Since El Nino arrived, I’ve developed a disappointing relationship with Ocean Beach.

I don’t need to tell you about the paddle out on a winter day—diving under the heavy blows of crushing surf, dragging your board by the leash, lungs gasping, across the sandy bottom. The roar of a freezing sea ringing in your ears.

Sometimes, the reward is worth all of this punishment, the better surfer you are the more likely this is to be true. I’m a novice. Most of the time it seems I would have been better off staying in bed.

Waves, the ubiquitous object of pursuit, are only part of the Ocean Beach equation for me. I believe Ocean Beach is not a windy four-mile beach break, but rather a wormhole, a gateway to another universe.

I spent four years in the Coast Guard, mostly aboard 378-foot Cutter class ships that traversed the Pacific from the Bering Sea to the coast of Ecuador. The surface of the open ocean, a constantly changing landscape where the boundary between sea and sky blurred and disappeared, thrilled me. It had been six years since I felt that feeling the first time I made it out at Ocean Beach on a windy day.

William Finnigan writes “Ocean Beach in the Winter is a wilderness, as raw and red-clawed as any place in the Rocky Mountains.” It is that and more, like a distant but related planet. The only other object that made this trip through the wormhole was you’re board, you’re tiny cutter. Clinging to this lifeline, paddling the peaks and valleys of this watery wilderness, is enthralling to the point of addiction.

The frustration comes with my ineptness as a surfer. By the time I make it out, my arms are useless noodles hanging off my shoulders. Mustering the energy to chase after sloppy peaks rolling in to the south or north of me is challenging. When I do get myself in the right position, my nerve usually fails. Dropping in on these heavy, overhead slabs of foaming water, knowing the price of failure is a solid thrashing followed by another paddle out … I usually pass at the last second, clutching my board and letting the precipice slip by along with any chance at glory.

This is surfing at Ocean Beach for me during the Winter. Not really surfing as most would know it, just a guy with a board in the open sea, pelted by wind spray and whooping at the top of his lungs, unable to hear himself over the roar of the waves.