Mega 'Toe' Failure at Bondi

Sunday 14th, Bondi Beach. The Festival of the Winds was about to kick off but we had bigger things to do than fly a kite. The heavy rain had left the beach practically deserted and the sea ours for the taking. We wasted no time zipping into our winter-length wetsuits but even then the sea was still freezing and I felt a sharp twinge of pain as I entered the water. We paddled out for half an hour, making little progress in a no man's stretch of water that would neither spit us out onto the beach nor let us swim on to the waves just ahead. The rough sea and south-westerly wind constantly shifted the sea bed creating troughs and only the occasional peak to stand up on. Unlike Manly the sandbars were intermittent and seemed to have a mind of their own, choosing to appear and disappear at will. Occasionally someone would yell out that they’d found one, only to be disappointed moments later to find a 10 ft deep trench in it’s place.

Eventually our friend Burge alerted us to a sandbar he'd found. We paddled parallel to the shoreline for 5-minutes before swimming straight out to meet him. Once there we rested victoriously until we'd assessed the situation. Having spent half an hour trying to find a sandbar we weren’t about to waste our efforts on a dud wave. So we stuck it out, letting the first barrage roll over us, aware that with each one we ran the risk of losing the sandbar for good. After 10-minutes of fighting for a slither of sand we decided to go for it. A swell was gathering force on the horizon that we couldn't refuse. Already the wind had pushed us slightly past the optimum point for catching the wave. Exhausted from the swim I could only manage to raise one leg, so I shot forwards gracelessly in the ‘proposal position’ straight for Burge who now floated helplessly in no man's water knowing that after all that effort I’d ride straight over his head if I had to. Luckily for him the uneven sea bed sapped the power out of the surf and I went down on one knee... to the depths. I resurfaced to find I could no longer touch the floor with my feet. The sandbar was lost. Lee torpedoed past in proposal style straight into a wall of water that swallowed him whole.

I lifted myself up on my board and flipped onto my back. Initially only a few feet separated us but after ten minutes of recuperating I’d managed to drift almost out of sight on a powerful rip. I was reminded of an episode of Bondi Surf Patrol I’d seen on UK TV before I left, in which a lifeguard commented about a part of the coast they called the ‘English Channel’ - and now here I was, four months on and shamefully stuck in it myself. Lee waved at me with a smile as he swam out on his futile search for another sandbar. Kit was already out of the water and making his way to the car – if only we’d all had the same degree of insight. I paddled laboriously on for another 20-minutes until my back and chest ached. By the time I met up with the others the freezing sea had taken it's toll. I found Lee and Burge shivering and gibbering that their numb feet had fused into “mega-toes”. Realising that they'd lost their minds in the cold I made my own way back to the beach. Despite the handicap of their mega-toes they managed to drag themselves out of the sea without too much difficulty. I however had no energy. I battled on to the beach but the sea wasn’t quite ready to relinquish it's grip on me. I struggled to keep my head above water, occasionally slipping off my board as I tried out different swimming strokes to gain a few feet - in the end it was the 'backstroke whilst tugging the board' technique that proved most effective. Eventually the sea lost interest in my pitiful struggle and ejected me back onto dry land.

After warmth had returned to our bodies and our mega-toes felt like feet again we continued on up the beach, which was still empty apart from a small group of people shuffling towards us under the cover of umbrellas. As we got closer we realised that it was no ordinary huddle of people but a group of Japanese tourists. The umbrellas parted and from their handbags and purses they produced a pile of cameras. Pained, we readied ourselves to take a million photos, but they didn’t want us to take photos of them... they wanted to have their photos taken with us. Somehow we'd gone from mega-toe surfing failures to Bondi Beach postcard material (or maybe not). They took turns posing next to us whilst doing the hippie peace sign. I made the mistake of letting two of them stand on the board as I pretended to surf on land, which meant having to repeat the same pose three times. Sadly that's the longest amount of time I’ve stood up on a surfboard to date.

So with that we left the beach. Perhaps the surf had been awful that day, and maybe we’re pretty awful at surfing. But does that really matter? If a bunch of people from the far side of the world go home thinking they’ve met some genuine Bondi surfing heroes isn’t that what it’s all really about?! We think so.


Above photos taken the day before when it was actually sunny.

The "Water Skills" Album

So here’s the photographic evidence that Lee and I faced our fears on Manly beach last weekend. Most of these photos were taken after we'd given up trying to ride the colossal wave but there's a photo of a wave almost as unforgiving, captured here on it's death path towards Lee, as well as a photo that captures the exact moment I popped my hip during an awkward and visibly painful dismount off my banana-coloured surfboard.

