by Jeff Ross
chapter ten
We were a mile down the beach, our clothes beginning to dry in the warm afternoon sun, when we spotted a tall building still under construction. It looked like a hotel. Not a giant hotel like the ones on the beaches of Miami but a small, two-story hotel. Only half of the windows had been installed. Out front, a long pier, which seemed sturdier than the village walkways, was attached to a large dock with benches, chairs and a slide.
“What’s this?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Alana said. “Looks like a deserted hotel.”
We hadn’t passed a single hut or person on our way down the beach. The hotel was surrounded by jungle.
“Want to go in?” Esme asked.
“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
Inside, it was cool and dark. The half-finished lobby had a high ceiling and stairways on either side of a bamboo desk.
“Snazzy,” Alana said. “This will be a nice place someday.” There were tools and supplies jammed in corners, but it didn’t look as though anyone had been working on the place for some time.
“It feels abandoned,” Esme said. She ran up a set of stairs to the landing and popped her head into each of the doors along the second floor. “The rooms are all empty. Some have, like, bathtubs and sinks and stuff,” she called out. She stopped at one door. “This one has a bed.”
“Weird,” I yelled up to her. I approached an empty windowpane and looked out. It was a beautiful view. In the distance the surrounding islands were green and black shadows in a sea of blue. Blue waves dotted with whitecaps. A blue sky smudged with clouds. It was a view people would travel great distances and pay lots of money to see.
Alana stood beside me. “This is amazing,” she said.
“It is. Why do you think it’s not finished?” I asked.
“Who knows.”
I spotted a sign off to the side of the property. I went outside to read it. It was written in Spanish and English. The Spanish was in a giant font, while the English looked like an afterthought at the bottom. Another slice of paradise brought to you by . A piece of cardboard was taped over the last word. I lifted a corner of the cardboard and peeked underneath. I couldn’t read the word, but there was something about the font that seemed familiar.
“What’s this?” Alana asked.
“It’s the developer’s sign,” I said. I peeled off the tape and removed the cardboard. Beneath it was the word Fallbrook.
I dropped the cardboard.
“What?” Alana said.
Esme had come outside. “The back of the hotel goes right into the jungle, and there’s a pool with a swim-up bar. Who doesn’t like a swim-up bar?” She looked at me. “What?”
I pointed at the sign.
She walked over and stood beside me. “Oh, wow,” she said.
“What?” Alana repeated, sounding peeved.
“Fallbrook is Kevin’s family’s business,” I said. “It’s his mother’s maiden name.” We knew Kevin’s family was wealthy. They had developed properties all over the world. But we didn’t know they owned anything here.
“I thought they’d gone bankrupt,” Esme said.
“Really? Your friend’s family’s business was broke?” said Alana.
“Yeah,” I said. “They were being investigated. I don’t know what it was all about. Kevin never wanted to talk about it. But it must have been serious. His dad had been selling off properties in California. I knew they had some property in Hawaii and Tahiti, but nothing down here.”
“That explains why it looks like construction suddenly stopped,” Esme said and shivered.
“So who owns this place now?” Alana asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess the bank.”
“Let’s get out of here. This is kind of creeping me out,” Alana said.
“Agreed,” I said. We headed down the beach, searching for a path through the jungle to the south end.
“So, if his family was bankrupt, how could your friend afford to take off from LA?” Alana asked.
“Life insurance,” I said. “His family had a huge plan. And when both your parents die…” I stopped. I had liked Kevin’s parents a lot. You could talk to them about anything and not be lectured or judged. His dad was one of the main reasons I started surfing. They had been good people, and now they were gone.
“Can’t you imagine us all staying at that hotel?” Esme said. “The three of us?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I can.”
Alana jogged ahead a little.
“You think Kevin’s here because of the hotel?” Esme asked.
“No,” I said, “I think he’s here because this was the last place his parents were.” It made sense. There was nothing in LA for him. No other family. No one except us.
“Maybe,” Esme said. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “So why wouldn’t he want us to find him?”
I squeezed her hand back. “I don’t know. We’ll just have to ask him when we find him.”
“Hey, guys.” Alana had stopped walking. “I think I found a trail.”
It looked more like a tunnel through the jungle than a trail. The trees towered above us, and the grass was high on either side. “Do you think it leads back to Delgado’s?” I asked.
Alana shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out.”
chapter eleven
Waves are born of nature—big waves, anyway. A large container ship can create three- or four-foot waves, as will a giant cruise ship. But those kinds of waves are really displaced water. Big waves, waves that come rolling in from out in the middle of the ocean, waves that boil up and gather speed, body and energy—those are waves only nature can create. Man can monitor waves, with the help of technology. Oceanographers can track them and, with some certainty, pinpoint where and when they will reach land. A number of websites post surf reports, forecasts and wave speculation, but the most popular is surfline.com. The predictions on Surfline are eerily accurate—sometimes down to the minute. So when Surfline posted that some big waves were going to break on the shores of Bocas del Mar in the morning, it was accepted as a fact.
