Chapter Six: Surf’s Up, Stu Boy
“Boat travel may sound romantic but, take my advice, a better bet is to let the plane take the strain.”
• • •
“There’s nothing like it, man.”
“I’m sure.”
“The high, you know.”
“I’m quite sure you’re right.”
“You should try it, man.”
“Well, perhaps one day.”
“This is the place for it.”
“Really?”
“You’ll be hooked. I know.”
Stuart was becoming a little bored by his fellow shipmate’s enthusiastic conversation and decided a pertinent question was the best way to extract himself from his new friend’s company, “So was that how you did your foot in?”
The two men looked down at the aforementioned appendage, which was heavily bandaged, strapped around with a spider’s web of thin, white gauze, which stood out on the otherwise brown, evenly tanned leg. On an older man one would have surmised that it was evidence of gout, on the youthful, long-haired American it could only be as the result of some kind of accident.
“Yer. ‘fraid so.” He went on to explain, “Caught a dumper off Taota Pass. Moorea, you know. Took me down. Got swept along the reef for fifty yards. Bloody coral ripped my leg to shreds.” He bent down and eased back one of the bandages, revealing a tracery of angry-looking, raised red weals. “Got pretty infected,” he added, proudly. “You should have seen it a week ago. Swollen up twice this size.”
“Really?”
“Worth it though. The high, man. I can’t begin to explain the high.”
You’ll give it a damn good try though. Stuart wasn’t so sure that the greatest part of surfing wasn’t the talk. Perhaps it is the same with all sports. The après-ski. The fisherman’s tales of the one that got away. The big build-up. The anticipation of the danger to come. The relief when it is over. Perhaps all life experience is only something that can be enjoyed in hindsight, preferably from the comfort of a favourite armchair, and in slow-motion with action replays. Travel itself, is a similar phenomenon: days, weeks, or preferably even months of misery, endurance and suffering, just so that the conversation can sparkle at dinner parties when you safely return to the comforts of home. The longer the suffering, the better the stories.
“Went to Chile last year.”
“What? To Santiago?”
“Santiago? No, man. To Vina. To catch the surf. Great waves there. Not many people in the States go down there. But, hey, you can get bored with California and Hawaii, can’t you?. Went to Australia the year before. That was the best. Perfect waves, every day. And I mean perfect, you know. Where you from?”
“England.”
“England?” It wasn’t registering. “They don’t surf there?”
“A little in Cornwall, I believe,” offered Stuart, hesitantly.
“No, don’t know it, man. Do you know what would be the big one for me? Mauritania. Cool waves there. Cool place too, so I’ve heard. That’s where I really want to go. Picture it, surfing on the edge of the desert. How cool is that?”
“So what is it about surfing that’s so great?” Stuart couldn’t stop himself. He heard himself saying the words, he knew the terrible implications of such a question, but he was somehow powerless to prevent himself from speaking them aloud. He was gripped by a greater force that was out of his own control. It was like opening the floodgates as a tidal wave was approaching.
“Man, where do I start. Imagine yourself ...” The young American stretched out one arm, drawing it like an imaginary line across the horizon, at the same time his eyes half-closing as if in an ecstatic reverie of remembrance, “... the sun is high in the sky, beating, hot. Perfect blue sky. You know, not a cloud. Waves.” He paused, reliving the experience, “Amazing. Amazing. Six feet, no probably eight feet high, quarter of a mile out and breaking. Amazing. Do you know how you catch a wave?”
“No,” Stuart admitted.
“OK. Picture this. You have had several pass you by. Swells, but nothing great. And then you see it coming. It’s bigger than the average one. Not the seventh wave, or any of that crap, but, you know, you get that feeling, OK, this is the one. A big wave. It builds up. You see it rise, way out, man. You’ve got to see it, way out. And you start paddling. You start paddling like mad. Faster than you think you possibly can. You know, the pro surfers, the guys that really count, they get boats to drag them out to catch the waves. I mean we’re talking really big waves. Serious stuff. Twenty footers more. Sixty even. You know? You can’t catch a wave like that without a bit of help. You ever seen a wave that big?”
“No.”
