I could see people on the beach, people sunning themselves, throwing a ball for a dog, climbing the hill to the south, but none made a motion toward the water when I cried out 'help, help me', and waved, over and over again. I was floating a hundred yards or so from where the unusually large breakers pounded the sand, the muscles in my arms and legs aching from the effort to come to shore, my lungs filled with pain from holding my breath so hard as the surf buried me, then let me bob to the surface again into the full sun, spitting out salt water that splashed into my gaping, gasping mouth.

I had never cried for help before in my life, and it was a cry in vain now, I knew. No one on the beach can hear a cry from out on the water. Maybe someone on the hill might hear, I reasoned, but knowing someone needs help and being able to help was something else.

"You're a strong swimmer," one of a group of four young people said when I had walked out of the water after a brief dip to get used to the cold. The water temperature was exactly sixty degrees, and certainly not 'El Nino' warm. But it wasn't freezing. I had purchased a small round thermometer just to find out. I had read it, then lost it in the swirling back currents as I waded in that first time. I should have taken losing the thermometer as a sign, maybe from a guardian angel, and not gone out again, but I had only a few hours break from care-giving duties and it was almost noon. By the time I ate my sandwich and had a ginger ale, waited the obligatory hour before swimming, it would be time to leave. I had to go back in now!

"Biggest waves I've ever seen here," I pointed out to a woman with three young children playing in the shallow surf. "Hard to figure which one to save if a big one comes in?"

"No, not hard at all. I'd save mine. The other mothers are over there," and she pointed at two women sitting up in the dry sand.

The water rushing back after it had flooded high onto the beach pulled at my legs, sand washing out under my feet. There was a force to it, like in a storm, but the day was hazy, and I was used to the cold now. It wasn't a stormy day. Maybe in Baja or off Alaska, but here there was just some brown smog hanging out in the distance, blurring the view of a few big factory ships gliding in and out the Golden Gate. I knew it would be good swimming once I got out past the breakers, but I had to work at it. I had to duck through some of them instead of my usual leaping high up, which tumbled me back towards the beach.

As soon as I could, I began to swim. The waves lifted me very high, and down into the valleys between them, actually touching bottom once, way out past where I usually could stand. Up..up..up I went on another one, and down the other side. But it was smoother the farther out I went. I could see the houses and power poles of Muir Beach changing position as I went further out. I saw the corner of a yellow house line up with a certain pole that I had used other times as a guide for how far out to swim. It usually took a hundred strokes, with gliding in between, to get there. I was there already, and I had barely started my hundred strokes out, a hundred across, and then back to the beach. My workout included changing from back stroke to side stroke, both sides, then the Australian crawl breathing on my right side and then try a few on my left, a new stroke for me.

I felt good, but I knew I'd better not stay out too long. I swam over to something dark bobbing up and down, wondering if it was a body, thinking how shocked people would be if I brought one ashore. It was just an odd collection of kelp, Sea Onions, tangled together like a raft. I backed off not wanting to get tangled. I'd have to count the big waves when it was time to land so I could come in when they calmed down. As a kid I had heard that every seventh wave was bigger, and every seventh seven really big, 'a Forty-niner' we called them. I knew it wasn't that simple, but my experience was that big waves come for awhile and then there is a period of calmer ones or stillness. I started trying to calculate the timing. The calm periods weren't very long. There were big waves and more big waves, a brief pause, and then more big waves.

I looked at the yellow house and pole, and realized I was drifting further out. Time to go in. This is enough. I turned towards the beach and struck out in a side-stroke. I was moving. I was definitely covering the distance. I turned over on my back and did some back stroke, then on to my stomach for the crawl. I was moving very quickly back into the area where the waves were lifting me very high and dropping suddenly. The closer I got to the beach the higher I went up and the faster I dropped.

