Portugal swells were the stuff of legends.

Normal little kids fantasized about seeing Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, pretending to be asleep so they could catch just a glimpse. Surfer kids fantasized about seeing the waves off the coast of Nazaré, tasting the spray of the sea and dropping into a monstrous wave, arms flailing and board shaking. Maybe it wasn't Santa Claus at all. Maybe it was the boogeyman.

Records were set and smashed and set again at Nazaré, which was why the WSL held a big wave competition here almost every year, separate from the main circuit of events. This was the first year I'd qualified for it since my injury. An injury that I sustained on these very waves.

There was no sugarcoating it - I was fucking terrified. When Malia first brought it up that I qualified for it last month, it was a no from me without a second thought. But after my time in Singapore with Atlas, and knowing he took on his demons no matter how scared or how uncertain of everything it would make him, it made me want to fight back against mine too. He instilled a rare level of tenacity in me without even trying - it was just who he was. He made me want to be better. To do better.

So when I got back, I let Malia know I was in. She just laughed at me, admitting she'd committed me to the event two weeks prior. Since the event required certain weather conditions, we were only officially called in for the event 48 hours beforehand, but we'd all known there'd be a north atlantic swell hitting that weekend for a while. It was almost inevitable.

We got in the day before, mostly so I didn't psyche myself out and had time to take it all in. Nazaré was a fishing town, but surfing events like this had transformed it into a tourist destination. Local vendors dotted the narrow streets, and a chorus of different languages sailed above the sound of the wind. I took my time walking along the streets, feeling goosebumps prick my skin as the gusts continued to come in from the impending swell.

A large cliffside bordered the coast of the town, jutting into the water like a spike, and atop it sat a historic lighthouse, where most of the crowd would congregate for the event tomorrow. The cliffside absorbed the constant pounding of the waves, the water hitting the rocks and exploding like fireworks of whitewater. I leaned on the railing of one of the platforms at the lighthouse and just looked down. It was a portal to another universe.

I knew Atlas was in Germany at the Porsche factory, but I quickly snapped a picture of the waves and sent it to him. Surprisingly, he responded right away.

ATLAS VAUGHN 🖤: Smash it. Be safe.

I smiled softly and took one last deep inhale, hoping to absorb some of the salt in the air into my veins and grant me immunity from potential disaster.

The next morning, Malia and I sat out on the balcony of our hotel with coffees and watched the rise of the morning swell, just hours before the competition started. Streaks of golden light painted the ocean yellow and orange, and it almost made it all seem less foreboding.

"There's no warm-up here," Malia said, leaning against the railing of the balcony. "But you know that."

"Commit or bail, otherwise you fail," I repeated to her in a singsong voice, something that they remind us when it comes to big waves. Your decision needs to be made in an instant - commit to taking the wave or back off - because even the smallest whiff of uncertainty, the wave would snuff out and bury you in it.

"Look," Malia pivoted on her heel to face me and put her hands down on my shoulders. "You've been looking more confident than I've seen you in months. This event doesn't count against you, and you're through mid season cuts. You know what these waves can do. You take hits here, and you know that too. Just respect the waves, respect yourself, and you'll be okay."

"How can you promise that?" I asked her, turning back to face the water.

"It's not a promise," Malia shook her head. "It's just...certainty. You're strong. You're owed this. The universe will find a way to make sure of that." 

Waves in Nazaré averaged 50 feet in a swell, and this challenge always required tow surfing. The momentum needed to ride a wave of that size couldn't be produced by mere mortals. So, instead you were loaded like a slingshot and thrust into the wave by a jetski on a smaller board with straps for your feet. Like tossing a treat into the mouth of a dog - except you were the treat, and the dog was more like the kraken or megalodon, something that owned the ocean just waiting to swallow you up.

Tow surfing had inadvertently become a team sport, which was another reason why it didn't count towards the main schedule. You partnered with another surfer, and you'd take turns towing on the jetski and surfing. You needed a partner that wouldn't be afraid to put everything on the line to go and pick you up, and you needed to offer the same to them. Trust could not be a luxury in these waters, because as the one on the jetski, what you did not only impacted a surfer's performance, but also their survival.

So after confirming the event, naturally Carissa and I found each other without a second thought. Despite the back and forth we'd had over the last few months, there was something to be said about having the most trust in your rival. We needed each other.

