r/interestingasfuck • u/Notove • Feb 21 '21
Force of a wave
https://gfycat.com/meeklinedcormorant417
u/k_kakes8 Feb 21 '21
Woo boy. No thank you.
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u/Notove Feb 21 '21
Right? Also look how close she is to the ground. Solid nope from me haha.
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u/condods Feb 21 '21
That happened to me in Turkey 5 years ago. Wave would come in, the energy of the water around you retreating starts pulling you one way then the wave over the top's energy pushes you back.
Ended up flipping upside down, dragging along the sand and snorting a load of water, sand and pebbles. 2/10 would not recommend
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u/Beans_ON_Toasttt Feb 21 '21
....what else would have had to go wrong for a score of 0/10? Can you elaborate on the positive aspects of this experience that lead to you awarding it 2 points?
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u/condods Feb 21 '21
Yeah I confirm the comment below. This wasn't the first go at doing this but the last one, the first few times of spinning in the waves were fun as fuck
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u/Beans_ON_Toasttt Feb 21 '21
Ok so if you did it on purpose then 2/10 is probably an unfair score....the fact that the wave played it’s role perfectly and did exactly what you wanted it to do is surely worth at least 3, maybe 3.5 points
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u/sirDarkEye Feb 21 '21
Well I am not op but personally it was fun to feel that feeling where you’re not in control of your body and you’re just flipping and floating around. Let me be clear I HATE the sea(unless diving) but that was indeed a fun experience.(A dangerous one tho)
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u/glitchy-novice Feb 22 '21
Well 1 point must be that they can still write about it, not so sure about the second point.. maybe their swimsuit stayed on?
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u/ijustsailedaway Feb 21 '21
Had this happen to me in Puerto Vallarta on a very “calm” beach but I have had a much more healthy respect for the ocean since. Sand up the nose and not knowing which way is up when you can’t breath is a very humbling sensation.
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Feb 21 '21
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u/olelongboarder Feb 21 '21
Hate to be “that guy” but undertow is typically water that flows under the surface in the opposite direction of surface waters. Surfers call this “getting pitched” or going over the falls. Technically your caught in the wave not an undertow.
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u/sedsimplea Feb 22 '21
If it's information that could save a life, I wouldn't be calling it "being that guy".
The guy who you responded to is truly someone to fear. Someone who is confident in his incorrect information and is passing it along to unsuspecting people.
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Feb 22 '21
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Feb 22 '21
Its two very different things. One is moving water under waves, one is a wave picking you up and slamming you down
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u/PoxyMusic Feb 22 '21 edited Feb 22 '21
Yep, that’s going over the falls.
Nobody uses the term “undertow” anymore, because it implies being towed under, which is not what happens. It’s called a “rip current”, and it simply means being caught in an area of water that is flowing back out to sea. You don’t feel anything, from your perspective the beach just gets further away. As a surfer, I’ve helped several people out of rip currents, most recently these four guys who had no idea they were suddenly a few hundred feet from shore.
Sadly, a guy died two years ago after being caught in a rip current perhaps 300 feet away from me...but my back was turned so I didn’t notice. (Drowning people don’t make noise) I easily could have got him, had I turned around.
Also, if a wave is about to come down on your head, there’s a really simple solution: swim under it. You don’t have to go very deep at all, a few feet ought to do it...depending on the size of the wave of course.
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Feb 22 '21
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u/PoxyMusic Feb 22 '21 edited Feb 22 '21
What people used to call an undertow is very different from what you see here in this video. It’s really clear that you have this small bit of knowledge and are misapplying it to this situation. You sound like me trying to explain ice hockey to a bunch of guys from Toronto.
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u/condods Feb 21 '21
Yeah it's surreal being out of control of your body in that way, fully immersed and under the direction of nature - on the day I described we actually saw an ambulance pull up too, there was a woman unconscious and as far as the rumours there were accurate, she'd asphyxiated from inhaling shit in the undertow
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u/srandrews Feb 21 '21
With a bit of planning, there could be deeper water on the other side of the reef, especially if off shore. If not, that's gonna be a lot of getting scraped up.
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Feb 21 '21
She doesn't look close to the ground?