“You don’t want to. Scary stuff. OK, so you’re paddling. Lying on your board, your arms going like your life depends upon it. Hell, it does. Let me tell you, it does. And suddenly you feel it. It catches. You’re no longer paddling, and yet you’re still moving forward, lifted up into the air, man, it’s like you’re flying. You’re surrounded by this great wall of spray and surf and I don’t know, you know, it’s like you’re actually inside the wave, part of it, it’s hard to explain, surging along, powerless, except somehow in control. You catch yourself, just for a moment, on top of the wave, above the sea, I mean, above the ocean, we’re talking above the whole fucking ocean, do you know how that feels?”
“No.”
“It’s amazing. Fucking amazing. Right? Do you know how the wave works?”
“No.”
“OK. So you’ve got this wave. Now if you’re not actually on it, it looks like it’s the water that’s moving forward, you know, the whole ocean coming in to shore, but you’d be wrong. The water doesn’t move, it just goes up and down in the exact same spot, it’s the wave that moves. So you’ve got this wave, travelling ten, fifteen miles an hour, leaving old water behind it, taking in new water as it travels along, and you’ve got to catch that new water, keep on sliding down all that new water. It’s like the longest slope you’ve ever been on in your life, quarter of a mile, further, just keep on sloping down. You with me?”
“Yes.”
“Until ... You know what happens next?”
“No.”
“You reach a point where there’s no new water. The wave is pretty close to shore and the sea’s pretty shallow now and instead of carrying on, carrying on, carrying on,” the American rolled his hands over each other in a tumbling motion by way of demonstration, “the wave hits rock bottom.” He clapped his hands together. “Literally. That’s when it starts to break. Exciting though. You catch one of those big ones, just as its head’s about to come tumbling down on you. Several thousand tons of water, just wanting to come crashing down on little old you. There’s the buzz, man.”
Stuart was beginning to find himself mildly interested despite himself, and couldn’t help but ask a question. “So what sort of board is this?” Bad move.
The American unzipped the protective bag which housed his pride and joy and tapped the slender length of fibreglass, affectionately. “This little beauty is a seven foot six, single layer, with glassed on fin. Two inch thick. Oval end. I trimmed this bit myself. Regular glass, six ounce ...”
“Yellow,” Stuart chipped in, trying to sound knowledgeable.
“Yer, yellow with ...” He spun the board around a half-turn on its point, “... black Ying-Yang logo. Cool, hey? Of course, it’s not the long board I would use if I was going to Waikiki, but ...”
It was Stefan that finally saved him. Stuart spotted the gangly German, balancing a plate of food, while at the same time picking his way between the bodies of the few passengers that had steadfastly managed to sleep on, this despite the bright light of the early morning sunshine which now flooded the interior quarters of the boat. “Stefan. Hi!” Stuart broke into the surfer boy’s torrent of words, which appeared to flow from him as easily as the great waves to which he
alluded, and which threatened to submerge Stuart with their loquacity. He lay a hand on the American’s arm, “Sorry, must just catch my friend, excuse me.”
His new buddy still had the final word, “If you’re going to Bora Bora, the lads often hang out at Bloody Mary’s in the evenings. You can’t miss the place. Ask for Greg, OK? We can talk some more waves. Stu, wasn’t it?”
“Stuart.”
“With a ‘u’ ‘a’, I remember. Catch you later.” He slapped Stuart on the back with a matey hand that almost sent the smaller man sprawling, “Surf’s up, Stu boy.”
Stefan. In conversational terms, it was definitely a case of frying pans and fires, but to bring in another overused cliché, better the devil you know.
“Not far now.”
“I est-i-mate thir-ty five kil-o-metres.”
“We should be there in a couple of hours then.” Stuart looked at his watch. “On time. Amazing. Where did you get the food?”
Stefan indicated a small serving hatch next to the door to the deck, which Stuart had not previously noticed. “Ex-pen-sive,” said Stefan, more indistinctly than normal, through a mouthful of steak sandwich.
“I can wait,” said Stuart, his concern not so much with the state of his stomach, which was feeling empty in the extreme, more with the state of the boat’s solitary toilet, which, when he had had the misfortune to need to visit it during the night, had been looking anything but empty. A further six hours on and Stuart didn’t want to think what state that room was going to be in.
“Have you see Ced-ric and Y-vette?”
“No. Not since boarding. Where are they?”
Stefan pointed towards the bunks.
“They travelled first class?” asked Stuart, surprised.
Stefan shrugged, “They have ... What is the word?”
“Money?”
“No.” Stefan shook his head.
“Ticket?”
“No.”
“Luck?” suggested Stuart.
“Charm.”