Big John Street

Last Saturday I got out to John St. for some big NNW swell. The angle was about 298deg which is marginal for the west side, but the size was around 12' @ 16sec, or maybe bigger. There were surfable waves breaking with about 4' of high water over the reefs. I went out on the higher water to try out the Buttons in some speedy reef surf. I didn't think it would work because the Buttons has a narrow tail and wants to sit in the pocket. John St is a somewhat sectiony wave without a lot of hollow power to it. The way most people surf it is to make a mid-face turn on the drop and pump the wall until it closes. This is a perfect wave for the quad.
My first wave I rushed the bottom turn and fell over when the board turned slower than my body did. A few more wasted waves, mostly making the bottom turn only to find the wave already outran me. The waves were overhead on the sets and I was sitting up in the cove at John, hoping for a bowl I could make on the slower pintail. I finally found one I could make the shoulder on but when I can off the bottom I hit some kelp and the board stopped dead in the water. That was it and I ran up the cliff to switch boards.
I switched to the Haut2 which is a perfect board for John St. I caught a few from the bowl and was making waves but the tide was getting good and the crew was changing from the hesitant to the aggressive. Then the big set came.
I was just deep of the point and in good position for the first waves of the set. I turned on the second but got held up in the lip and muffed the drop. When I came up from under water I saw there was another one just like it, maybe a bit bigger. I tried to duckdive and lost the handle. I tried to just wait in the water and the next one washed me down. Each wave was a little bigger but I couldn't really tell how big because nobody was dropping in. They were at least 8' as I was getting worked across the section and around the corner of Mitchell's. I ended up out by the rip-rap past Mitchell's before the waves stopped. Even then there was so much current I had to paddle hard just to stay in place. Eventually the current abated and I was able to get to the beach at Mitchell's. (Mitchell's has less sand than I've ever see in there!)
I walked back up to the point and hit the water again, but with no reward. The crowd was aggressive and tightly packed. I had a few chances when someone deeper missed the wave, but it was always too close to call in time for me to catch the wave. I ended up paddling in without a wave.