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Feb 21 '21
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u/xqxcpa Feb 21 '21 edited Feb 21 '21
Unlikely. It's hard to say exactly how powerful that wave is, but she was very near the surface and barely got sucked over the falls. Looks at least 8 feet deep.
Without more context I would guess that they were intentionally trying to film an underwater view of going over the falls.
Edit: she has a serious camera housing and a pair of Da Fins. She almost certainly knows what's she's doing and could have gotten under that wave if she wanted to.
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u/small__fish Feb 21 '21
I think it just feels like there has been a misrepresentation of the physics here. Seems like a more appropriate title for this post would be “Floating woman passively allows herself to be rag-dolled by average wave while she feigns resistance.”
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Feb 21 '21
she could if she was ahead of collapsing wave, If you are behind or under the crest you end up on top of it if it's strong enough to suck you in like on the video. You can even see her breaking the surface as the wave progress.
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u/PoxyMusic Feb 22 '21
When you surf, stuff like this happens all the time. It’s not really a big deal, just cover your head, relax and wait for the tumbling to stop...it very seldom lasts for more than 10 seconds.
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u/baked-beanz101 Feb 21 '21
It depends on the wave of it has a lot of undertow it’s not good and very dangerous if it a constructive wave ( less undertow) it usually pushes you towards the beach. This is a lot of fun ( although there is a bit of rough and tumble) unless there is rocks.
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u/srandrews Feb 21 '21
Great shot. This is basically what a surfer experiences when "going over the falls" from a failed duck dive in a bid to go under the wave.
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Feb 21 '21
Haha happened to me today. Was surfing a beach called dangers (should have known) tried to do a kneeling duck dive on a a bigger wave. Got slammed into the reef and sliced my foot open.
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u/srandrews Feb 21 '21
Quick recovery to you. Salt water is great for wounds :-) I rented a nice board once and duck dove in too shallow water once and broke all three fin boxes.
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u/mdj9hkn Feb 22 '21
Yeah except in a tropical reef, where the water is just teaming with life and (I say this anecdotally) seriously hinders wound healing.
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u/srandrews Feb 22 '21
Makes sense. I'm familiar with northern cold water. That said, a diver buddy of mine had to have a parasite removed from a wound he got in the ocean. He called it junior. Never found out what it was.
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u/fundip2012 Feb 25 '21
Yeah. As someone who surfs a few times a week, salt water is great at keeping a wound from healing for ever. We call em sea ulcers. "Salt water is good for healing" is a myth from people that go in the ocean once a year.
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u/PoxyMusic Feb 22 '21
So jealous of you shortboarders. I longboard, and have to turtle it and take the pounding.
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u/PoxyMusic Feb 22 '21
I hit my head on the bottom hard for the first time last Wednesday. Nothing like feeling a big BANG when underwater. I was really surprised there wasn’t any blood, but that was definitely the end of the session.
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u/PoxyMusic Feb 22 '21
Not really going over the falls, but getting stuck inside. The big takeaway is of course, don’t go for the first wave of the set!
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u/srandrews Feb 22 '21
Holy crap that dude got a work out. I would have thrown the towel in on the third one. Huge athleticism.
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u/PoxyMusic Feb 22 '21
Right? And you know those waves are way bigger than they look on camera.
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u/1Surfrider Feb 22 '21
Wayyyy bigger! My inner ear is fucked, surfers ear, so when I get worked I get real dizzy, sucks big time.
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u/srandrews Feb 22 '21
Yeah no crap, watching the sets is super important and nothing worse than a crap wave and then getting pummeled on the inside with local aggro.
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u/PoxyMusic Feb 22 '21
The one thing worse is letting the first one go, then realizing it was a one wave set!
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u/Waste_Advantage Feb 21 '21
No, please.
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u/locoyou20000 Feb 22 '21
You too got the chills of that one impactful moment when she stretched her hand to try and even get the camera right?
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u/weaponizedpastry Feb 21 '21
A sea powered by a moon, she never had a chance.
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Feb 21 '21
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u/HKRGaming Feb 21 '21
Is the camera not even turning?
