Scary Moments.......

[navy_speed_shop]

when i was a kid probably about 15 or 16 i guess i was out the north side of Woonona Point on the last day of daylight savings savouring the last few rays of the summer sun.
a nice looking set came through so i spun around and took off. compeletly fooking up i got pitched over head first, i got pushed down and the board started tomb-stoning, so with me getting twisted around, my leggie wrapped around my legs keeping them perfectly bound.
So i was pooing my panties, getting dragged along by the board, panicing, thrashing around ( basically doing everything your not suppose to do ) and you know the last thing i thought about doing was undoing my leggie....

[Johnno]

My first near death experience was when I was around 10 year old back in 60's when I was living at Cronulla. out in front of where Elouera Surf Club is now.

Had a friend use to leave his board at my place during the week, he would use it on week-ends and I would use it every other day of the week, and it was a pig of a board ( a home made single fin), around the time when everyone went from mals to short boards. Had to much weight in the nose so you had to put all your weight at the back of the board to stop it from nose diving when taking off.

This one week day morning just before sunrise I've headed down to the beach with the pig, it was overcast and raining with a light S blowing with no other foot prints in the sand but mine.

Now up at Elouera there was a rip running out so much so that it was causing a constant 6-8 foot of swell to bend into a V about 150m out with these lefts and rights breaking from the peak.

Having done a lot of swimming training and surfing over the last two years I approach this with no fear, no leg rope and no brains:lol:

Dropped my towel on the sand as a marker for the peak, slapped some wax on the pig and then walked to where the shoulder closed out on the shore break and went out. As the rip was pretty quick it was quite easy to get out once through the shore break and the swell being so constant as soon as I reached the peak I was straight it to one with a hoot.

Being so pumped up I didn't put enough weight on the tail of the pig and nosed dived half way down the face, getting thrown over the falls then pounded and was held down for another two waves like in a tumble washer not knowing up or down for about a minute , then managed to made it to the surface to get a gasp of air and saw the pig had gone all the way to the beach,I then quickly looked around to see the next wave starting to dredge and drag me half way up the face to get pounded again.

As the rip was moving so much water off the beach I was stuck in the impact zone, just couldn't swim fast enough to get to the shoulder,pushed in by one wave only to get sucked out into the next wave, just getting pounded relentlessly for another 5 mins or so trying not to PANIC. as it was becoming an effort just trying to grab air between the mouth fulls of water.

No joke out of the blue a small wave starts to peak just after I have surfaced gulping for air and thinking this is it and I managed to catch it and body-surf all the way to the beach feeling so relieved to have made it to the shore.

I walked over and grabbed the pig then slowly walked back to my trowel and thew the pig on the sand, sat down on it and dried myself not taking my eyes of that peak.

Probably sat there for another 1/2 hour or so just watching it then got up and went home to get ready for school and in all that time no one had come down to the beach and that small wave I caught was the only wave to come in like that in all that time.

I know that I couldn't have lasted 1/2 an hour out there in that impact zone getting pounded.

Sort of felt stupid but proud going home after that but things haven't changed much since then as I have still managed to get caught out like that on my own since then with no one around but once you make it to the beach the adrenalin is pumping so fast it can be such a rush.

[ric_vidal]

While surfing many moons ago in Fiji with a friend we happened to meet and surf with a couple of expats, one of whom worked as a flight controller at Nandi. Travelling out to Namotu by speed boat one day we noticed he had a fairly nasty, recent looking scar on his stomach...

Apparently while surfing one day at Namotu he managed to impale himself with the nose of his board. Now if this wasn't already bad enough, at the same time his legrope had become caught around a coral head, so to extracate himself from both board and coral head he had to push his board deeper into stomach!:shock:

An instant where undoing your leggie may be easier said than done.

[barstardos]

I was crewing on a 50' cat sailing up the East Coast with a bunch of surfers. The plan was to sail across the Pacific to California and score some waves on the way. Things got seriously freaky with a crazed boat owner doing all sorts of stupid things. The captain and engineer had quit and so had I, because we all agreed sailing accross the coral sea in March was likeley to get us smashed by a cyclone.
On the way to Gladstone the owner f***ed up on the navigation (again) - and drove the boat a full speed in to the reef! After getting smashed across the reef for 4 hours we floated free on the peak of the tide - and started sinking - quickly. At that moment a rescue boat showed up with a pump and we started pumping to keep the wreck afloat while we tried to tow it back to harbour 15 miles away. I was in the cabin of the wreck clearing debris from the intake when wading across the cabin i stepped on the escape hatch in the floor and fell through in to the open ocean. It was midnight in the middle of the ocean and I was half way through an open floor-hatch in a sinking boat!!
Thankfully the amount of water flooding through the open hatch washed me back in to the cabin, we secured the hatch and got the pump going again. At this point the 50' yacht was more than 3/4 underwater with just the stern still afloat and we were still 15 miles offshore.
We kep that wreck afloat through the night and managed to get towed all the way to Gladstone against the tide. We made it back to port just after dawn and at that moment the pump quit and the boat sank under our feet in to the soft mud of the harbour!

