is that if you land wrong it can basically break your back or worse. Also, what is under the wave? Is it coral or sand or rocks or worse? So, falling off a wave 5 to 10 feet tall (I have done this body surfing by the way and nearly broke my back and then was pounded into the sand under the wave as the wave crashed too. So, as a younger person you aren't likely to do something like this more than once unless you are a glutton for punishment. But, growing up the way I did in southern California a lot of us spent a lot of time at the beach and if you have been in many types of conditions on California beaches you can expect almost anything.
For example, I saw people locally with 2 to 3 year old kids playing in the surf yesterday. What's wrong with this? There is a storm and these kids might die from a rogue wave because their parents or whoever is watching them is likely from the midwest or East where they don't get waves or storms like this much. So, watching these little kids at a distance really upset me because I know what can easily happen during a storm.
For example, today we expect 15 foot waves to hit all over where I live and if people aren't watching for rogue waves they are going to be swept out to sea and that will be it for them if they don't realize how dangerous all this is.
A few years ago now I and my dogs were almost swept out to sea on one occasion but luckily my corgi got scared when the first rogue wave almost got her so she ran away from the ocean or we would have lost her and my 95 pound yellow lab could just barely by swimming keep from being swept out to sea and even on me the water came up almost to my waist and I was struggling not to be swept away too.
Then more recently my daughter was searching for seashells and suddenly screamed "Dad! Watch out!" but I thought I was okay because I was standing on a 3 or 4 foot high rock so should have been okay. Once again even though I was that high off the beach the rogue wave got me up to my thighs this time too which is very unusual to have a wave with water 5 to 6 feet above the beach come this high and once again I was almost swept away even though I have lived most of my life near the ocean and was a surfer from 1962 to 1969 in southern California and still body surf and boogie board and snorkel various places around the world still even though I'm already 71.
So, what I'm saying is even if you have been around the ocean for 70 years you still have to watch the ocean all the time especially if there is a storm because the rogue waves are always unpredictable during storms whether the storms are out to sea or right there with you.
Here is the photo that inspired this article:
This does not look like fun to me!
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