A Public Holiday Surf Story

I am not going to beef this encounter up. All that you read is the truth or a very close approximation there of.

I remain unflattered by the sight of other people's blood, especially when it is not in their body. For some reason blood splattered on tarmac holds a special place of revulsion in my secret psyche.

When the fist connected with his nose, a crunch and a splat joined the arc of blood that hit the concrete. This is the sort of damage one can inflict with a single punch only when the receptor has zero inkling of the soon-to-be inevitable contact. That's right. The sucker punch. A sad, modern inevitability of surfing a crowded, well known spot.

Being merely a spectator to this event I carried on walking and 'minding my own business', as only an Englishman can. I did however, for the reasons of future self preservation, take a 'mental snapshot' of the individuals involved. I made a further pledge to myself that I would give either persona a wide berth in the future.

Fast forward to today and I find it strange, then, that I now find myself staring that attacker in the face. His, a look of more than mild distaste.

How had I got myself into the exact situation I intended to avoid? While ultimately I was aware of ignoring the 'inner voice' that tells you that, "Hey maaaan, this is NOT a good idea!" I do also suppose that more than partial blame rests with a wave starved Dutchman, and his powers of persuasion. Having changed names to protect the guilty we will refer to him, the villain in my narrative, as 'Kimmy'.

Kimmy and his beautiful family (who are not at all to blame) had been visiting our humble abode in Portugal for a couple of days now. The surf trip, having been dressed up as a family holiday, so far had shown meagre signs of decent swell. A high pressure system was sitting just out in the Atlantic and blocking the juicy lows from delivering their plunder. Kimmy's flight back to the Netherlands was drawing inevitably closer, his desperation was palpable.

It was Good Friday (a public holiday) , a day that I would normally avoid going anywhere near waves or sand. I would definitely avoid frequenting the most famous right hand point break in Portugal on a normal weekend, let alone a public holiday of this magnitude. This, however turned out to be no ordinary Good Friday as Kimmy was here with his powers of temptation and persuasion. As you will know, when you ride the highs and lows of a wave addict, we are no different to any other junkie. It did not take much of the aforementioned persuasion. My morals crumbled and I found myself in the car making the 45 min drive to supposed head high perfect right-handers.

In our addict fueled froth we decided on a new, quicker way to make the drive, taking an inland route and avoiding all the dawdling holiday makers. As the car park came into sight the reality of our decision dawned on me. No spaces, people everywhere and the sound of one hundred surfboards being waxed up to take MY waves. Instead of becoming disheartened I became feverish, I needed to get in the water NOW.

We scrambled into our wetsuits, all the time the light off-shore and sound of perfect, groomed waves were taunting, goading us. It was at the point when the ocean came into view that Kimmy delivered a sentence that sobered me up. My red mist of addiction faltered for a moment, enough to let reality seep in. The water was crowded, I mean very crowded, enough that you could walk 'out the back' on people's heads. The waves where up to par, but there seemed to be a lot of involuntary sharing going on.

Kimmy's sobering comment of "I am going home tomorrow, so I am just going to drop in if I like the look of the wave" sent me back to a time of blood on tarmac where I began this narrative.

What could go wrong?

As with all line ups, especially crowded ones, there is a hierarchy that needs to be worked out upon paddling out. You are normally judged on the first wave you take, maybe the second at a push. If you kook it on your first wave, you have to earn your place the hard way by taking the left over waves and gradually working your way back to redemption. This is the way the game is played, I accept it without question. There is, however, another type of line up, the one where locals who may or may not be locals take the waves they want. The sort of line up that may perhaps only happen on a public holiday. A line up full of people all thinking just as Kimmy had. In short, a nightmare.

The only thing that could have possibly made this worse was just about to happen. It did so in two parts.

Part One - A man who I realised that I recognised as the aggressor from the short blood/fist/car park segment at the commencement for this article, had taken off on the set wave of the day. Kimmy had seen the set wave too, and he scratched into it and stood up, collapsing the section and sending 'Mr Fist' spinning. Kimmy, keeping true to his earlier words rode the wave to the inside and milked it dry seemingly unaware of the demise of 'Mr Fist'. I was only able to watch on with mouth open, my brain already calculating another, altogether different 'car park scenario'

Part Two - I had already mentally decided to cut Kimmy loose on this session as I had a life that I wanted to live after this surf. It was then with dismay I realised with tedious inevitability what would happen next. Kimmy was paddling directly towards me followed by a bellowing and furious looking 'Mr Fist'. As much as I silently prayed for Kimmy to head out and drop anchor for the set waves, he stopped and sat right beside me and started to exclaim that some guy was shouting at him. That was it. Now I was was a marked man too and I had not done a thing.

As it turns out 'Mr Fist' had quite a few friends both larger and angrier looking than himself, and they made it their mission to make sure that I got zero waves from that point onward. There was no violence in the water, as long as you don't count being run over whenever possible, being poked off my board with the point of another board and being gently ushered into some rocks. There was, however, always the threat of violence that was being saved for when we exited. This was the worse surf I have ever had without a doubt.

I finally managed to surprise my suppressors with a little 1ft insider and bellied it in, grabbed my towel and family and legged it to the car. In the car park I set about making a new world record for the fastest wetsuit change and screeched off in search of anonymity.

It is only fitting then that on the gentle drive back along the coast road (the one I normally take) we came across a beach with two perfect A frames. There were 8 cars in the car park and maybe 5 surfers sharing these groomed, barrelling little head high nuggets. Paradise.

No I didn't stop, I didn't surf there. Maybe it was my unbelieving in what I had done, how I had agreed to what I knew was a bad idea. It was my fault and I was going to make myself pay.

The lesson here that I wish to learn from is to know myself better. To recognise my addiction and how easily I am to be tempted with the perfect illusion of flawless waves. To be wary of wave starved Dutchmen and never ever go anywhere near that beach on bank holidays.