Before mountain biking grabbed my full attention, it was surfing. I surfed a lot and all over the world. Sometimes I scared myself stupid. Being milliseconds from going over the falls at 10ft Lakey Peaks is a heart stopppingly scarey experience... add to that the fact that you are only wearing a pair of shorts as protection from razor sharp coral and you can see it takes balls to commit to a big wave...
Thing is, when I got back into the surf in Indonesia this summer (after a long break) it seemed a little less intimidating. I remembered that 99% of the time, when you fall off a surf board you just get a good dunking and rolled around a bit. Even at Shipwrecks, a shallow ish break that was well overhead, I felt very confident despite having had many years off a surfboard. A few sessions and I was back to my old ripping self!
I pondered why I felt so calm. Was it because I had been mountain biking for so long now and that, in contrast to surfing, 99% of the time when you fall off a bike, (at any reasonable speed) it does flippin hurt? (due to the proliferation of sharp / hard / pointy things to merge with).
I felt smug with this Evolution of Surfing Bravery....
And then recently I found this photo. Look at it closely. Think about the weight and the power of the wave. Think about the reef below that is so near the surface it's warping the water to that extent....
Maybe I'm not so brave after all...
And yes; it did all go horribly wrong. Think I'll stick with the biking.
2 comments:
Flippin'eck that's a big wave!
Your outside foot isn't down ...
When I saw this picture it made me want to hide under the bed... It made me feel a bit queasy...
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