Ocean 1, Justin 0

(from my point of view): Justin was invited to go surfing this morning and since the equipment rental is pretty cheap at the ORC on base he decided to go. I wanted to get out of the house and Elliette loves playing in the sand so we decided to just go hang out on the beach and watch Justin attempt surfing for the first time with his buddy Dan. When we got to the beach we noticed that the waves seemed pretty intense (probably 12-15ft waves, definitely more advanced waters than what they should have been in but Justin is a good swimmer so I trusted him) and there were no other people out on the water, but since they had paid for their rentals the two of them decided to go for it anyways. As Justin was getting his wetsuit on I realized that I forgot the diaper bag so I had to run home and get that as well as fill up the car so I took off with the girls for probably 20-25 minutes. On the way back to the beach I get passed by about 3 cop cars heading that direction, I found a place to park and look out into the water and the two of them are nowhere to be seen but the cop cars have parked just a little ways up the road from where I am and now 2 fire engines are coming and everyone is staring out at the rocks. I knew that they had to be there for Justin and Dan but was really hoping it was something else. I hurried and grabbed the girls out of the car and walked up to the beach access and asked a guy what was going on. He told me that there was a guy out in the water by the rocks who had been swept out by the rip tide. I told him my husband was out there and he asked if he had a yellow board, I wasn't sure which one had the yellow board but I knew one of them did and since he said no one else was out in the water I figured it was them; he did only mention one guy though so I was hoping that at least one of them was safe on the beach. I hurried down onto the sand to get a better view and saw one of them get tossed up onto the rocks near the other one but both were standing and moving around so that was a good sign. I talked to another lady to see if she noticed if either one was hurt and from what she had seen she thought they were both ok. Eventually they were both able to get in safely (thank goodness) and that ended their fun day of surfing. Justin ended up with a broken surf board and a hole in his wetsuit and I am pretty sure that they both ended up pretty sore after that. I told them that if they wanted to try this again they have to go to a different beach and they have to drive down and check out the waves before they rent their gear to make sure it is more beginner friendly. (Sorry I didn't get a pic of the boards or them out on the water/rocks).
(Justins point of view):
Before looking at the waves be and a friend decided to try surfing today. Dan had been one time before and I hadn't been at all, so we knew it would be pretty rough but it still sounded like fun. We rented out equipment in the morning and went right out. Melissa decided to come watch, but when we got to the beach she had to go back to the house for something and fill up the car as well. While she was gone we decided to get started even though Dan looked pretty worried and the waves were huge. I kinda persuaded him to go out anyway and just stay close to the beach. Even though the plan was to stay close to the beach once we got out a little bit, that was it. Dan was trying to teach be some stuff, but I was just paying attention to the enormous waves smashing us. Before I knew it I was way out and drifting towards a bunch of rocks. At about that time a huge wave came up and I decided to try and ride this one as far as I could. I hadn't had much success before now so I thought I would put the point of the board in a little more to force some resistance and get pushed farther, if that had worked I may have been able to ride that one wave all the way to shore, but it didn't. At the same time the wave was pushing the front of the board down I was trying to force it up to stay on top of the wave, then all of the sudden I was in the air then in the water. I know enough to know the best thing to do is go limp since you don't know which way is up and your less likely to get hurt, I stayed under the water for what seemed like a long time which turned out to be a good thing because another large wave followed before I surfaced. I found the surface because the board was attached to my foot, so I just went the direction of the tether. When I reached the surface I noticed my board was broken, I straightened it out and hoped I could keep trying to ride a wave, but after getting thrown around a couple more times I was too exhausted to do anything more. I held onto by board and tried to kick my way to shore, but I kept getting pulled towards the rocks. Thankfully the waves were more mild among the rocks so at least I didn't feel like I would drown anymore, I just had to really pay attention to where I was. I wasn't making any progress and just at the mercy of the ocean when my buddy finally reached some rocks large enough to give shelter. I was still quite a ways away just hoping to make it there somehow without getting smashed. Oh, yea, by this time there was a fire truck, ambulance and a few cop cars waiting for me to..... None of them really had a way to help me though, so I really had to get to those rocks. Just then 2 very large waves managed to make it through the rocks and still be pretty big came up from behind me and pushed me towards the rocks where my friend was and gently set me down with enough time to climb up to safety. Even while I was on those last 2 waves hurling towards the rocks I felt like I would be alright and that the hand of God was saving me. The firefighters that were there agreed that I was very very lucky, I said that I was very very stupid and if God had saved me it was for the sake of my wife and kids because that was my own stupid fault for going out when the waves were so huge none of the locals even dared to go out. Live and learn has new meaning.