Click here to view 'The “Water Skills” Album’.

Wipeout at Manly Beach

It was a clear but cold morning at Manly and the surf looked promising. This was our first time surfing without an instructor and we felt sure that we could tame the beast. A quick scan of the shoreline later and we headed over to the surf-hire hut to pick up our boards and wetsuits. At first Lee felt a little disgruntled after the shop assistant-dude picked out a large-size wetsuit for him to wear, but whatever irritation he felt soon disappeared when I zipped myself into the only bright blue wetsuit on the beach. Any initial fear that I resembled the Blue Power Ranger was soon put to rest after I tucked my bright yellow surfboard under my arm. Clearly I had become Banana Man. But we weren’t about to let the beach hut dude steal away our two hours of awesomeness. So with boards pinched under our arms and dragging behind us we stepped into the sea.

Immediately the sea felt colder and harder than we’d remembered. The waves ploughed into us with renewed energy. This wasn’t going to be easy but slowly and surely we advanced, wading from sand bar to sandbar, slipping from waist deep water to neck-deep water back to waist deep water. Soon we could see more-experienced surfers populating the swell ahead of us, all sitting upright and bobbing about on the now calm surface. The changing sand depths churned out by rolling waves alerted us that it was only a matter of time before the calm was broken again, but with no idea how long that would be we decided to sit up and rest.

As it happens we didn’t have to wait long. At first only a couple of gentle bulges broke away from the straight horizon to lift us up, the strong undercurrent stirring up the sand below and turning the colour of the waves ahead to a reddish brown - a suitable colour for the hellish wave that was gathering force beneath us. Bobbing there silently on the reddish swell we watched with horror as the next seemingly innocuous bulge mutated into a single wall of water over 6-feet in height and stretched out across the horizon, reducing the queue of surfers ahead of us to a foamy outline. With little time left we hastily paddled one-handed to rotate our boards to face the beach. Annoyingly, out of the corner of my eye I could see a ten-year old boy effortlessly cutting a masterful arc across the wave that was about to smash us to pieces. I looked over to my right to spot Lee’s position. His eyes were transfixed on the shoreline but no matter how fast he paddled he just seemed to be moving backwards, but then so was I. He caught my line of sight first but quickly shot a glance over my shoulder. From his pained expression I decided not to look myself. All there was left to do now was to keep on paddling. At this point I’d lost sight of Lee. With one abrupt lift the wave thrust me onto the white edge of the rip curl. Somehow I was still holding on. I looked around frantically to find Lee on the rip curl besides me, but I should’ve looked straight ahead. From out of nowhere an incredibly fast old man shot across my path. Fearing collision with the old man’s surfboard I bowed out of the wave right at its peak. A flash of foam later and I found myself tumbling around inside the wave, with every attempt I made to resurface for air met with an enormous clap of water. After what felt like minutes I managed to dig my feet into the fast-flowing sand and stand up. I opened my eyes to see Lee pointing behind me. All I heard was the word “Holy…” then suddenly I was rolling beneath the surface again.

Washed up on the beach and feeling crushed and cheated by the incredibly fast old man and the child surfing protégée we agreed to wade back into deeper water and try again to ride the colossal wave that had cast us off so easily. But the plan quickly fell apart. Wave after wave pummelled us. Lee lent his surfboard to someone else and decided to climb aboard mine while I was beneath a wave. As I stood up to search for my board - still tethered to my ankle - I was suddenly tugged under the water again as Lee paddled across the rip. Despite my frequent and gargled hollers he paddled on with the determination of a madman.

Once again we found ourselves washed up side-by-side on the beach. Back in the water and my final failed attempt to ride the colossus ended in me popping my hip after one wave tossed me off the board before another opposing wave threw me back onto it at an awkward angle. Lee’s final attempt led him to gracelessly slide off his board with a high-pitched shriek, but because he wouldn’t let go he slipped underneath the surfboard and hung there like an aquatic sloth, swallowing at least a litre of salt water in the process. Feeling tired and deflated we admitted temporary defeat and decided instead to take turns photographing each other riding smaller waves further along the beach. Now 6-hours later Lee is still coughing and snorting up salt and I need a heater to keep my hip warm.

The photo album demonstrating our “water skills” will be on the site soon.

