Galveston Waves

For ALL of you who would come on my tour, or consider coming – let not the calm look of seemingly adaptable looking surf on Galveston Island beguile you:

Look, I get it, yes, sure, they can and do “look small” from the sand or Seawall.

But here’s what most people miss: the ocean doesn’t care about your assessment of wave height. It follows Gods creation law > physics.

I’ve been in the water daily (sometimes twice) since moving here first quarter of 2025, prior to this when I was a child through young adulthood, I was literally here almost every day for many hours and even all day, all the warm months and evens some cold months, for decades. Not bragging, it’s just me building reference point to consider. And I can tell you: I’ve had 2-3 foot waves lift me clean off my feet and ragdoll me 6-9 feet through the air on the backside. Zero warning. Zero mercy.

Depending where what part of what beach you are on, and even on most I have seen, you can have waves in several angles, while one or both cross directions on any angle (harmonics, I forget the real term), and the undertow can change… Some parts of the beach now I can tell where I am on the shoreline just how the water behaves and feels.

This morning? 30 minutes. That’s how long it took conditions to shift from basically CALM—Gentle-Green to yellow-flag rough & multiple waves in rows. The current didn’t announce itself. It just was.

We’ve lost people here. Real people. Families destroyed. Adults & children for a quickie, I even saw a couple of these people before they expired & thought to myself, thats a potential problem waiting for a final solution to unwind.

Not because of “monster waves” that announce danger from a mile away, but because of deceptive little 18-inchers that hide rip currents, shifting sandbars, and undertows that’ll pull you sideways into a jetty before your brain registers threat. SIMPLY floating on a water in between jetties, on a beautiful day in minutes can quickly drag you to one side at your own peril. AND RIGHT NOW< because I suppose, of the colder months, there no active life guards> the stands are downtown, doing whatever they do to them during this time… the patrol jeeps present sporadically, but they do their jobs and efficiently well. 

It wasn’t here but as a toddler in a pool that I had a lifeguard provide CPR to me until the coroner sirens were arriving (back then no Ambulance in Houston yet)  in the distance for over 15 minutes in the summer, so I have a special respect for them and the water.

The most dangerous opponent isn’t the one who looks scary. It’s the one you underestimate. It’s the Exception, that you took and misread.

Those “tiny” waves? In the right circumstances or wrong current, wrong angle, moment of distraction, Charlie-horse, or injury to your foot in the gulf, slightly compromised balance, twisted ankle, dizzy spell, whatever; they absolutely can and do take lives.

I’m not saying don’t go in. I’m saying: respect what you can’t see. Check flags. Watch the water for 5 minutes before entering. Know where the jetties are. And never, ever let “it looks calm” override your awareness.

The gulf doesn’t grade on effort or good intentions. It was because of the US’s lack of respecting Cuban Meteorologists thinking they knew it all or enough to get by, that contributed to the Great 1900 Storm, never allow your assumptions about the water qwell your respect for nature & its’s prowess.