This was Carissa's first big wave event, and while I knew she'd never vocalize it, I could tell from the way she gripped the back of my wetsuit as we straddled the jetski that she was nervous. We all wore wetsuits and a special vest that you can pull to inflate if you're being pulled under the water too long after a wipeout. There were spotters up on the cliffside by the lighthouse for each team to keep an eye on everyone in the water, and safety personnel in communication with them. There was a lineup of about five teams per heat, and in our heat, we were the only girls. It worked like a normal heat in surfing, where priority positioning applied in the lineup, and we'd be scored individually, then combined and averaged.

So we all sat out there as late morning light peaked through a shroud of clouds...and waited. There was a hunt involved in big wave surfing, and with that hunt produced the raw survival instincts in you - eat or be eaten. This was the alpha of waves.

We watched Jess and Nic, two brothers from Australia, dive into a swelling wave, with Nic towing and Jess being shot into the wave like a bullet from a gun. He dropped from the ledge and into the wall, his neon green board the only distinguishable thing against the deep blue of the water. The tube caught up to him, spraying whitewater everywhere and eventually swallowing him up whole as it collapsed, but somehow, Jess and that neon green board appeared out of the explosion of whitewater in the impact zone.

Time passed impossibly slow, and we watched a different pair take off into a wave. This guy wasn't as lucky as Jess, falling forward and getting swept up into the collapsing barrel. We all held our breath, and even though it was only a few moments, it felt like hours waiting for him to pop his head back out of the water and have his partner come pick him up on the jetski.

"What's it like?" Carissa leaned her chin on my shoulder.

"You've surfed Jaws before, haven't you? Otherwise you couldn't even qualify for this, right?" I asked nonchalantly, keeping my gaze forward on another swell of waves. Jaws was the only other comparable place to surf big waves like Nazaré, but they came fewer and farther between on the coast of Maui because they relied on specific swells from the Pacific.

"Sure, a bunch of times," Carissa shrugged, trying to keep her tone even. "But this is different. This is like the final boss level in Final Fantasy."

I let out a little chuckle and reached behind me to give her hand a quick squeeze. "You just need to trust yourself. That's all you can do. Isn't that what you used to preach to me?"

I wasn't sure who needed that reassurance more - her or me.

"If you want, I'll go first."

The words left my mouth before I could stop them, and next thing I knew I was switching our positions on the jetski, strapping myself into my board. I didn't know what came over me, but seeing another pair in our heat conquer a 60 footer, carving out a turn at the top and successfully navigating the barrel, adrenaline shot through me like lightning. It was first and foremost a competition, and god damn it I wanted to win.

I saw a right-hander begin to swell quickly behind another wave we'd rode over, and I felt my heart lurch. Right-handers were my better handle, and I knew I couldn't pass the opportunity. Commit, commit, commit.

"Alright this one," I told Carissa. "Pull me into it and go over the crest before you get caught in it."

Carissa nodded and drove us towards the break of the wave. I grabbed the rope and was thrust forward on my board, picking up speed as water from the jetski kicked up in my face.

When the wave first swells, you feel like you're being lifted into the sky, like a sacrificial offering. It's almost quiet in those first moments, like a deep breath before the plunge down.

Carissa veered the jetski off the shoulder and dropped behind the wave, and I let go. I kept my nose as close into the wall as I could as I dropped down off the ledge and into the wave. My stomach shot upward into my chest, the way that it does when you drop on a rollercoaster - but this was steeper. Much steeper. As spray kicked up from the peak of the wave, I dropped in practically blind.

Building momentum from my drop, I felt my board skip across the water as I coasted down the wall, and my knees rattled with every smack against the wave. I hugged the wall and tried to pick up speed, but the barrel collapsed too quickly, and a massive cloud of whitewater swallowed me whole. I was thrown forward off my board and into the water, spinning and tumbling down in the impact zone. When you're under, two seconds feels like two days. But when I resurfaced and sputtered out ocean water, Carissa was right beside me already, pulling me and my board onto the floating platform attached to the back of the jetski. I looked up into the sun, desperate to feel its warmth through the clouds, and I let out a sigh of relief. I was okay.

"You awake now?" she asked with a faint grin.

"Oh yeah," I nodded, managing to let out a chuckle as salt water still scratched the back of my throat. "That was the equivalent of about 15 shots of espresso."

