Surfing at Ruggles Ave. has intimidated me since I first heard about the wave four years ago when I moved to Rhode Island and began surfing more regularly. It is a dangerous wave, with high tendencies towards localism, which is always a drag. I have always refused to get in at the point at Ruggles, even though I lived only a half mile away from the pedigreed New England wave for the last three hurricane seasons. It is only now, as I'm about to leave, I've finally gained the self destructive confidence to test the waters here.

Photo Scott Maier.

Upon the arrival of a storm that drives away all but the surest surfers, the choicest spots are open for the true heart of Newport surfing: the dedicated and pure. All the arrogance of a protected local spot melts away when the right storm comes, and the antagonists watch from the shore. As for the real chargers, the waves are pews in a church to these select neurotic cosmic-dharma-seekers. I say neurotic only because of that little bit crazy you have to be in order to convince yourself that you can match the power you're facing.

Photo Scott Maier.

I am not nervous. But I've made a habit, generally, of putting off that self-preserving element of the psyche in lieu of the promise of a grander experience, at least until it's too late to change my mind. I am excited for what I know will be an experience to remember, but focused on the process which I must adhere to in order to avoid injuring myself or others, a possibility of which I am keenly aware. I have no upper hand in this place. Indeed any surfer has to feel out the proper respect for each wave and set, and can only jump at an opportunity under the most tightly aligned circumstances. Otherwise there is the looming risk of a day inside the great American healthcare debacle, or worse. This is true at Ruggles in particular, but infinitely more so upon the arrival of a storm like Hurricane Bill at the end of August, 2009.

Photo Scott Maier.

The night that Bill rolled in, I met a group of people out at Marines Beach at 10:30 PM, adjacent to Ruggles. They pulled in behind me just after I left my car, and I was standing on the sea wall watching the waves crunch the rocks into fine grit below my feet. The oldest of the four, a stumbling, balding surf-and-wind-weathered man in his thirties, was mumbling something about whales and the coast guard, (this sort is drawn to Newport's coastlines during any storm-of-the-season situation). I was there to contemplate the cosmic energy of the water and visit the tidal burial place of my passed relatives. I would always beg them for one last good wave before I got out at the end of a day of waves, but today I had gone to ask for a bit of luck in the morning.

Photo Scott Maier.

Eventually the drunken waterman mustered the coherence to relate a highly relevant story of his own to me, along the same familial lines which I had just been musing, about the rosary which now swung loosely around his neck. The early fermentations of the storm had neatly gifted it to him, or so he tells me.

Photo Scott Maier.

‘No word of a lie,' he insisted, and his wide eyes acceded to the truth of the statement rather believably. Much earlier in the day, at around dusk when the waves were dutifully growing towards their ultimate apex, a beach breaker near the wall had strung the brown beads around his ankle and receded like a pious anonymous benefactor. Through some profound oceanic irony, the higher than normal tide had wrapped it around his ankle with one frothy lap as he stood at the upper limits of the beach, against any conceivable notions of likelihood, just a few days after his aunt had passed on at her ripe old age of 93. Rather appropriately, I thought, it seemed as though he too was visiting her just by being near the ocean at its peak power output, like a personalized wake at the water's edge.

I stayed by the wall underneath the looming presence of the Breakers and Marble House mansions, and listened to the waves crash, which was more like thunder than water. They significantly outmatched me, I could tell that much by hearing them, but I wanted to experience the waves as a gift for the dedicated just once before I left this place. I fell asleep a short while later and could still hear the thunder rolling in through the fog and through my open window.

In the morning as I stood knee deep in over active storm surge, I contemplated once more the relationship that most men and women in the water that day must have developed with the ocean, especially those willing to step in at the point. To gain the trust in ones' self needed for a wave like Ruggles during a storm, you need something more than a local knowledge, and much more than just local standing. You need to have a close personal relationship with something larger than yourself. However you see the ocean, and however you decided to get in the water, a day like this meant toying with giants, and that requires something extra; something existential, immutable, and dharmic. It means believing that the energy of the ocean is your family, and that it has your back, despite what you see in front of you, whatever that might be on any given day at the point.

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