the sneaker wave of life
by The Editors
AT LEAST FOR NOW, while we’re getting started, every person involved in sneaker wave magazine has visited the Oregon Coast one rainy January or another over the years, and we have gathered in a large room on a Friday morning and listened attentively to someone explain the dangerous nature of sneaker waves. A woman named Shelley Washburn told us about sneaker waves for many years. These days, we learn about sneaker waves from a man named Scott Korb.
Sneaker waves are large and potentially deadly waves that, according to The National Weather Service, “emerge from the ocean without warning and surge further up the beach than expected, overtaking the unaware.” Sneaker waves occur all over the world, wherever the surf endlessly pounds the sand and the rocks into submission or however the poets would describe it. Oceanographers have never discovered precisely why sneaker waves occur. One theory is that storms far off in the sea are the root cause of sneaker waves. Another theory is that one in every seven waves or one in every nine waves will be much larger than the rest, and occasionally, the larger one is much, much larger. But who knows?
On the Oregon Coast, where the waters in January are cold enough to cause death by hypothermia in under an hour, sneaker waves can sweep people off their feet and drag them into the surf and in the process fill their shoes and clothes with sand and make it nearly impossible to get back on shore. Sneaker waves can deposit logs the size of Subarus far up the beach, and if you’re in the way of a log that size, well, God help you. People have died. Limbs have been broken. Dogs have been lost. Lives have been changed forever. There’s nothing funny about this. But we have laughed about this, anyway, just a little, because we are the kind of people who find amusement in things like the sound of the words sneaker and wave put together, because together they sound like something much more than what they truly are.
Whatever the case, when we have gathered on a January Friday morning in that large room on the Oregon Coast, the person explaining the dangers of sneaker waves has always concluded the warning with this old Hawaiian proverb: “Never turn your back on the ocean.”
At sneaker wave magazine, we like the metaphor there. We see life in this, and we never want to turn our backs on life.
We have no idea where we’re going with sneaker wave magazine, and really, that’s as it should be. We don’t know when the wave’s coming or how big the wave may be. All we know for sure is our eyes are fixed on the lives that produce it. We will present real stories from real life, written by authors who take themselves to their limits to recreate what they have experienced or witnessed: the heartbreak, the tragedy, the humor, the joy. All of it. And we hope you join us on the shore to keep a watchful eye on the waves.
And once Ben Percy was commissioned to tell the newbies about SWs. We didn't yet know this man. His demeanor was imposing, almost-fearsomely authoritative, and when he opened his mouth, his voice was came from baritone's sub-basement, freighted with doom and, we sensed, a knowledge of the inner workings of things far beyond our own. Those of us who were not newbies listened in amazement and thought What a great schtick--none of these peeps will ever turn their backs on the sea ever again! Inwardly, we praised Shelley for concocting this bit of theater, and so began the residency. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that this sound we'd trembled at was simply his everyday voice . . .
I could tell you why sneaker waves happen, or at least when. They aren't predictable, but there is a reason. I've live on the ocean for 45 years just south of the beach you know. I was knocked down by a wave when I was a little girl. Never turn your back on the ocean.