Pichilamu: A Day in the Surf

It's a beautiful warm sunny day in the surf town of Pichilamu, Chile. Jacob, a fellow NRA student and I are walking on the beach towards the ocean. When we notice the size of the waves we begin to run across the sand. Before we can put in however we must walk along the beach towards a huge rocky point. We walk quickly along the water searching for the 3 people who we know are already out in the water. We managed to spot Kira, our English teacher, and Wayne another student way out several hundred yards away from shore, so far away that they are just little specks bobbing up and down against the massive waves coming in. Our head coach Tino is just putting in on the point. We finally get to a spot that appears to be a manageable place to paddle through the large 5-8 foot waves coming in. We make it out and surf the waves close to shore before Jacob decides to go back in due to problems with his boat. After I watch him surf in and hop out of his boat I decide to attempt to paddle out to where Tino, Kira and Wayne are. A seemingly easy task yet in-fact it is a major undertaking. It takes me nearly 15 minutes to make it past the breaking waves close to shore and out to more open water where only the truly huge waves will hit you. After a long while of paddling towards the small specks in a massive whitewash that are Tino, Kira and Wayne. A Seal pops up only about 30 feet away. I keep paddling slightly nervously because of the seal. All of a sudden a set of huge waves comes in, I boof the first one just as it is about to crash and fall 6 or so feet off the back side. That was Sick!, I try to do the same to the next one, however the next one is a bit bigger and my timing is just a little bit off. I paddle up to it and prepare to boof when all of a sudden I notice that I'm too late and it is about to crash on me. “Ohh FU.......!!!” is what comes out of my mouth when this 8 foot wave crashes right onto my chest and picks me up and thrashes me for a good 15 seconds and 100 or so feet. After that, luckily the ocean flattens a slightly and no more waves crash on me. Though as I make my way closer to my friends I notice the Seal popping up consistently 15 feet behind me for at least 15 minutes during my paddle. After a long long journey I have finally made it to the BIG waves and my friends. I notice the Seal pops up 10 feet in front of me, however the seal no longer worries me as I see Tino come down the face of a MASSIVE 15 foot wave and hit one of the bigger clean aircrews I have seen. We spent a few hours here. The waves at least the size of school buses. It is out here you notice the real power of the ocean. I cannot begin to describe to you what it feels like to come down the face of a 14 foot ocean wave, nor can I describe the feeling of the ridiculous beat downs that are delivered every time you attempt to surf one of these magnificent waves. Though there are two moments that I can remember that may help to portray the feeling of these waves.

The first one involving a massive 14 foot wave and possibly the biggest pan am/ airscrew of my life, if at least the loudest. I catch this huge wave, Tino goes over the green to my left. I am surfing on the border between the foam and a ridiculous 12 foot green face on my left. I edge and through the biggest pan am I have the ability to through. If I could guess at what I thought the size of it was I would say there must have been 8 feet of air under my head. I land slightly edged but mostly flat on the hull of my boat and peel off the wave. The landing Hurt, it half knocked the breath out of me and I don't initially notice the apparent earsplitting slap my boat made when I landed, But as I peel off the wave I see Tino and he has an aw sort of face. I paddle up to him and he exclaims that he heard it from behind the wave. Which if you have ever been on the ocean in waves such as those, it is often tough to hear things over the sound of the waves.

The second one is of a moment during a severe thrashing of mine, once again in a huge 12 or 13 foot wave, this time in the foam pile. I am upside down with my bow pointed towards the beach being dragged on my face by the enormous wave. All of a sudden I open my eyes and notice the water and foam a good foot or so below me, I see it coming towards me extremely fast and close my eyes. I feel the water hit me in the chest and continued to get Destroyed.

After many surfs and horrendous beat downs Tino decides that we should go in, due to non of us having a watch and knowing what time it is. So we paddle in attempting to catch rides on every passing wave. After about 15 minutes we make it close to shore, Tino and Wayne surf in and hop out of their boats.(Kira having gone back in earlier.). I catch a good sized wave and as it crashes plug for a loop and get a ton of pop out of it and bring it around to smack my hull back onto the water and surf the rest of the way up onto the sand and jump out of my boat. We hike up to the sand marveling at the magnificent day we have all just had out on the surf of Pichilamu.

2010 Season Video

Just a video I found that I made of the 2010 paddling season, totally forgot to post it up.

2010 Season Video 1 from Jordan Poffenberger on Vimeo.

The Maipo Valley

This year I am attending New River Academy, a high school that travels around the world to paddle while at the same time being able to do school where ever we go. This Semester we are in Chile, the past 10 days I have spent in the beautiful Maipo valley an hour from the capital city of Santiago. For the first seven days we slept under small pavilion, some of us on the ground, others in tents, and a few of us(me) would hang hammocks up between the wooden columns that hold a tin roof above our heads. The camp ground “Cascades De Las Animas” is owned by our Spanish teachers family. It is an amazing place, surrounded by massive mountains and place right on the Maipo River. On one side of the river is the entire facility, wonderful wooded Campground, an awesome restaurant with live trees ticking out of it and the inside is all masterfully carved wood, a huge pool(though the water is frigid), a sauna, and a bunch of half built but beautiful cabins which will most likely be finished by the end of the year. On the other side of the river behind a locked gate at the edge of a bouncy wooden bridge there are the Estorga Family houses. They also hold a Mountain Lion, and two giant eagles in a cage, along with 150 horses and many other amazing things. We got a chance to take a hike up to our Spanish teachers house, it was about a ¼ mile hike up the side of a mountain to his ridiculous house. The craftsman ship that goes into these houses is superb. His house is made from stone and amazingly carved wood, and it is built around a massive boulder. From his house is an absolutely stunning view of the arid desert mountains and the single massive snow capped monster of a mountain in the distance.

Every day we wake up in the insanely cold morning are and have morning workout, which is either running, yoga, or arms and abs, which is pushups and ab exercises. Then we have breakfast and the first 3 classes. Then lunch time, and the next 4 classes. Finally, its paddling time. The first day we all paddled the lower Maipo, which is a sick class 3-4 super continuous run. It is nearly non stop he entire way, though there are no dangerous rapids. For the rest of the time we were allowed to choose whether we wanted to do the lower, or the much harder Upper Maipo. For the rest of our stay in the Maipo valley, I paddled the Upper Maipo everyday. The is much like the lower, except the smallest rapids on the upper are twice the size of the biggest on the lower. The entire river is like class 4, 6 mile long roller coaster ride of a rapid. Huge wave trains and large random holes, along with tons of super fun boofs placed every 20 feet is the trademark of the Upper Maipo. Right smack dab in the middle of the 6 mile run is a large class 5 rapid called the French Curve. The rapid involves a boof over a large hole into a extremely quick twisting rapid with a must make boof over a large curler. The consequences of not making it to the left side of the river is going into this massive curler in front of a massive boulder that feeds straight into a huge undercut.

We took a day off in an attempt to make it to the Thermas up in the mountains, but unfortunately did not make it due to rock slides across the roads. Instead we went the opposite direction up the Yeso river to check out some cool concentration camps of a old Chilean dictator and an awesome waterfall just across the road from it.

Here is a video from that day.

A Day in Chile from Jordan Poffenberger on Vimeo.

Now we have moved to Pichilamu, a sick little surf town on the pacific ocean. An update of this awesome town will come later once I have had some time to go kayaking and check out this sick place.