So even though Esme and I were intent on finding Kevin, there was no denying our thoughts drifted now and then to images of big waves. The jungle trail had led us to the Purple Parrot. The three of us had dinner while a soft breeze came in off the water. The owner made us feel at home, which was just what we needed after our afternoon at the north end of the island. After dinner, Esme and I dropped Alana off at her hut and returned to our own.
“I agree with you,” Esme said and zipped her sleeping bag up. “He has to be here.”
“He does,” I said.
She rolled over, and I looked out at the moonlit water for a while before I grabbed my own sleeping bag. As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered what the next day would bring us.
I woke once in the night to the rumble of distant thunder. All the other jungle sounds were swallowed up by a steady thrumming. In my drowsiness, I dismissed it and drifted back to sleep.
Esme woke before dawn. I was still dozing when I heard her say, “Dawn patrol, Luca.”
The thundering sound was still there. It was as if a busy highway had been erected outside our window overnight. It grew louder and louder as I slowly drifted toward consciousness.
“What?” I said.
She walked toward the window. “Surf’s up. The big ones have arrived. Listen to them.”
I jumped out of bed and ran to the window. “Are they breaking?”
“They must be,” she said. The moon was gone, and the sky was just beginning to lighten. It was still too dark to see the ocean. “I heard Delgado get up awhile ago. There are people over there eating breakfast.”
“Let’s go,” I said. I ran across the room and slipped into my shorts.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked.
“What?”
“You don’t have a board.”
I pulled my Reef shirt over my head. “I’m hoping Delgad
o has one to loan me.”
Delgado did not have a board to loan me. He did, however, have a variety of boards for rent for twenty-two dollars a day, which was steep. Giant waves, fifty or sixty feet high, were about to be rolling up to these shores. To be without a board would be criminal.
I chose a short board with straps, in case I needed to be towed into the waves. There are a few different ways to surf. The traditional method is to paddle hard into the wave when it approaches and then pop up on your board. Then there’s tow-in surfing, which is completely different and relatively new. Trying to get on a wave over forty feet high using the traditional paddle method is impossible. You can’t get enough speed going to enter the wave. So, a number of years ago, some surfers started being towed behind a Jet Ski and dropping into waves.
It isn’t often you see a surfer cutting left or right along the line of a big wave. Instead, you drop in and shoot straight ahead, pushing to get out of the way of the crest before it drops down on you. It’s similar to snowboarding in an avalanche. In a big wave there is a massive force collapsing behind you, waiting to eat you whole. Your only shot at survival is to stay on your board, no matter what.
When daylight broke, we were on the beach staring out at the break.
“Those have to be twenty feet high,” Esme said. I checked that the liquid skin on my leg was holding up. I couldn’t feel the scratches and cuts on my feet—though at that moment, with my adrenaline pumping, I didn’t feel much of anything.
Delgado was on the dock getting his Jet Ski ready. “They are almost here,” Delgado yelled. “You want to go out?”
“Um, yeah!” I yelled.
Delgado had a trailer hooked to the back of the Jet Ski. I laid my board down on it, and Esme did the same. I didn’t see Alana anywhere. I figured she would be out soon, at least to watch.
We hopped on the back of the Jet Ski behind Delgado. I let Esme get on first, then balanced myself between the trailer and the ski. Delgado followed the shoreline until he found a way out past the breakers. As we drew closer, the waves seemed even larger and more beautiful. They rolled past where we had been surfing the day before. The black rocks sunk beneath the water with each surge.
“I don’t think you need to tow into these,” Delgado said. We bobbed outside the break. No one had taken a wave yet.
I jumped off the Jet Ski and sunk into the warm blue water. “They’re coming in nicely. It’ll be easy to paddle in.” I grabbed my board off the trailer. “You coming?” I asked Esme.
“I’ll paddle out with you,” she said, rolling off the Jet Ski. “But I’m not going to ride those.” She grabbed her board off the trailer.
“I’ll wait here,” Delgado said. “In case anyone gets in trouble.” As we paddled away, Delgado shot over to one of the other Jet Skis and started talking with the driver.
“Do you think Kevin will be here?” Esme asked.
I looked at the waves and all the surfers lined up to fly down these monsters. “If he’s on this island, or anywhere nearby, he’ll be here,” I said. A massive twenty-foot wave split from the main break, which can happen when the wind shifts or a wave comes in too quickly. The wave was headed right toward us.
“Luca!” Esme yelled. “What do we do?”
I held on to my board and was dragged up the front of the wave. At the last moment, I pushed down hard on the nose, hoping I would shoot through to the other side.
chapter twelve
As soon as I made it through the wave, I looked for Esme. She shot up over the crest of the wave and barreled down the backside. She rode her board like a boogie board and came up beside me.
“Where did that come from?” she said. She sounded rattled but excited.
“I have no idea,” I said and laughed. It was exhilarating to be out here.
“Let’s get out to where the rest of the surfers are and see if Kevin’s there,” she said, paddling away from me.