Big Saturday

On Saturday morning we went to Manly beach for our first surfing lesson. It was a gorgeous sunny day and this time an ambulance didn’t roll up as soon as we got to the seafront. We squeezed into our flattering wetsuits and walked along the beach with three other slightly more experienced friends of ours. Struggling to carry our 10-foot boards we walked as men, men with something to prove, but no real idea what. After a top-gun high-five moment and a quick tutorial in which Lee proved he can’t actually crouch with his feet flat on the ground - a major problem if you’re planning to stand up on a surfboard - we entered the water.

We didn’t get hit in the head by our own surfboards. We weren’t even stung by a jellyfish or attacked by a ravenous shark. We were however, let down by our meagre upper body strength as we paddled out to a sandbar we could stand up on to catch our first wave. Standing there exhausted, spitting out salt water as wave after wave slammed into us and knocking us under the surface, we waited for a calm moment to climb aboard our surfboards. As it was our first time the instructor lined our boards up to face the beach. Then we waited for our wave to come in. Feeling the fear we glanced over our shoulders to spot a four-footer heading straight for us. I know that doesn’t sound impressive, but from our point of view we’d found ourselves in a scene from the perfect storm. Clinging to our boards we had a few seconds to look at each other, powerless. As we peered up at the wave curling over us, an unforgiving monster that dragged us into it, I had time to utter the word righteous... then we heard the instructor call out to us to paddle as fast as we could, eyes fixed on the beach ahead we paddled with the combined strength of a small child. Lee pulled himself up, ready to jump to his feet. As he stood up he instantly knew something was very wrong. He looked over at me and I could see the terror in his eyes, he knew he was doomed, a dead man riding a wave that was about to leave him disgraced and flat on his back on the sand we’d spent 10 long minutes paddling from. Lee disappeared under the water, his surfboard marking his point of departure.

With my remaining strength waning I pulled myself up. With my profound ability to crouch with my feet flat (an ability shared by most human beings apart from Lee) I stood up. There I was, actually standing up and riding this thing, no doubt with a look of unbelievable concentration grazed across my face. But one ill-advised second later I decided to turn the surfboard and ride across the wave. The next second I was under the water and being rushed out towards the shore.

Over the next hour we both managed to more-or-less stand up and surf. Dignity intact we left the beach ready to return for more next weekend. Photos to be added soon!

The First Week

We made it! We haven’t died, although we did pray for death a few times during the mammoth 30-hour journey. We spent the first 8’000 km sitting next to an angry drunk American woman who Lee made the mistake of starting a conversation with. We tried to sleep for the next 10’000 km over the Pacific Ocean but ended up catching up on every movie we hadn’t seen in the last 6-months whilst harassing the flight attendants for tea. Because we had rolled our watches back in L.A. and stayed ahead of sunrise as we flew over the Pacific, when we crossed the international dateline we jumped from the 10th to the 12th June. We may have experienced the 12th and 13th of June, but we spent those days dealing with so much jet lag and the uncomfortable situation of sharing a small inflatable mattress that it wasn’t until the weekend that we did anything.

At 7.30am on Saturday we headed out to Bondi beach to catch some early morning waves. Since we’re not exactly what you’d call experienced surfers, we were only trusted by the people we went with to use body boards (really small pretend surf boards for lying face down on, also known to local surfer-types as ‘speed bumps’). Unfortunately the weather was pretty bad. As we pulled in to the beach car park we were met with the sight of enormous waves crashing into the bay and a practically deserted beach. As Lee and I got out of the car and walked closer to the beach we could almost see the panic in the eyes of the lifeguards as they planted danger signs in the sand. By the time we got to the beach an ambulance had rolled up and the morning was over. I guess they saw us coming.

After the disappointment of the morning surf we spent Saturday evening at the SCG for our first Aussie Rules football match. In case you haven’t seen Australian Rules Football, it’s a kind of weird take on Football and American Football, but with an oval playing field and no offside rule. I’d go into it more but I really didn’t understand most of the rules. It’s a brutal game – it’s the only game I know of in which a player can run up another player’s back and get away with it. The teams playing were the Saints (from Melbourne), and the Swans (the local side). Lee decided to back the Saints and I went with the Swans. In your face Lee - the Swans won the game 101 – 66. A few jubilant fans thought they saw the Dalai Lama celebrating afterwards, but it was actually just your run-of-the-mill Tibetan monk. Still, not the kind of place you’d expect to find a Tibetan Monk.

So far we’re having a great time. The weather has been okay. As soon as we have a sunny day we’ll post some photos of Sydney. The only downside is that the tea here is not very nice, and it’s going to cost me $10 AUD to import a small box of PG tips each month.

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