What you don’t see when a surfer falls off a wave, is what happens underneath it. Waves have a circular motion when they break that I could best describe as a churning combustion chamber. The foam, which looks soft and heaven-like from a distance, is actually more like a pounding, thrashing explosion, and when you are inside of it, you are a part of that explosion. Lest you think that smaller waves weaken in their intensity, smaller waves can be more hammering than large ones, because the enormous power of the wave is unleashed in a tiny corridor, with maybe just a foot or two of water to act as a “cushion,” — if you can call a thrashing explosion a cushion — between the surfer and the ocean floor.

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