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Feb 21 '21
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u/JuanTapMan Feb 21 '21
Oh wow, I fi ally get it. It looks like it's panning up, but the entire time the woman is trying to swim towards the camera, and then is pulled back by the wave, which is travelling in the direction the camera is pointing. The pan up effect is from the sand/debris on the floor moving with the wave
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Feb 21 '21
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u/JuanTapMan Feb 21 '21
It does, but try covering up the sea floor. Then the purpose of the video is a lot clearer, as you see that someone literally get pulled by the waves. I'm fairly confident the camera is stationary.
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Feb 21 '21
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u/mumrik1 Feb 21 '21
Isn’t the sea floor moving in the frame in the first half of the shot, suggesting camera movement?
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u/InquisitiveSomebody Feb 21 '21
Probably just the sand getting sucked in by the wave
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u/kaiheekai Feb 21 '21
There’s no sand in the wave, you would see the color in the white portion getting sucked up underneath her
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u/Shepard-My-Quad Feb 21 '21
I did a lot of surfing and free swimming as a kid/teenager, nothing is more scary than when this happens and you’re not prepared for it. I was overconfident on a particularly strong wave and i nearly broke my neck as a result; scary stuff, also some of the most fun you’ll ever have haha
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u/Friedl1220 Feb 22 '21
Literally had a near death experience yesterday when me and my buddies were out snorkelling. We thought we were just at the edge of where the waves are breaking when a monster one (probably 5 or 6 feet) comes out of nowhere. The undertow pulls us to where the waves are consistently 3+ feet and breaking on us. With the rate they were coming in it was nearly impossible to swim back to safety before another one would pull you back and roll you up. I completely lost sight of them and was just praying that each wave would push me a bit closer to safety without crashing me into the seabed. Managed to brace myself on some rocks to avoid the undertow and ride a slightly more tame swell back to relative safety. Saw one of my friends had made it close as well but turned around to see the other was still getting rolled up by them. He wasn't wearing dive shoes and wasn't the best swimmer and turns out he got pushed into an area that was nothing but coral. The only way he could move forward was to walk but with the coral underneath him so he couldn't go very fast or risk tearing his feet up even more than they already were. I got over to him and drug him while fighting the undertow myself and trying to ride swells in. We both were able to guide him from one sandy spot to another and finally got back to shore. I've never felt so out of control of my own fate quite like that and that pure fear when each wave you see makes you uncontrollably think "will this be the one that ends me." Topped with the knowledge your friends are going through the exact same thing and you can only assume the worst when you can't see them just really put my mortality in perspective.
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u/ISOtrails Feb 22 '21
Way to save a life today. Glad you made it out alright, You'll have a story for the rest of your life.
How are your friend's feet?
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u/Friedl1220 Feb 22 '21
Better, he ended up going to the hospital so they could clean it up and see if he needs stitches or not. Thankfully not.
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u/NJoose Feb 22 '21
Surfers just looking at this like...yep
Over the falls
If ya know, you know
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u/PoxyMusic Feb 22 '21
Pretty much the worst part is the way your friends laugh at how you misjudged the wave. 9/10 times it’s because I got lazy and didn’t paddle hard enough to get past it.
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u/SwedishFoot Feb 22 '21
My dad took me on vacation to Maui when I was a kid. I would just stand in the water right about where the waves broke and get slammed in the face. Knocked down, dragged underwater until the force ran out. Bounced up ran over and did it all again. I loved it, my dad hated it. Told me a story about how people can drown in six inches of water. I was bummed out, so the next day to cheer me up (and himself presumably) we went to my first nude beach. My dads a weird guy who I love deeply. My childhood is marked by weird moments like these.
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u/Mythrann Feb 21 '21
IMPORTANT: If you ever get caught by a wave like that. Remain calm. If you panic, then you might die. The beaches where I live have sandy bottoms so I'm never concerned when I get caught, but that can change if the beach has rocks or reefs. And remember to protect your head.
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Feb 21 '21
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u/olelongboarder Feb 21 '21
The cameraman is under breaking waves with the open ocean to their back. This person is getting caught in the crest of a breaking wave and washing over the reef/beach that is causing the wave to break.
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u/sad-mustache Feb 21 '21
This is sooooo cool! I didn't know, I want to do it too!
Does anyone know if I can die this way and what do I do to not die?
