Around The World In 80 Waves

For much of my time during the evenings here in Hikkaduwa I have been hanging out with Pitcher, Duncan and Jack who you see here. Separately they have travelled from Zambia, Malaysia and Dubai to see their old surfing buddies, catch a few waves in the sun and enjoy a few of the local beers.

It is time for them to head home so I was keen to have a surf with the guys, because up until this point it hasn’t happened due to mismatched hangovers.

After my two previous days spent surfing my socks off near Weligama I was shattered and knew I was only likely to get in the water for a sunset session on this day, if at all

However the heat of the day caught up with me, which resulted in an unexpected afternoon nap. Sadly this meant that I only got in at the break in front of Mambos Place just as they were getting out. 

I had to surf anyway once I was in the water and quickly caught two great rides. I got the picture of me charging along the wall that you see above, but a bit like the surfer in this shot I got greedy and tried to surf it too far in towards the shore.

Practically stepping off my board onto the dry sand, caused my board to crash into the beach immediately smashing my camera off its mount on the board. Thankfully the camera’s housing was undamaged and the float attached to it brought it to the surface and I quickly retrieved it. A small connecting part was broken but I have brought several spares with me for just such an eventuality, so it wasn’t a big deal.

The guys looked after my camera whilst I caught one more quick wave under the setting sun before getting out and freshening up. I hadn’t wanted to stay in too long anyway because Saturday night is Mambo’s Beach Party night and just like last week it was banging tunes until 6am.

I enjoyed more of the local Arrack spirit than I probably needed to before throwing in the towel at 4am, with the music still thumping immediately below my bedroom. (Arrak or Arak is fermented from the sap of unopened flowers of a coconut palm and then is distilled to produce the spirit.)

A night of excess was followed by a day of not a great deal, as demonstrated by one of the leopards that live here in Sri Lanka.

Nothing in fact apart from being invited by the Austrian girl staying in the room next door to join her for breakfast, fixing the huge hole in the deck of my board caused during the camera smashing incident, saying goodbye to the guys, and then at the end of the day failing to collect the tuk-tuk that I was supposed to have hired for myself to drive to beaches tomorrow. (It wouldn’t start so I am getting the reliable local guy to drive me instead.)

Working life may be a shock to the system after such punishing schedules for a year!