lights up another Pall mall cigarette to keep himself awake.  Past C street and the pier, and then stables to the parking lot at the overhead, where a camp ground exists and no one surfs because the vibrations are too intense.   At Stables, the top of California Street point, the ranchers discharge animal offal from slaughterhouses and the farmers discharge agricultural waste.   The stream creates a sediment reef at Stables, the premier spot at C street, which is usually big in the winter.  Then there arises the Ventura Overhead.   The Overhead is called such because the reef only shows when the swell is completely overhead.    The overhead juts out from the top of Stables point, a little bit to the north, and the two, Malaga and the Wracks pull up, have a Coca-Cola and another cigarette.  

Today the Ventura Overhead reef feels the incredible swell and breaks at least thirty feet, with bigger sneaker sets every thirty minutes.   The wave is huge and incredible and breaks in a perfect peak, enabling a surfer to go right or left, their choice.  A slight offshore that will turn onshore in Ventura around noon, together with the rising sun makes the scene supernatural, surreal and heavenly.   Huge waves rear up and break, top to bottom, and the ocean churns and white-water streams all the way to the beach.    The two young surfers sit in the car, time the sets and don’t speak as is the level of excitement grows and explodes.

Do you want to go out asks Malaga.

I will if you go out firsts.   I don’t want to sit in shark land all alone almost one-half mile out at sea, says the Wracks.

It is huge says Malaga, and there arises a channel to take us out to the peak, but no one else is here to brave it.  It is you and me.

I will go if you do, says the Wracks.  It is your decision. 

Malaga sits and looks and lights another cigarette.  It is huge says he, I don’t know If I have the right equipment, I only have a seven-foot six-inch gun and it might not be enough.  

The waves churn and a huge set rises out of depths, one half mile out to sea, pitches and breaks top to bottom then flattens out in the channel.  It probably will never be this big ever again. 

I have made my decision says Malaga, it is too big, I don’t have the right equipment, and we will be the only ones out.   It is a hair out, says Malaga, I can’t believe I am haired out.

I am scared too says the Wracks; you made a good decision.

The car starts up and the two rocket back to civilization, and the van roars flat out at sixty-five miles per hour down the Highway one.

Let’s surf the Bu says the Wracks, the winter Bu is perfect.  

No, I have decided to go to a luncheon at Beverly Hills Hotel with my family.  We missed our window. 

Goodbye says the Wracks as he unloads his yellow pin from the back of the van. Have a good day and as Malaga drives away, he goes to the corner of Mellow Mans land and Bacon and Santa Inez Lane and watches the ocean and huge lines are visible ten miles away and the wind turns westerly and the ocean decivilizes into a texture of afternoon wind.   He would not surf the day after; he didn’t have a ride. 

It has been a long time and the Wracks doesn’t surf anymore.  No time, no opportunity, no money and age.   The Ventura Overhead exists when the swell is extremely big and it breaks perfectly.   Now, the boys have leashes and jet skis and radio communication to the Coast guard.  They have it made, all they need is a really big swell and the right equipment in the twenty-first century.   The Wracks is here and he believes and this is Gods country and the waves will break forever.