The wave comes, throat-high and hungry. The last thing I see before it sweeps me off the rock and into the ocean is a man in a wetsuit leaning his shoulder into a wall of water. When we swam out here around 2 a.m. and hoisted ourselves onto the algae-slick face of a boulder, he had warned me: “If you go in here, it won’t be fun.” And he was right.

I manage to keep hold of my fishing rod, and I’m reeling in lost line and treading water and trying to forget all the stories I’ve heard about sharks as a second large wave begins sucking me up its face. By the time the third crashes over me, I’ve abandoned any pretense of swimming back to our original perch. Sputtering and coughing, I make my way toward another rock closer to shore. A last wave pushes me onto it, and I get my feet under me.

Thirty yards in front of me, having held on to that sloping rock through the entire set, Brandon Sausele makes a long, arcing cast into the pounding surf.