It is fall and the cool offshores blow from the canyons out to the ocean.  Alone as always Wracks stands inside the North Gate of the Bixby Ranch and looks down the cliff and out to sea.  A triangular reef in the middle of a kelp forest breaks left, and right too, but the left is better.  Harvest season begins in October with the thirty-first at the end to summon in the holidays.  On the way up, Rincon presents as a pecuniary three feet at best and the Wracks wonders why Tarantula Point is at least fifteen feet and bigger on the hourly sets.  The wave throws out roundly and the seaweed rises on the face on the smaller sets making the reef look like an undulating forest of brownish green in deep cold water.   The water here burns the face with coldness, and ice cream headaches are commonplace.   Maybe it is because the water off Point Conception and the bigger Government point is at least one thousand feet deep.  Surfers who live up here say that Government Point can hold any size swell nature has to offer, but Tarantula Point, situated on the north face of Government Point is the biggest.  Some say that Perkos produces bigger waves but it is in the south ranch, on the south side of Government Point.  Up here in the north ranch,  the waves produce a crack as the peak hits the ocean and the offshore wind stimulates a spinning tube.   At point conception, the protuberance that pushes out the farthest west of any place in California, the winds can change at any moment, and the rains, when they come, fall hard and are relentless.  So here, just inside the North gate at the ranch, the Wracks ponders going out by himself and catching a few lefts before heading home.  He has brought a seven-foot eleven-inch pintail gun with slots in the tail, shaped by Dean and on loan to the Wracks from his brother.  He will wear a Oneil spring suit underneath with a farmer John lower so the body has double the thickness of the neoprene.  Another huge set pours through and the left breaking wave ends in a channel with easy paddle and access to the peak.  The Wracks is trying to summon up some courage to go out, by himself for an hour or two.  In the meantime he watches four-inch-long tarantulas, slowly, methodically crossing the road to get somewhere probably to mate before the cold winter season ahead.   They are big, brown, and have short hair over the entirety of their bodies.  The fangs on their mouth are one inch long, but you can pick them up and they don’t bite.  It seems they move under the spell of an unseen drummer.  The Wracks set the tarantula down and look out to sea again.  Another huge wave comes out of the deep water ocean, breaks, and finalizes and the Wracks thinks he will have to flip a coin to decide whether to go out.  A tall rancher appears out of nowhere and salutes the Wracks.

I hope you are aware that thirty-foot-long great white sharks patrol just outside the surf line.  If you go out there you are taking your life in your hands, says the Rancher. 

I am deciding says the Wracks.

Decide all you want,  it is your ass on the line out there.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you says the Rancher and he waves goodbye and saunters off. 

I decided says the Wracks and the rancher waves his right hand up in the air without turning and walks away.

The fact that immense great white sharks lurk out in the water is not the only thing that scares the Wracks.  The water is incredibly cold and predatory sharks do not frenzy until the water reaches seventy degrees.  The fact is that the Wracks are alone and no one wanted to spend four hours driving on a freeway to have their head freeze off in deep seawater. Hawaii is a lot warmer. The Wracks gives up.  He drives the borrowed Pinto runabout out through the north gate gets on Highway One and drives down the long thirty-minute hill that burns out brakes to start transiting on his way home.  He pulls out a Pall Mall Gold, pushes in the car lighter, and ignites the cigarette.   The cigarette will give the Wracks two hours of stimulation so he can drive without stopping, possibly time for another cigarette.  The scenery is brown before the rains, and the highway pushes outward in the distance with not a person around. The freeway looks like an endless ribbon in the distance.   The Wracks turn on the radio, find an FM rock station, and turn the unit up loud.  The Pinto has a long range on a full tank of gas and at seventy miles per hour he will be home in three hours.  He smokes and the radio plays and he passes El Capitan which is completely flat and finally in Goleta he knows he will make it home.  Rincon is blown out now and Highway One stretches south into Ventura.   He thinks he can make it on one full tank of gas and the gauge shows slightly less than one-third.  He passes the nuclear-made tunnel and approaches the county line then the Bu and finally up Moonrise Boulevard to home.  He has spent eight hours on the road and youth is vitality and wasted on the young and this was a long time ago and then some.  The Wracks do not surf anymore or own a surfboard.   His wet suits sit in the closet unused.   He lives in Northern California where they grow grapes,  looks out the window and wonders where all the time has gone. The air is cool in Northern California by October and Halloween heralds another season beginning and the year ebbing.  In the small yellow room with a stereo he looks around and wonders and thanks God for another day.