Page 121 "Go! You're in the slot!" Cried Lenny. There was no time to think - a ten foot wave was right behind me, and with two quick strokes, I had it. Half of the crew was on the beach, with the rest floundering in the whitewater as I streaked down the face of a perfect Santa Cruz Island wave. Dropping to the bottom, I leaned hard to my right and cranked a turn, my eyes focusing on the feathering lip twenty feet down the line. It folded over me and there I was, deep inside a huge barrel, looking out a big hole far ahead of me, and seeing a waterfall on my left. When inside the tube of a breaking wave, time freezes. It's as though you're standing in a crouch on your board, and although every muscle in your body is tensed and you're flying through space, you have the illusory feeling of standing still - a passenger behind the waterfall. For a few fleeting seconds the powerful vortex has been harnessed. You are riding in the eye of the storm. The violent noise of a crashing wave has been replaced by a quieter, distant sound, like wind rushing through a canyon. This elusive, temporary place is known by surfers as the "Green Room," and there is no place on earth like it.

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