feather2pixels

A few notes on the somewhat amazing 2008 Christmas tree burn at Ocean Beach.

From what I understand this was supposed to be a big event, but the rain ended up keeping people away. It wasn’t coming down too hard in the Mission, so I put on my ridiculous rain gear and biked down to the dark diner on Sloat Boulevard where everyone was meeting and everything was a lot wetter. It ended up being about forty-five people, maybe twenty trees. After sharing a joint with an old hippie, a different old hippie began thumping bongos. This seemed to initiate a single file march to the beach.

This dunes on this section of Ocean Beach are decidedly cliff-like and, flanked on the opposite side by the high tide, we were left with very little actual beach on which to start a bonfire. As a result, the combined forces of the surf and the rain set up a death battle of elements. At first there seemed to be no way to stop fire–the pile of evergreen went up in approximately half a second. Every once in a while a wave caught everyone unawares, but this didn’t seem like a group to be stopped by some soggy feet. Neither was fire.

At one point, two firemen peeked at the scene from the street above and seemed unimpressed. I guess they knew what we would find out soon. Fire packs an impressive punch, but there is not much in this world that can withstand the fury of pissed-off, rainy water.

As fire was dying down, a wave much bigger than anything that came before closed in on us. This time there was no escape. And this time the result was more than just soaked feet; I could feel the sensation of what would be coldness on my knees if my knees had not been numb from the rain. Or the fire. Or something. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that the wave carried the still-burning wood into the Pacific. For real: the dying bonfire fire floated into the dark ocean and it was one of the more outstanding things I’ve seen.

[flv:http://www.feather2pixels.com/blog/post_video/burn.flv 400 300]

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 5th, 2008 at 11:39 pm and is filed under gratuitous video, Pacific Ocean, photojournaling of debatable quality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.