After taking another short hiatus from surfing for a family event back home in Kuala Lumpur, this time I headed over to Pulau Rote, in the eastern Indonesian province of Nusa Tenggara Timur to continue my surf mission.
Transiting through Bali for one night, I decided to buy an extra set of fins for each of my boards and Solarez ( a ding repair material). It remains to be seen if buying those back-up fins is a smart investment. :/
Upon arrival, I spent the first half of my full day exploring the area, figuring out where all the surf breaks are, (which can be really annoying, IMO), but in the evening, I paddled out for my first surf session at T-land, a several 100m long left-hander with multiple sections of various sizes and hollowness for everyone.
I only caught 3 waves in an hour on my first session (The paddle out on my Hybrid Fish took way longer than expected), but one of them proved to be the best backhander of my life so far. I performed a record 3 top turns on the wave, with two of them coming off the lip, just before a section closed-out on me and knocked me off along the lip. It was such a great feeling.
Talking to another 10 year vacation surfer who’s been to Rote multiple times, he told me that T-Land is one of the best waves to learn and perfect manoeuvres due to the length of the long rides and relatively easy take offs.
The next day, I also checked out Bo’a, an apparently punchier right-hander further south of T-Land. I got a couple of short rides before the winds started to kick-in, and I noticed that my Hybrid Fish style of paddling into waves on my Hypto replica was not working, as I could not maintain the paddling speed while turning the board to paddle into the wave. With a lower volume board, I realised I needed to initiate the take-off paddle while pointing only in a single direction. So, I’ve taken mental note that my two boards require two different paddling styles to catch the wave.
So far so good, my confidence was still high and I could still feel my surfing progress.
Until I went out to T-Land on high tide, when the waves wall up steeper. Taking a bad late drop on one of those steeper walls took out a chunk of my confidence, and I didn’t dare go for those steeper waves anymore. This was first session in awhile where I didn’t catch a single wave, and this knocked me back to reality and made me realise I still have a lot of progress to catch up on.
The next day was even worse as a big swell arrived, and the waves at T-Land were consistently double-overhead. (I even saw one guy catch a wave which was almost triple-overhead! ) I got caught inside two huge sets twice, and fortunately my leash didn’t snap, but I was washing-machined underwater 5 or 6 times. I saw 3 guys with snapped leashes swimming in the line-up, looking for their boards.
After this, I sat far out on the shoulder waiting for smaller sets, but that was pretty much it: My confidence was smashed and I didn’t dare take risks anymore. Furthermore, these big waves were quite fat, so a take off with a short board meant catching it almost at the lip.
What a sobering experience.
From the highs of confidence to the lows of eating a slice of reality pie, it’s amazing how a surfer’s confidence can dramatically change in a single wipe-out. This episode of fluctuating confidence has made me realised I’ve still a long way to go.
If there’s any good to come from this, it’s that I have lost any ounce of complacency in myself reaching my surf goals, and I can’t afford to slack during the remainder of the time I have left to surf.
I think part of the lack of confidence was also due to a minor knot in my upper shoulder after straining it paddle out to T-Land and back on the first day after almost a week of not surfing. (Such a kook mistake to not warm up properly *facepalm*)
So I decided to sit out of the surf for the next few days to allow the swelling to subside and hopefully the knot corrects itself. I took comfort from reading an in-depth ESPN interview with John John Florence, who is also recovering and underoing therapy for an MCL knee surgery.
When asked about his recovery process, he answered:
“…I have to remind myself to hold back, keep the brace on and slow myself down”.
And while talking about lessons learnt from his recent injuries, he said:
“…The biggest thing that’s been clicking for me is to go with the flow and do the best with what I’ve got in the moment”
All very wise words and a source of inspiration from the world’s best surfer for me to be optimistic while patiently recovering from a minor injury 🙂