I recognized a few of the surfers from the day before, but there were dozens I didn’t know. People had swept in from around the world to challenge these waves. I overheard someone complain about the size. They had been expecting something bigger.
“Another hour, brah. Chill for another hour or two. These beasts are building,” one guy said.
The waves were breaking in a half circle. They started in front of us and wrapped around to where the other break had been the day before. Now the break was just one giant one. The midsection was higher where the reef was. This drove the cresting wave directly into the black rocks, which, with the height and force of these waves, looked minuscule.
“You going in?” Esme asked.
“Sure,” I said. “When it’s my turn.”
A couple of the other surfers turned to look at us. One of them had a devious smile. “No turns here, brah. You want a wave today, you’ve got to take it,” he said.
The guy beside him shoved him. “Don’t listen to Jake,” he said. “Dude just flew in from LA. Rude-surfer central. You want to take a wave, go for it, man. We’re all just kind of figuring out the lay of the land.”
“Thanks,” I said. Another set was rolling in. It looked like the waves would be much the same size.
“Get on that,” someone yelled.
I paddled into where the wave would crest.
As the wave approached, I paddled hard and stood just in time. I teetered on the crest and shot down the front. It was amazing. I cut to the right and rode the face of the wave before steering slightly up and then back down again. As the wave began to break, I had a moment in the barrel, then stormed forward and shot up the front of the wave, diving off my board and landing outside of where the next wave was cresting. I got back on my board, did a duck dive through the next wave and came out the other side to where the Jet Skis were bobbing.
“Very nice!” Delgado yelled. “Go get another one!”
I paddled back out to the lineup, and the mouthy guy from LA who had been a creep gave me a high five. “Nice ride,” he said. “How is it?”
“Clean,” I said. “Not messy at all. Like riding on a piece of glass.”
What looked like the final wave of the set was rolling in. Jake, the guy from LA, started paddling out in front of the wave before it broke. He managed to stand up, but as he dropped in, he leaned too far forward and went headfirst into the wave.
“Ohhhh!” his friend yelled. “He just got owned out there, brah.” He looked over at me. “Did you see that?”
“Yeah,” I said. We waited for him to pop up. His board surfaced, but the guy was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is he?” his friend asked. He looked at me again. “Is it reef there or what?”
“Sand,” I said. “For a long way.”
Surfers die in these kinds of conditions all the time. They get swept under, dragged down and beaten against the floor of the ocean. But Jake popped up, coughing and sputtering.
“Brah,” his friend yelled. “You all right?”
Jake looked at me. “Yeah.” He grabbed his board and swam toward us. “Like glass out here, isn’t that what you said?”
Another set came crashing in. It was unexpected, and the waves were much larger. The twenty-foot waves from before were now getting close to being forty-foot rollers.
Surfers paddled over to their Jet Skis and grabbed hold of the attached ropes. The Jet Skis’ engines fired up and the waves crashed. Everything became intense. The waves loomed larger and spread out farther. With the roar of the Jet Skis and the pungent stench of fuel surrounding us, it seemed like we were in a different place.
“Here they come!” someone yelled.
“These are huge,” Esme said as we paddled away from the edge of a wave. It took a lot of effort to stay in the middle of this size of wave. It was best to keep to the side, where you could play spectator.
“They’re building,” I said. The next wave was over forty feet. It’s possible to paddle into a wave that size, but easier to get towed.
“Hey,” Jake
yelled over to me.
“Yeah?” I said.
“You paddling in or towing?”
I looked at the wave, and no one else was paddling in. One bit of surfer etiquette rarely got forgotten in big waves: you don’t tow into a big wave if other people are paddling in. It’s too dangerous.
“I’m not paddling in,” I yelled back as a wave crashed behind me.
“Go, go, go!” Jake said to his Jet Ski driver, and they headed toward the next rolling wave.
More surfers and Jet Skis were approaching. There were more people in the water than I had thought.
“There he is,” Esme yelled.
“Who?”
“Kevin.”
I looked to where she was pointing and sure enough, it was Kevin. He was being towed toward the backside of the wave. He was glowing.
“He’s being towed by Jose,” I said.
“What the hell is going on?” Esme asked.
“I don’t know. But we’d better find out.” I wasn’t going to let either of them get away this time. “Let’s wait here. They’ll come around again,” I said.
But Kevin turned and saw us. His face stiffened, and he looked away. I knew he would catch the next wave and disappear again. I wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Damn,” I said. “He saw us.” I turned around to find Delgado a short distance away. “Delgado,” I yelled. “Tow me in!”
Delgado glanced at the big waves and then back at me. “No way,” he said. “These are monsters.”
“I have to catch one of these waves,” I said as we paddled up to his Jet Ski. Delgado turned the motor off. Kevin and Jose were doing slow circles at the edge of the wave, waiting for the right moment to drop in. We didn’t have much time.
“Our friend is here,” I said. “Tow me out so I can talk to him.”
Delgado looked to where I was pointing. He shook his head and crossed his arms. “These waves are too big, and you, my friend, are too small.”
