Hello Paul, hope you’re doing fine.
Remember
the last Fatty I ordered the day I was a dumbass and left my 10 yr old
Fatty at the beach (could have been older than 10 yrs)? This was July of
last year… I have been working a lot and being irresponsible with
myself, mostly bodyboarding or longboarding a few times a month, not
acceptable due to the fact that I live in a Caribbean island with super
consistent surf. Long story short I hadn’t used the new mat until last
night, here’s the story…
So
I was showing a property on the South of the island to a client from
California to whom I sold a beach property in 2017 and has become a good
friend. Met with him at a very popular break that usually breaks during
the Summer but was somehow chest high and peeling, this is a left hand
point reef with a friendly barrel that is probably one of the most
perfect waves in the island. It’s also super shallow past a point where
it’s unsurfable although it fools you that it is because the wave starts
peeling perfectly over inches of water until it gets to the proper take
off spot and keeps on peeling. Take off any deeper than that and you’re
in for some fire coral treat…
The
wave was a bit crowded to my liking so I decided to go show my friend
the property and come back at last light to surf it alone at night, I
have done this before many times. Well I paddle out alone, buddy didn’t
want to surf, and when I get to the wave it goes flat on a lull but I
could see a perfect wave (at least the white water and pitch black wall)
breaking deeper and further out than I was sitting at. That was my
mistake and I am sure you’re already imagining what happened… I took off
on the deepest wave of the day (well it was at night)… probably the
deepest wave anyone has ever taken off at this spot… I drop down, set my
line and proceed to ride the pocket for about 5-6 seconds… all of the
sudden I see a bump in my left peripheral vision, I thought it was my
buddy who finally decided to join me duckdiving (did I mention I use
glasses while on land, nearsighted)… it was not him, I realized this as a
barrel section sucked and it seemed I wasn’t going to make it because I
was super deep so I decided to go around, and boy was I deep… all of
the sudden I start seeing more of my buddy duck diving right and left of
me, but it wasn’t him and his clones, it was coral heads LOL! That’s
when I thought, shit, here we go...
All
of the sudden I feel a coral hit my mat exactly bellow where my nuts
are positioned, needless to say my new mat ripped and started to quickly
deflate but it saved my balls LOL! I started to do the shallow water
fingertip paddle in inches of water and went over probably a dozen of
coral heads before getting to deeper water. I only grazed the coral with
the left side of my right knee and my left thigh, no cuts but very
itchy. Tried blowing some air into the mat, caught a good wave to shore
with the little air that was left and called it a day (night).
When
I got to shore my mat was water logged and had a 5” gash on the bottom
exactly at the spot where your nuts go when in trim. I changed to my dry
clothes had a Medalla beer and drove home to my family with a psychotic
smile on my face.
Again hope you’re doing fine and I am always a fan of your blog.
Antonio
2 comments:
Family jewels are intact : )
Glad you are intact! Hope to visit PR and connect again. Currently in Costa Rica with another Mat rider and a Paipo rider. Having a lot of fun even through the conditions are a bit weaker this year due to La Nina etc. Had some good Pargo caught just off shore for dinner last night. All is good.
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