TRAVEL: ALASKA
Burkard and I were off, skimming at top speed for the mainland, a mile or so away. “Put this
survival suit on,” he told me before we left, which was a sobering reminder of the three to
five minutes a man would last in these waters wearing regular clothes. In close, the coast
felt forbidding—deep, shaggy forest looming above black basalt. The swells we felt midchannel were really showing here, crashing into the rocks with long-interval power, foam
lines streaking out across the surface. A peak loomed up a few hundred yards offshore,
and seemed for a minute like a mini-Maverick’s set up, but faded into the depths almost
as quickly as it capped. We saw a big blast of whitewater at the far end of the run of cliffs,
and we zoomed over thinking slabs and tubes and wilderness surfing. But just like the
outer peak, the waves here were only almost doing it, standing up and pitching hard just
off a cave mouth, then pinching shut with nowhere to go but into the jagged house-sized
boulders at the base of the cliff.
An inlet ran in from where we sat it seemed for miles, and it was tempting to follow
the steep shore line around each new corner, deeper in, farther from the open sea, with
the thought that well-groomed peelers were working into that summer night just a little
further on. We decided to buzz across to the other side of the wide bay, where another set
The author records his experiences.
Keith Malloy goes long and far for waves
and often is never disappointed.