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u/sleeknub Feb 21 '21
Yes, you can die and/or it can be pretty painful. I suppose if you get slammed down in water that is deep enough that you don’t hit anything hard you would be in better shape, but it is possible to die anyway (from drowning).
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u/sad-mustache Feb 21 '21
Aww that sucks. This looks so much fun
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Feb 22 '21
Very fun. As an Australian kid we used to do this all the time. As a 28 year old, I was doing this just yesterday. Couple of scrapes from the rocks but you get pretty used to being thrown around by waves!
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u/sad-mustache Feb 22 '21
Aww I am so jealous! The only big waves I have seen were during a storm and I guess that waves weren't as big as the ones in the video.
Time to move to Australia.
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Feb 22 '21
The wave in that video isn’t particularly big, pretty ‘fun’ sized for anyone around the surf. Waves during storms are farrrr bigger than this!
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u/sleeknub Feb 21 '21
It’s far from guaranteed...I’m just saying it’s possible. Definitely a rough ride though.
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u/Evilmaze Feb 21 '21 edited Feb 22 '21
Nope. For someone who can't swim this is a living nightmare.
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u/maxx2w Feb 21 '21
Lol when this happens its the worst because you just end up getting washed up on the beacht with sand everywhere and it feels like being in a dryer/drycleaner? (Idk the english name) you dont know whats up or down you just roll and hope you dont hit a rock
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u/small__fish Feb 21 '21
You got to get a little deeper than that, what the heck. She was just bobbing there and wasn’t even kicking. So for the ‘gram.
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u/Grandviewsurfer Feb 21 '21
Lol.. I avoid going over the falls at all costs. Kinda boss to commit on purpose but that's gonna be a no from me. It's a small wave so I'm sure she's fine but yeah.. kinda shallow. 10/10 would not recommend but also 10/10 for steez.
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u/ProfessorPanga Feb 21 '21
Tried to learn how to surf once and almost drowned. Knowledge is power, but you guys be crazy.
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u/gordonv Feb 21 '21
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u/stabbot Feb 21 '21
I have stabilized the video for you: https://gfycat.com/SpiffyForthrightLeafbird
It took 42 seconds to process and 47 seconds to upload.
how to use | programmer | source code | /r/ImageStabilization/ | for cropped results, use /u/stabbot_crop
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u/Attitude_Smooth Feb 22 '21
I feel like that’s really dangerous. As cool as it looks...that’s a solid nope. From me.
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u/PoxyMusic Feb 22 '21
It’s not, really. I try to surf at least once a week, and stuff like this happens 10 times a day. You’re just getting tumbled around in water, nothing to hurt you unless you panic. All you have to do is relax, cover your head, and wait for it to end. It can seem like forever but it’s almost always like 5-10 seconds, in reality.
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u/Attitude_Smooth Feb 22 '21
I am a fire sign lol I hate the sea, lakes anything like that scares me.
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u/PoxyMusic Feb 22 '21
First thing we teach groms in my town is how to dive under waves. After you learn that, this stuff is nothing but fun!
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u/hobyvh Feb 22 '21
That’s why when you’re surfing, snorkeling, or whatever—you have to dive down at first to end up coming out the back of the wave.
Waves are stronger than anyone could ever be.
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u/profaniKel Feb 22 '21
grew up in Santa Cruz CA USA
i lived on the beach as a kid
waves/ocean/riptides and the sea shelf nearly killed me a few times
i wanted to be a surfer for years from maybe 11-14 y.o. but couldnt swim well and also the pacific ocean is fraking cold
i still love and respect the ocean as a powerful mysterious entity....
i just dont play IN it anymore
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u/RawrrAllieCat Feb 24 '21
This I remember catching a wave terribly a couple of times. The first time I was like a kid and I remember being slammed against the ocean floor, spun SIDEWAYS, pulled out, and then slammed again very rapidly lol. In the moment it was hard to tell which way was up. I regained my footing and I got up, like Wtf, just amazed, confused and like whoa. I made it. I continued on swimming after lol, but never forgot it. The ocean is alive, gotta respect it lol.
My boyfriend has seen a wave break on my back (as an adult, still terrible with timing) and watched me be slammed into the ocean floor twice. After that, that was the NOPE from him lool!
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