Surfing The Seventh Wave

Surfing The Seventh Wave

Many years ago, by pure chance, I fell upon ocean kayaking or fell on a kayak abandoned on the beach, to be more precise. Looking for something to destress myself after having to deal with a very complicated personal problem. Where were Mood Gummies when I needed them? I decided to give the kayaking activity a go.

It turned out that the kayak belonged to a sailing school that hired the small craft out for just three euros an hour. That was something of a bargain I can tell you.

At the start, handling a nifty kayak was rather difficult. Get caught side-on by a wave, and you’d be drinking water in a split second. I lost count of how many times I almost drowned myself with that little manoeuvre. However, I soon learned to steer the craft with my backside and a paddle to keep the craft head-on into the incoming waves and perseverance paid off.

It was the summer and I had all day, every day to practice my moves. The big idea was to paddle out over the breakers and then spin it around and catch a wave, or series of waves, to surf back to the beach.

To get out beyond the breakers you have to either wait until the big wave broke, then paddle like hell to get past the breaking point before another wave could form, or simply attack the incoming wave as fast as you could and crest it before it broke. Get it wrong on the break and you will be hit by a wall of water that will completely take your breath away and quite possibly knock you clean off the kyack down to the sea floor.

Get it only more or less right, and that too could hurt you. Go to the top of the wave and as the kyack passes the high point it will drop heavily down on the other side. The kayak being heavier than your outstretched legs will hit the water first and your legs, briefly in the air, will follow and painfully crash down on the plastic moulded craft, sending searing pain right up your legs to your hips. It is all about timing.

Once safely on the other side, you can spin the kayak around and wait for whichever wave forming in the distance you think will carry you forward. Usually, it’s the seventh wave that will carry you the best.

Once you have seen the wave you want to ride, you start to paddle to get a little speed up. As the wave approaches, you have to moderate your speed making sure to stay just in front of the wave. Again, it’s all about timing.

If you let the wave get under you, it will potentially leave you behind. One time the big wave broke right under me and I dropped like a rock, like I was on a turbocharged elevator. With a little luck, the wave will break just behind you and as the water tilts the rear end up, you have to lean back to avoid being tumbled head over heels into the water ahead of you. In a matter of two seconds max, the kayak will find its own angle to allow you to ride to the beach. If the wave peters out before you hit the beach, you can find yourself catching the wave behind, and the one behind that….

During that exhilarating ride, you have to hold the paddle out of the water horizontally at chest height, ready to dip back in the water, left or right, to steer the course you want to take.

By the end of the Summer, I became so good at kayak surfing that the sailing school asked me to teach newcomers to the sport. That meant that all of my surfing was free.

I must add, that at the time this all happened, I was well over fifty years old. As long as you can swim, regardless of age, you can surf.