What in the Jack-in-the-box is going on here?

Me curé.

It means “I got cured”.

It is a term that surfer’s here in Puerto Rico use when a session really hits the spot.

When you leave the ocean feeling really fulfilled inside, and whatever was bothering you has been washed away by the waves, you would say me curé. 

After many days punctuated by stormy weather, messy surf, and strong currents, this morning everything switched and it all lined up perfectly. Even the crowd thinned out. 

Sunday fun-day. I was feeling good, and surfing good. Catching wave upon amazing wave.

It was my cure: me curé.

After three and a half hours, the ocean let me know it was time to go in. 

How did it do this?

In surf lingo, a cleanup set is a group of waves that unexpectedly comes every once in a while. They break beyond where all the other waves have been breaking, and are usually bigger. They land on top of almost all the surfers who are positioned closer to shore. So it cleans the water as everyone gets washed towards the beach. Thusly named a cleanup set.

You may have guessed that when it was time for me to go in, a clean-up set steamrolled the lineup. True, but only half of the story.

I didn’t finish my session because the first cleanup wave landed directly on my head. It couldn’t have been bigger than 8 to 10 feet, which isn’t a big deal to me, and definitely wouldn’t constitute a session ending situation.  

But as the full force of the wave drilled me, my surfboard and I weren’t the only things that were taken down in the maelstrom. 

My shorts were violently ripped down too.

It was a bit of a violation. Definitely worthy of a complaint to HR.

In the underwater mayhem, I grabbed onto my shorts before this naughty wave could slide them off my ankles.

I was able to barely hold onto them until the wave passed.

Fully butt up and naked underwater, I worked to get my shorts back around my waist.