The Whale that Rinsed Us Off

A story from Jane McKenzie.

Gray whale breaching

Usually surfers are focused on the swell and the next set of waves. But Jane, financial advisor and President and Team Captain of the Santa Cruz Longboard Union, was taken for a surprise when a whale leaped out of the water right there in the surf lineup. Her life-altering experience was both awe-inspiring and terrifying.

JANE MCKENZIE is a financial advisor in Santa Cruz, California, with an office not far from the ocean where she regularly surfs. When asked what work she does, Jane responds that she, “Provides real interesting and cool people with wealth management and investment strategies that work for them and their families.”

Though Jane was born in Santa Monica, CA, she moved with her family to Santa Cruz when she was just four weeks old. When she was 8 years old her family moved to Hawaii, where they lived on a 58’ Kris Kraft cabin cruiser for three years in the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor near Honolulu. Jane’s lived her whole life along a coastline somewhere, splitting time between Santa Cruz and the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

She moved back to Santa Cruz as a pre-teen with her mom and sister. But she spent summers with her dad on Oahu. Jane started surfing there, back when there were ‘real beach boys’. When she was just 8 years old and weighed about 60 pounds, her father put her onto a 10-foot surfboard that weighed 30 pounds. Since then she hasn’t looked back.

Jane is considered a pioneer of women’s surfing in the cold waters of the Santa Cruz surf scene. Three gorgeous surfboards, including a classic redwood long board, decorate the walls of her office. Tenacity and confidence were her calling cards, as Jane worked her way from Cowell’s beginner surf break, through Indicators into the lineup at Steamer Lane, traditionally guys ‘turf’, because of the big waves that break there during the winter months. Jane surfed the Lane when few women dared and soon garnered the respect of the surfing community.

Jane “the Lane” McKenzie, as she’s known among her fellow surfers, is President and Team Captain of the Santa Cruz Longboard Union, where she gives back to the community that shares her passion and joy of riding the waves.

You can watch Jane’s story on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/hMYf6xRWfvI

 THE WHALE THAT RINSED US OFF 

I’ve been surfing any number of years in the Santa Cruz area, and at different times we have different types of swells and different conditions and different things that happen out there. Usually when the north swells are coming in in the winter time, surfing’s a little different because the waves are bigger, you’re out farther, it could be foggy, it could be any number of things. But you’re farther out in the bay. I’ve got a little thing about sharks, so I don’t like to be too way out there.

But this one particular day, I was out surfing with a friend of mine, Brenda Scott Rodgers. When it’s big at the Lane*, you paddle out and around the break – it’s not at the point – you’re paddling out and around the break. So we were out there and there were a lot of people out, and you know, people are catching waves and surfing past us, and pretty soon Brenda and I are out there. We each catch a wave in this one set, so we are paddling back out again together. And we’re talking and not really paying attention.

Eventually we realized, that we were the farthest people out on the water that day. There was nobody else around us. We were just sitting there on our boards, and you know, fifteen, twenty feet apart and just chatting. And all of a sudden, it’s really hard to even explain how it happened, because all of a sudden there was a whale in the air!  And it was so close to us that when it came down, it splashed us. We got like rinsed, like rolled off our boards.

The thing that I so remember was, not only did it like take my breath away, but the eye of the whale, I swear it was this big. And that whale had barnacles on it that seemed to be like six or eight inches, all over the place! And I remember the coloring of its body and the smell of that whale breath and just being shocked to death.

We both got back on our boards and sat back up, and this was before leashes, this was before a lot of other equipment that we use today. And I remember that there was a lot of bull kelp out there, which is the kelp that is really long. It used to have the big bulb on it. And those things started popping up, because when the whale rinsed, or breached or whatever, and rinsed us off, I mean it was like the whole area came alive in a different way, and it was really pretty freaky.

*Steamer Lane is a world-renowned Santa Cruz surfing hot spot, which during the wintertime has the largest surfable waves inside the bay.

But then I remember the kind of peacefulness that came with that, and the gift that that was for us from the universe. And how we just kind of sat in that moment, and it was like life stood still for a while, though there was still a lot of sloshing and moving about. I wasn’t sure where the whale went. We never saw that whale again in the next thirty minutes or so, but you really realized that you were in their playground. And that whale was doing something. I don’t know if he was getting a bite to eat, or doing whatever, just checking things out, who knows.

But it was, I mean that whale came down like twenty feet from me, and that’s something, even when I start talking about it now, I can almost feel the visceral part of how wild that was. I mean you’re just right out there with them. I’ve never felt anything like that since.

In some ways there’s many other parts to that, but it’s really kind of led me to a life of – I think I have a heightened level of respect for what ocean animals are, what they do, how they go through their life, and what that must be like for them. You know, just to be able to jump out of the water. You know, did they see a surfer? I don’t know. I don’t know what they know. Did they see that? I doubt it.

But it was like this living creature just came by to say hi and he was immense! After some time, I remember looking over at Brenda, and I said, “I’m getting out of here”, cause that scared the hell out of me, you know, in a way. But in another way it was a very spiritual kind of gift, as I mentioned. So I think we caught another wave then both went in, but every time I see Brenda now, we just kind of, “remember the whale”, “Oh yeah uh-huh.”