We shared another laugh and drove back into the lineup. I'd survived a wipeout, and it was like the bandaid had been ripped off. There wasn't a wound underneath it anymore, but a faded, healed scar.

The heat continued on for another two hours, and I towed Carissa into a smaller 40 footer, but she maneuvered it like she'd done it a thousand times before, carving out a turn at the top of the lip and diving down the wall, keeping her composure as she got swept up in whitewater, narrowly escaping disaster. She'd scored us high, but I needed an equally high score to put us in a winning position.

"You're doing that thing where you're being picky again," Carissa told me as we continued to slosh around in the water, riding over another swelling wave.

"I want a right-hander," I replied firmly.

Carissa reached around and slapped me on the thigh. "Okay, well your right-hander is coming up now. Like...right now."

With my heart in my throat, Carissa and I dove towards the wave on the ski, and I let go of the rope as she maneuvered the jetski over the peak just in time, and just like before, I dropped into the wave with my breath held.

I picked up momentum quickly, but I wasn't fast enough to outrun the barrel again, and it swallowed me up. This time, it didn't collapse. It held onto me like I belonged there.

When you were under the barrel, you were in another universe. It felt like every part of your body was tearing at the seams, teetering precariously on the edge of complete disaster, but at the same time, you felt inhuman. You were breathing underwater. Time stopped entirely.

I emerged from the barrel to glaring sunlight, continuing to pick up momentum. Still clinging to that bit of inhumanness I had left in me, I took one last defiant shot, propelling myself up and off the top of the wave, gripping my board and just letting myself go. The world spun around me in slow motion, and at first I thought maybe I'd been imagining it all, but when I landed hard back on the water, it shocked me back to reality. My arms flailed out in a desperate attempt to keep my balance, and I coasted into the shoulder of the wave until it faded underneath me, and I was home free. My entire body shook as I jumped off my board into the water. My lungs begged for oxygen, and I let the water carry my aching limbs until Carissa swung around to pick me up.

"Are you kidding me?" Carissa screamed as she came up to me, immediately pulling me up and into a hug that I'd never expect from her. "Are you fucking kidding me?! Sav that was insane."

"Honestly, I blacked out," I admitted, swiping wet hair off of my cheeks and my forehead. "What did I do?"

Carissa grabbed my shoulders and turned me to look at the big scoring board at the control center of the event on the cliffside, where next to my name was a big 10.0.

"A perfect fucking ride, that's what you did." The excitement in her voice tapered off, and underneath that, she almost sounded unsurprised. "I swear when you came off the top of that wave I held my breath, but you nailed the most perfect 360 I've ever seen in my life."

I let out another relieved sigh, and I was in a euphoric haze as Carissa and I rode the jetski back to shore. With our combined average, we had an unbeatable first place secured.

Still reeling from what I'd done, I almost collapsed into the sand, but Malia immediately met me at the shore, scooping me up into a soaking wet hug. "I knew you could, I fucking knew you could," she said into my ear as she squeezed me tight. "It was perfect, Sav. You were perfect."

People began to crowd around us to congratulate me, and I couldn't distinguish the salt water from the tears as it all streamed down my face. I'd cracked open, and emotion came spilling out of me as I finally dropped down into the sand and rolled onto my back. I watched rays of sunlight poke through the clouds, and I counted to five as I took a deep inhale, holding onto that breath like it was the only thing keeping me tethered to the moment, and the reality of what I'd just done. I was afraid if I let go, I'd realize it was all a fantasy.

But over the swell of the noise and commotion as the competition ended, I heard Malia yell, "The bitch is back! Someone get me a goddamn crown because Queen Savannah has returned!"

The first perfect ride at Nazaré in over two years. It was real, and most importantly, it was mine.

if i can't run, i'll grow
nothing can hurt me now
i'm home now

i can feel it calling / trophy eyes

the surfer queen resurgence is here!! obviously i am not a big wave surfing expert as it differs a lot from championship tour surfing, but i watched A LOT of videos of jaws and nazaré as i wrote this chapter, so i hope most of my terminology and descriptions are correct enough. doing this reminded me why i made sav a surfer in the first place - i fucking love this shit.

so much so that if you haven't seen yet or haven't been following along, my newest WIP features LOTS more surfing with a soft, sunshiney male surfer who gets tangled up in a fake dating arrangement with a fallen from grace pop star. SOLAR POWER already has over 25 chapters posted and is available on my profile ❤️