Can’t believe it. Snapped my 5th board during my (not yet very long) surfing career attempting a duck-dive. How stupid is that? My board-snapping-series started a few years ago. First, I only snapped my beautiful Kai-Otton-Competitionboard in half in a small swell in Berawa. The waves were small that day but razor-sharp. I duck-dived one and the board just slipped out of my hand, really don’t know why. When I came back up, I had not just one board, but two halves of a board.
Anyway. I fixed it and it was almost like brand new again.
The following year was the really bad one. One day, we went to a spot close to Keramas on the east coast of Bali. It was quiet big, the current strong and the wave a heavy one. After infinite paddling to stay in the take-off zone I managed to get the best wave of my current surf life. Happily paddling back towards the line-up it happened. Big set from the back. Ahhhh! My friend yelled at me I should paddle more to the right. But I wasn’t sure I heard him right, cause it seemed more logic to me to paddle to the left and try to make it through the green wall instead the roaring white water lip.
I was wrong and he was right. I didn’t make it to the green, the wave broke exactly where I was, my attempted duck-dive failed and my new board was snapped right through the middle. Anyway, now I know that, in situations like that, I should aim for the white water because the force of the water is not as strong as at the breaking point.
Not that I wouldn’t make the same mistake again in my life. I actually did. A saying says: I don’t do mistakes once or twice, I do them five or six times, just to be sure. That completely applies to me. You can imagine the result, right?
Anyway. Went to Serangan the same day, borrowed an old board of a good friend, warned him that I might gonna snap it, paddled into the line-up, didn’t pay attention, unintentionally ended up in the middle of a freakset, attempted a duck-dive, came back up and the board was snapped in half. Damn it!
The next day in Berawa was still quiet big. So I took my old Kai-Otton-Competitionboard, paddled to the line-up, didn’t pay that much attention again (was chatting to a friend), got caught up in a freakset again, attempted a duck-dive again and came back up with my board in two pieces (and it didn’t snap at the same place it already did the previous year). AGAIN.
Couldn’t believe it. All my friends just laughed their ass off and nobody even considered borrowing me his or her board. I wouldn’t give my board to someone like me, that’s for sure.
Anyway. I actually did find someone who gave me his board for the following day. An epoxy one. They’re supposed to be quiet hard to snap. And what happened? No, no duck-dive or freakset this time. But I fell on my motorbike on a shitty potholed road. And of course exactly on the side with the board in the board rack. Nose severely cracked. Ouch.
Yeah, and then, my beautiful pink board as I described in the first paragraph of this story.
Anyway, I hope five times is enough for the rest of my life. Please, God of Surfers, give me a break and let me successfully duck-dive any freaksets I might encounter in the future!
Kim Faraway 