[Agro]

Didnt know you could sail a Cat!

Good story!

[barstardos]

yep - same connection.

[Nick Carroll]

Some good stories about being scared, everyone's got 'em eh. I'm still most interested in why fear - and its aftermath - is enjoyable. This is a Bad Thing I reckon, it leads people to behave like Ross Clarke-Jones for god's sake.

And yep, BigMog, it's me. As if it weren't enough pestering the crap out of everyone in the mags every month!

[BigMog]

size of the wave isnt the fear factor for me - its the heaviness. a big wave is open fodder, but a four foot vertical slab will have me heading for the shoulder VERY quickly. simply MUST get over this fear of snapping my board...

[zzz]

I think you've summed it up pretty eloquently there maurice.

An awareness of your own mortality does tend to change our outlook on life. I think everyone after a near death experience looks upon life with a little more appreciation.

Fear is also a subjective thing though. For some of the chargers they have a confidence in their ability to handle extreme situations and so the fear factor will be lower to them than others in the same situation. So pushing ourselves against our fears is also a very personal thing. Some people also don't comprehend the inherent riskiness of a situation - I had a mate once who just didn't have a fear of heights - which led him to do things that to me didn't appear 'brave' necessarily but foolhardy - I just don't think his mind properly registered the risk involved in what he was doing.

Other people like RCJ seem to have an inner confidence in their ability to handle heavy situations. And I guess every time he goes through a heavy situation and comes out the other side ok that confidence is re-inforced.

But another thing that I wonder is how our approach to fear and risky situations is shaped by our experience and the aging process overall.

When I was younger I think that I was more fearless in many ways, but partially through ignorance. After a few wake-up calls you might start to temper your risk taking and take more calculated risks. You get wiser and are more aware of the reality of the inherent risks (and also lack of risk) in situations that you may not have been when you were younger.

But then with increasing age you become more aware of your own mortality, and possibly more accepting that it is limited anyway (i.e. as you get older you gain a stronger awareness that you're gonna die one day - if its now so be it). When you're young you tend to think of life (on a subconscious level) as a never ending thing. So you might actually become willing to take more risks and actually become a little bit more reckless again because you know there's a bit of a luck of the draw about life anyway.

[Shaggs]

on my first indo boat trip through lombok and sumbawa, we managed to pul up to desert point with some nice waves coming through. all the boys were over the side and into it. the waves began to grow and were soon into the 8 foot range. there was heaps of guys out there and no one was able to take off because the tide had begun to go out. anyone who has surfed deserts will know that when the tide goes out the whole ocean goes with it.
anyway manage to get one and tried to pull through the back only to be flipped onto the reef and slicing my leg. no problem. got to my feet and turned to see a huge set of bombs walling up and ready to slam in front of me. i got slammed and dragged all the way into the fish traps. at this stage i was freaking out and paddled to the beach, panicking about how i was going to get back to the boat.
i ran up the beach right to the end of the point and jumped in. paddling across the line up. i finally made it out and waved to the rubber ducky, and couldn't grab onto it quick enough.
we cruised around the line up watching some bombs come through and turned to see my mate all by himself on a lid through his a cop 5 or 6, 10-12 footers on the head.
not a good way to start your first indo boat trip

[Johnno]

I know for a fact that having kids has seen me go easy on the punchy close outs occasionally....daddy out for two months would make mummy frown a lot

Nothing to do with the good will but more concered for the bills.

Never stand between a woman and a sale

[Nick Carroll]

I read recently something about the Formula One drivers: they have a saying to the effect that each of your children will add a second on your lap times.

It made me laugh. Once upon a time, when Brock Little was still really into the big wave thing, he used to try to psychoanalyse his rivals. Brock's a very intelligent bloke; so is RCJ, by the way, the fucker's IQ is waaay above average. Anyway, Brock heard about Ross and his then wife Cassia having their first child, and he grinned. "Let's see if he starts pulling back now," he said. "That's got to take the edge off."

Maybe with most people it would. I know it has with me; anything over 10 feet and if I'm not 80% sure of making it I'll pull back quite happily. I want to see my kids as adults if at all possible. But with RCJ -- and my little brother too -- they just seem to go wall-eyed and blank everything else out. It's like part of 'em hasn't grown up yet. Part of 'em's still back there in the early-manhood jungle, wanting to rip something's gizzards out and hang 'em round their necks.

[bro]

I would love to have some of what TC and RCJ have. I think we all fear fear far too much which limits our experiences in life. I don't mean crazy stuff but things we know we could do or handle yet we walk away from it I know there are plenty of times I wish I hadn't!