The Family at Currumbin

Every time I move my head it dislodges another pocket of water that then gushes out of my nose. I don’t think I have taken on this much water since the time Paige tried to teach me how to do a tumble turn at the local swimming pool.

We thought we would sneak down to the coast nice and early for a quick surf before work, a check of the surf cams indicated that the waves were somewhere between 1 and 2 foot and the wind was negligible, great conditions to take my 7 foot 6 inch mini mal out for a spin.

When we arrived we found that the waves were a little random but generally around the 1 to 2 foot mark as promised with the occasional larger set every now and again. Tiff and the kids decided to stay in close and have some fun with the body boards while I took the mini mal out to see if I could catch a couple of waves. As usual I met some of the larger waves as I was paddling out, I am not sure if this is just random chance or the fact that the ocean has a sense of humour, never the less I was able to navigate through them and take up a position out behind the breakers.

Once I had reached this position the ocean appeared to have had its fun and the waves backed right off to be almost nonexistent. I paddled after a few but they didn’t have enough power to push me along, so I started to adjust my position to be closer to the shore, unfortunately this had been a ploy to lull me into a false sense of security and that thought occurred to me as I looked at the 7 or 8 foot perfectly curved arc of water that was bearing down on me like a freight train and determined to jump on my board beside me.

At this point I had a couple of options, one I could attempt to duck dive under this monster but considering my lack of success in duck diving with the mini mal in previous times I ruled that this probably wasn’t going to work. Two and the option that I took was to attempt to Eskimo roll under the wave and hope for the best, for future reference Eskimo rolls are great provided the wave is under 1 foot.  Now when I was floating around out the back I estimated that I was probably in around 8 or 9 foot of water so you can imagine my surprise when I found myself crouching on the bottom minus my surf board.  I kicked off from the bottom and had just reached fresh air when wave number two landed on top of me and began the whole process again. Any of you that surf will know that sets often come in threes and so once I was back at the top again I still had one more to go.

I will say this about the experience, I am amazed at the shear amount of water that the sinus cavity can hold and when you are in that foamy mess doing cart wheels it is difficult to tell the difference between water and fresh air.

When I eventually flopped out of the surf and onto the beach, Tiff said that she wished she had a camera to capture the image and I think she is still giggling hours later just from the memory.