After my swollen back had healed up sufficiently, it was pretty much the last day of the week long swell. Eager to catch what was remaining of the swell, I headed out during lunch time to avoid the crowds and surf Krui Lefts for the last time, since I planned to go to Bali after the swell was over.
I entered the lineup of 5 people with my Hypto replica, with its recently self-repaired dings. Most of the surfers just caught a set as soon as I arrived, and I found myself taking the front of the line-up. I watched as a head high wave approached and paddled towards it, attempting to line myself up to catch it at the right moment.
As I saw the face starting to darken and steepen, I turned around and started paddling towards the beach. eager to catch my first wave after a 3 day break from surfing. As I felt the wave lift my board, I prepared to pop up, but realised I was late, and about to do an airdrop.
“No problem,” I thought. “I’ll just grab the rail and make the airdrop.
And in that split moment, the other half of my brain farted and decided “Nope, you’re too late” and tried to back out.
The resultant hilarity was that I made the airdrop on my butt, instead of my feet, a tragic combination of backing out and making the drop at the same time. I felt my board as I landed, but didn’t feel any shock or pain on my bum, just before the wave almost washing-machined me to the bottom of the reef. I knew in that instant, something terrible had happened to my board.
Sure enough when I surfaced, my surfboard was in two pieces, and I paddled back to shore on the lower half of the board.
I nonchalantly dropped the board off to be trashed at the local surf shop then went to pick up my spare surfboard to continue surfing.
When I returned to the line-up, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself the only out there for a good 2 hours, and proceeded to have a pretty good surf session.
I caught one wave where I slotted neatly into the pocket, surfing with the lip forming an arch over my head and slamming into the sea right next to me for a good 3-4 seconds. This wasn’t getting barreled, as I wasn’t deep in the tube behind the falling curtain, but it sure felt great being at the mouth of the barrel, in sync with the breaking wave. If this wave was bigger, there was potential for getting barreled behind the curtain.
On another takeoff, I took off an early part of the wave and found myself way too far down the line, and instinctually stuck my hand into the wave face to slow myself down into the pocket. It felt amazing to feel the immense drag of the smooth wave face as I raced down the line. Although the wave ended too early for my deceleration to work, it felt great attempting to pull off a barrel-riding technique for the first time. (Mental note: I need to butt stall to if I’m already that far down the line.
By this time, I had already creased my board once and snapped it another time on late takeoffs, so I made a mental note to avoid late takeoffs on powerful waves to avoid damaging my board.
It was just as well I was headed to Bali, the world’s mecca of surfing and second hand board market, so I knew I could pick up a couple of old boards for a relatively low price.