I should time the big waves now, I knew, or I would have trouble on the beach. I could see the biggest breakers were ten to fifteen feet high, and there seemed to be a lot of them. Then, when there was a pause from big waves, I struck out with a strong sprinting stroke for the beach. Before I made ten strokes the big waves started again. The water lifted me up, dropped me, and then pushed me back away from shore a little. I wasn't making progress fast enough. I had to be able to land between when the breakers would toss me around, but my arms and legs were now beginning to tire.

Now I was swimming as hard as I could and not making any headway at all. When I had started in, I was swimming toward the middle of the beach, but I could see now that I was also moving southward, towards where the waves were smashing on rocks. I tried to rest a little, just moving my hands, but the waves were picking me up so high and then setting me down so fast that I was touching bottom and then being covered by ten to fifteen feet of water. I held my breath and popped to the surface. My lungs were aching from the effort.

I needed help, but there is no lifeguard to call on at Muir beach. It's considered a safe beach because there's no rip tide or undertow to speak of, but big waves were my problem. I was beginning to panic. Was I going to drown? Maybe someone on the beach could help.

A wave tumbled me end over end, hard enough to rip my bathing suit down my legs. Somehow, I managed to hang on to it, even pull it up a little, and again I was on the surface, breathing. My arms were dead, but I could see people that might be looking out at me, and I waved and let out my first 'Help! Help me!' as loud as I could. It was a feeble cry at best, but I did it a few more times, hoping against hope that it might have some affect. The people just stayed where they were, not moving. Perhaps they knew I was in trouble but also knew they would be in trouble if they tried to help. Down I went again, and the water closed over me. My mind raced back to the house that morning when the aide that relieved me had asked me who she should call in case I died. I had shown her the list of people to notify, and how ironic that now was, I thought.

Was this what it was like to drown? I was still making an effort to land, but the rocks were getting closer and closer to my right. Down I went again, but somehow bobbed to the surface again. I was in a breaker, and it tossed me at the shore, pounded me into the sand and then ripped me back seaward, water spinning and turning all around me, over and under. The wave drew back and I was standing on the sand while the outgoing wave sucked at me to join it. People were only fifty feet from me, watching it all. No one made a move toward me. I couldn't raise my arm to wave to them. I couldn't cry for help. I did turn my head to look for the next breaker, which I knew would be my last. Somehow, though, the ocean broke into one of its brief calms.

My swimsuit partly down, my arms at my sides, my legs and lungs aching and dead, yet I managed to stagger out of the water. I didn't fall down in a dramatic show, because I knew I would never stand again, and the waves would be there, rushing at me again. I stumbled up to dry sand as a couple averted their eyes from my poorly arranged suit. I got the suit up properly then and mumbled at two people, asking if they realized that I had been in trouble and needed help.

They were French speakers, and had to wave my words away. They understood a little, though, pointing for me to sit down and rest.

No one had known I was in trouble. While I stood there, finally safe, people just continued sunning themselves, playing with their dogs, who barked and splashed after thrown tennis balls in the ankle high water.

I felt hollow and weak. I managed to make it to the wooden bench where I had left my clothes, and sat staring out at the water. It didn't look so bad. The day was warm, and the water looked clear and green. You could see light through the waves as they broke on the shore, and people were enjoying the sights. After awhile I ate my sandwich and drank my ginger ale. When I leaned over water suddenly poured out of my sinuses. It also did that later for a couple of hours when ever I bent over, but at the time it was early, my break time wasn't all used up, but it really was time to go home.

I had survived.

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE, 9/25/97 (S.F.Chronicle,By Jim Doyle, [page B-2])

"DANGEROUSLY HIGH SURF EXPECTED FOR NEXT 2 DAYS .....Yesterday afternoon, the waves at Bay Area beaches kicked up unexpectedly. By nightfall, some breakers were 10 feet tall. Sunbathers at Muir Beach in Marin County said that around 2 P.M. yesterday they were suddenly swamped by a set of 7-foot-high waves. 'Nobody got badly hurt, but they lost a lot of stuff,' said Jim Bryan, of Mill Valley. 'I lost my shirt. I had to run out in the water and grab somebody's bag.' ......"