A few months back, I shared what I’d hoped were useful approaches to help beleaguered surfers deal with crowds.  This month I visit one in particular that’s near and dear to my heart: the “Dawn Patrol”.  In surfing’s ceaselessly colorful nomenclature, a Dawn Patrol is a surf session that starts when else … at dawn.  On weekends and holidays (and sometimes even before work), I’m up and at ‘um early and flying out the door to go “Dawn Patrol” the surf!  Stoooked!!!!!

As far back as I can remember, I’ve been a morning person, more specifically, a ‘super early’ morning person. Resultant of a long and hard to break habit, I usually pop up every day at around 4:30am.  I don’t quite get folks who, by choice, stay up all night and sleep in all day.  To each his own for sure, but you’d not catch me out cabaret clubbing till the wee hours and then dragging my okole out of bed late the next afternoon to do battle with a vicious hangover. For me, that would get very old, very fast.

That enchanting hour or so before the sun rises has always been my favorite time of day because it’s cool, dark, and quiet, the air is clean and still, and because most people (which includes thousands of surfers) are still fast asleep, and it’s pleasantly deserted.  The roadways are free of traffic (except for maybe a few inebriated cabaret clubbers), there are some weird but entertaining early AM radio talk shows on, and most importantly, I’m beating everyone down to the beach.  As soon as I was old enough to drive I’ve been doing this, and except for the increased number of surfers hitting the early shift these days, the experience is still pretty much unchanged; peaceful, rewarding, and imminently practical (especially when your kids have 8am soccer games).

So to run you through a typical scenario; you rise at an ungodly hour, bed hair in it’s full glory, and argue with yourself the sense of doing this.  After brushing the teeth and gathering up the gear as quietly as possible, you jump into the car and find that the seats and steering wheel are hard and cold.  You start the engine and let it warm, pull a hoodie over your noggin, set up the coffee mug and stereo, and you’re off.  After the fog clears in your head, you run through an inventory of all the surf data you’d compiled in the previous days on internet wave models, TV surf forecasts, and emails to/from surfer friends, that’ll all help you make the call on which spot to check first.  When you get to the beach, it’s still pitch black, and the best parking spots are wide open.  You shut off the engine, rub your eyes, let out a big yawn, sip some coffee, and stare out at the inky darkness.  This seems to be the only time surfers take the time to carefully listen to waves.  And while the eyes are still a bit bleary, the ears are needle sharp in comparison, picking up the faint rumble of whitewater lines and timing their frequency as you walk up to the water’s edge.  There are a few others there too, so you dish off the obligatory chin lifts, maybe talk little bit story with a friend or two you might bump into, and then check the darkened surf, your watch, and the sky every two minutes for signs of light.

As the first sliver splits the blackness in the east, you begin to stir with purpose; readying yourself and your equipment, pulling on the wettie or a rashie, stretching and doing the mental checklist. The dew covered ground is cold, and the sand and air even colder as you stand at the water’s edge.  Your body readies for exertion, every sense peaking. The shapeless forms of the day’s first images are scarcely apparent as you stroke out to sea.  A quarter moon struggles to help the lighting situation as you arrive at the takeoff spot, quickly pick up a barely distinguishable lump of water, and brail ride your way across it.  Although you’ve heard it a million times before, the sound of the lip hitting the trough of the wave behind you is startling, and the low visibility makes you feel like you’re going three times faster than you really are.  You’re fully awake now, and repeat the exercise over and over as a thin column of soft ambient light further breaks the monochromatic dimness.  You already have a few keepers in the bag and you feel like you’ve stolen all the gold from Fort Knox and gotten away with it.  Everything else you happen into is gravy as a second yield of surfers and the morning sun’s rising orange plume steadily infiltrate the spot and the day’s requisite gridlock begins.  You squeeze in a few victory lap rides and then it’s time to make the unhurried paddle in, a coy grin stretched across your waterlogged and contented face.  It’s a high effort, high reward exercise that you love.

There are two myths about dawn patrolling I always hear that I find highly “debunkable” (is that even a word?):

1) “The water is FREEZING early in the morning!”  - Well, of course it’s not going to be as cozy as a heated pool, but I’ve never found the water to be unbearably cold. Although we’re in the tropics, it can definitely get pretty darned cold in Hawaii.  But even with just a rashguard on, your body actually acclimates fairly quickly.  Where I get really really cold is up on the beach, especially in the winter months, when a biting wind slices at your goosebumped skin like a knife, when walking across a long stretch of coarse night-chilled sand is akin to walking through crushed ice.  There’ve been times when my hands, body, and feet have gone completely numb, where I’m shivering uncontrollably on the beach and it was the comparatively warm water that saved me from the agonizing threshold of hypothermia. Once you’re in the water and moving around, it’s all good for the most part.

2) “SHARKS are hunting at dawn!”  - Oh yeah, you bet.  I’m definitely knocking on wood as I make this statement; but I’ve never ever seen a shark in the early morning … never.  That doesn’t mean they’re not out there, but feeding sharks are a concern any time of day.  Of the half dozen or so sharks I’ve seen in the flesh over the years, I encountered them all between noon and 4pm, and they sure looked like they were hungry, not just passing through. Once at a spot near Chun’s Reef, I saw a massive shark chasing a fish through a wave, illuminated by the blazing noon sun.

Low temps and scary fish aside, you just can’t beat the tranquility of the ocean in the early morning.  It’s my favorite time of day, at my favorite place on Earth to be.  It takes commitment (and a very loud alarm) to get out of bed to hurl yourself into the raging sea, and it doesn’t get any easier as you get older, trust me.  Lots of surfers complain about “morning sickness”, another surfing colloquialism that denotes an early morning surface condition that features inconsistent sets, disorganized spacing, wobbly crossed up wave faces, and radical tide levels both high and low.  Some like to wait for the land to heat up nearer the approach towards noon that promotes offshore trade winds and for goofy tides to settle a bit.  Me … I’ll take the cold, the assumed threat of sharks, and bumpy conditions over huge crowds any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Not only can I catch more waves without hassling and get in a couple hours of quiet me-time too, but I get my surfing in early and out of the way so I can come home to perform my soccer Dad-chauffeur and yardman duties, watch a morning ball game on TV, or whatever else calls for my attention that day.  It’s just a great satisfying feeling to have surfed early before the wife and kids are awake, my head’s in a really good place, and I’m game for anything after that. Sometimes I can fit in a surf session, car wash, egg scramble, dish wash, house cleaning, lawn mow, and quick shower all before anyone knows I'd even left!  A solid morning workout in the ocean clears your mind and makes you feel clean, fit, and energized. 

There’s an classic old US Army recruiting slogan that goes, “We do more before 9am than most people do all day!” … I love that!  See you in the water bright and early tomorrow!