Read this article at The Oregonian:
Author Susan Casey rides a wave from great white sharks to extreme surfing
Casey is an experienced magazine editor who worked at Outside and Sports Illustrated for Women before Winfrey hired her earlier this year to revive O, which needed some fresh blood. Casey’s also a jump-in-the-story journalist whose new book “The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean” is a natural follow-up to her first book, “The Devil’s Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks.”
Brought back some memories of surfing at Bellows when I was a kid:
– Skipping school after a tropical storm had passed, the waves glassy and utterly perfect, tubular barrels, no chop, no one else around.
– Two days when the backwash was so strong, it would collide with incoming waves and geyser water up at least 20 feet. Riding a backwash into a wave and getting tossed into the air.
– Body-surfing with a tray stolen from McDonald’s.
– Getting stung so many times by Portuguese Man-of-War one summer that I built up an immunity to the venom.
– Paddling for a wave, then paddling (fast) for shore after seeing a big shark silhouetted in the swell.
– Having my towel and T-shirt stolen from the beach while I’m in the water.
– My belly covered with scabs from wax-rash, the bliss of switching from Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax to No Ka Oi.
– Watching a sea turtle surface 20 yards away, then ten yards, then so close I could almost have reached out and stroked its shell.
Bellows Beach Park
Akopos 
