Like when the rain's blowing sideways and the inlets are full of 15-foot waterfalls. Like when you're trying to keep the bow to weather with 50 knots of wind turning your hull into a sail. Like when a bar is so close you can hear it whisper your name over the roar of a northeaster.

These are the times when things go wrong. These are the times when we call people like Boatswains Mate First Class Robert L. Zamora. Around Atlantic City, he's the last hope for getting out through the inlet and saving our wet behinds and getting back safely. He's a Coast Guard surfman.

Surfman is a title, a job and an honor. Becoming one takes at least three years, a series of examinations - written and on the water - and many days' experience in heavy weather. In the entire Coast Guard there are only about 90. Most are on the West Coast, because that's where the weather is consistently worse. But those on the East Coast don't have it easy, not with northeasters and hurricanes. Zamora, who lives in Galloway and works out of the Coast Guard's Atlantic City station, found this out during his final exam.

He had come from the fabled "Cape D." That's Cape Disappointment, on the Oregon/Washington border, a place where the huge long-fetch swells of the Pacific crash into the opposing currents of the Columbia River on a bar so shallow that the resulting waves are some of the world's toughest to negotiate. It's so hazardous to navigate that the Coast Guard's National Motor Lifeboat School there was the subject of a documentary. And so when Zamora came East from having learned how to drive a boat at Cape D, he figured he was ready for anything. Then they told him his final exam was going to be in Cape Hatteras, where the skeletal remains of ships still reach out from sandbars.

They told him, and then they waited. They waited through storm after storm, month after month, and yet it didn't get big or mean enough for the final exam. Then one day last winter Zamora got the call. They flew him down by helicopter, so it wouldn't soften up too much by the time he got there, making him take his test on an unfamiliar boat with a new crew - in 10-foot breaking waves in Hatteras Inlet. And he passed, becoming an official surfman. In the meantime he has developed an even deeper respect for East Coast water. Hatteras will do that to you.

I was supposed to ride with Zamora that day in Hatteras, but I couldn't get down quickly enough. My helicopter was down for maintenance. Just as well. I like it when my lunch and my guts stay where they're supposed to. But I did get to ride with him the other day. Unfortunately the weather was very nice. Flat seas, light wind. He didn't get a chance to show what he can do. But it was interesting watching him work. He wears his boat - a 47-foot motor lifeboat - like an old pair of jeans: with a certain easy confidence. He attributes this confidence directly to his experience at Cape D.

"It's pretty much the epitome," he said. "If you want to learn how to be a coxswain, how to drive a boat right, where else would you want to do it?"

Personally, I chose the back bays for my boat-driving lessons. During the week. At mid-tide, coming in. But that's why I'll never be a surfman in the Coast Guard.

Zamora grew up in New Mexico, around not much in the way of real water except a few lakes. He became interested in the Coast Guard after watching a recruiting film of motor lifeboats crashing through waves. His question to the recruiter: "Can anybody get to do that?" The recruiter's answer: Yes indeed - as long as you're good enough. After two years service on a buoy tender in the Great Lakes, where watching water freeze is a recreational activity, they sent him to Cape D.

Waves are a function of fetch - the distance they travel - and wind velocity, as well as the shape and depth of the bottom. Some of the waves hitting Cape Disappointment have traveled most of the way across the Pacific Ocean, driven by very strong winds. As they travel up the mouth of the Columbia River they run head-on into a current that's seven knots at times. The bottom rises from thousands of feet deep to about 70 feet, which forces the wave up, literally to the breaking point. All that water has to go somewhere.

"It's not like those thin lips you see on Hawaii Five-O, not one of those tubes," said Zamora. "It's a big thick green wall of water."

Out there he would occasionally get the chance to go out in 30-40 foot seas, with 25-foot breakers on the bar. He's been out of winds up to 70 knots. That doesn't sound at all like the back bay in Ocean City. I'm glad.

"Yes it was scary," he said. "I had very little experience when I came there. But what a place to learn to drive a boat. We had some of the best boat coxswains, some of the best teachers I can imagine. I learned it by doing it. I learned how to appreciate it, how to appreciate how your boat handles and what it can do and how to make it perform. How to understand the boat to make it work well."

Zamora is only as good as his crew and his boat. He's fortunate on both counts. The crew would do any skipper proud and the boat is one of the most sophisticated motor lifeboats in the Coast Guard's inventory. It's designed to self-right without damage if it rolls. Its specs call for it to be able to take 50 knots of wind, 20-foot breaking seas and 30-foot seas. It has two 435-horsepower Detroit diesels. Its twin screws can push it to 26-plus knots. It's a lot more comfortable than its predecessor, the 44-foot motor lifeboat, which means it can stay on-station longer. It's also more than twice as fast and can take even rougher seas. With a draft of 4'6" it can work in tight spots that a bigger cutter simply would not be comfortable with. Shoaled inlets and rough seas are its main course. And yet ..

"Very friendly to crew on and drive," Zamora noted the other day.

It's tough to imagine a time when he'd have to say no, when it could be too out of control to handle, but it could happen. Either way, stay or go, lives are at stake.

"Probably an important piece of the makeup of a surfman is his ability to handle risk and decision making," said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Mark Dobney, commanding officer of the Coast Guard motor lifeboat school at Cape Disappointment. "It's not just that they have the skills to drive the boat, they have to have the knowledge and the personality that will allow them to stand up and say, "No, let's not go.' And that can be very important."

Do surfmen tend to have certain personality types?

"Most surfmen are self-motivated," Dobney said. "They are confident. They are aggressive or bold enough to pursue risks that are necessary and yet they are smart enough to acknowledge risks that aren't smart."

"It's great work," said Dobney. "It depends on your background and perspective. It's kind of like getting on an amusement ride you can't get off of. For some people it's kind of a yee-haw and for some people it's scary."

It's easy to see that Zamora believes he has one of the best jobs in the Coast Guard.

"Do I want anybody to get in trouble? Negative. But I like being there to help when they do, and some will get in trouble, it's inevitable."

Driving tips from Zamora:

- Think ahead. Prevention is key. Don't get into situations where you or the boat may be pushed beyond your capabilities. Even if everybody wants to go fishing, just say no. If your heart and your brain are having an argument, go with the brain. - Have to get through a rough inlet? Study it. Even if it looks like chaos there may be a certain rhythm, a series of breaks and lulls that can be played.

- Think maintenance. When people have trouble, "most of the time it's at the beginning or the end of the season," Zamora said. "In the beginning they haven't checked everything before getting underway, and at the end they havenŐt been taking care of it and it starts to fall apart."

- Drive defensively. "You've always got to look out, look out for the other guy, just like we do in cars," he said.

- Get a free Coast Guard auxiliary safety examination.

- Keep your charts updated, pay attention to the local notices to mariners and know the weather forecast.

- Wear life preservers.

- In other words, make common sense part of the crew.